Confessions of a Third grade teacher

The first day of school is quite an exciting time of the year. It's full of energy, life, fears and goals. Today was the first time I have had a first day of school as a teacher in my own classroom. Yesterday, I was supposed to write a professional development plan for myself, in which I create a goal for myself and write out how I am going to accomplish this goal. However, as I prepared to start school and worked on this at the same time, I panicked. I started thinking about all the things I did not do well last year and how much work I still had to get done before school started. Oh, what Satan can do when he pulls your mind towards all the negative things of life! Pretty soon I was in tears while I skyped with my parents, believing I was a horrible teacher and doubting if I should keep teaching. Thankfully, God is a big God and as soon as I got off skype, I was encouraged by my roommates singing worship songs.

When I got to school, I was still very nervous. Then, when I went to pick up my students to bring them up to my classroom, I started to relax a little as I greeted students. As the day went on, not only did I become more comfortable, but so did the students. They began to become fairly chatty... something we are going to have to crack down on this week. I am very excited for the energy this class has and look forward to a full year of seeing God work in awesome ways.

Our theme this year is “build up” and is focused on 1 Thessalonians 2:8, which says “so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.” I am very excited to see how students learn to build each other up and how God works in their lives this year. Please pray for the students in my class as I believe many of them have a very low self-esteem. Pray that I might speak God’s words of love into their hearts that they might grow to know how precious they are in His sight. Also, please pray for protection over the devil’s schemes to tear us down- both in my life and the lives of my students.

God sightings today... 

... receiving a teacher's survival kit  (http://familycrafts.about.com/od/giftsforteacher/ss/Teachers_Survival_Kit.htm) 

...seeing a student erase what he had done and work more carefully when I told another student that it didn't matter if he couldn't draw well as long as he did his best.  

...receiving a Starbucks frappucino in the middle of my teaching day.

...listening to students talk about how they saw each other doing good things throughout the day. It is amazing what students observe and how great they are at encouraging each other when we give them time to do so. 

…on my way home from school, having a teacher (who is also a parent of a student in my class) stop and encourage me.