How do you eat an elephant?

I, like I suspect pretty much every adult who works with children, have a stock of phrases or saying I pull out at all applicable occasions. Some of them were handed down from my parents, who learned them from their parents, and back in a chain probably to the dawn of parenting. Some of them are things I’ve picked up over the last few years, and some of them like one of my current favorites, “Head. Use.” is the product of my own crazy teacher mind. Another thing I’ve said a lot to my students over the last year or so, “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer is of course, “One bite at a time,” meaning that big tasks are possible if you tackled them bit by bit. Well, this year I’ve got more than one elephant sized challenge in my classroom, and I’ve had to remind myself about this truth many times over the last few days.

This year I have two students repeating grade 6; one is taking it well, and one isn’t. I have at least three if not four students with significant learning challenges. One of my students is very intelligent, but his brain is wired in a way that makes being a student and a part of a classroom community very difficult. One of my students who can least afford it missed the whole first week of school. One of my students is convinced she is the center of the universe, and my primary job is to attend on her highness. Two of my 7th graders are only in 7th grade provisionally, and they had a pretty unimpressive first week of school. So yeah, I have more than one elephant sitting at my table.

But this I know. God has asked me to be here for this last year for a purpose, and as much as I don’t feel like I have the energy to tackled this many elephants at once on top of trying to wrap up my time here well, this is not an accident. While I can’t ‘fix’ all these kids in 9 months, I can make a difference. I can teach them to be more responsible, better students, and help them to grow. So, while I almost had to breath into a paper bag a few times last week as the enormity of what I have taken on would suddenly become apparent, I’m going to do the best I can do…which is all God asks of me. Okay elephants—one bite at a time!

Quick health update: The brace is helping, but these last two weeks of prepping for and starting school have been hard on my tendonitis. And, the shoes I was wearing so I could have the arch support insoles, irritated my big toe, so it got infected. I’m trying to get that cleared up again since I have a history of bad infections in that toe, but it’s going to be hard to balance having arch support and letting that toe heal. I’m thankful that I was off this weekend and so could attend to my foot problems a little more intentionally than I would if I was on duty. So, please continue to pray that my tendonitis will heal, and that I’ll be able to make do with the shoes I have out here.

The bathroom renovation project continues--can't wait to have working bathrooms at Upper School again!

Students hard at work.