Prayer of a Teacher

Today is an anxious day in the life of a teacher.

The room is set up, copies are made, planning has been done.

Tomorrow is zero hour.

Tomorrow, the kids come.

Many teachers I know spend this day wandering around in a kind of trance, hoping the year they are about to embark on is a good one. Good students who come to class bright eyed, bushy tailed, and eager to learn. Excellent parents who share your educational philosophy to the letter, who show up, ON TIME, to every conference and dance through the halls, singing your praises so loud the principal cannot help but join in the joyous refrain. Test scores so high Oprah herself will take notice and have you as a guest on her show to share your wisdom with the masses. And who wouldn't want a few days worth of heavy snow sprinkled in just for fun.

These lofty aspirations aside, we all hope for a good, positive year.

In fact teachers so fervently hope for a successful year that they engage in many activities the day before the year begins to give themselves a leg up, an edge to push them past everyone else.

These have been theorized by some, guessed at by others, and were even predicted by the great prophet Nostradamus.

They have never been revealed outside of the hallowed halls of academia.

Until now.

So...what can you as a teacher do the night before school starts to ensure a smooth, successful year?

- Make sure your years supply of Prozac is filled.

- Spend the day watching Freedom Writers, Mr. Holland's Opus, Dangerous Minds, Akelah and the Bee, Lean on Me, Dead Poets Society, or any other completely true to life Hollywood film made about teachers that will make you feel that your year will turn out EXACTLY like them. After you have had a good laugh at this suggestion, move on.

- Obsessively plan out your entire year. Then plan a back up year. Then plan a back up for your back up. Ensure that all back up plans are completely structurally supported by the state standards. Email copies to your principal, the PTA president, and the Head of the Board.

- Sacrifice 50 spotless bulls and 20 virgins to the god Odin that he may bless your endeavors with strength and victory. (This one is very difficult to pull off due to the fact that it is easier to find 50 bulls than it is to find 20 virgins these days. I blame Baywatch.)

- Consume as much alcohol as is humanly possible so that, no matter how devastatingly hung over you are for the start of school in the morning, the year can only get better.

- Spend the entire day at the pool or beach in complete and total denial that summer is over. When a friend makes a joke that you have to go back to real work in the morning, pants them and shove them in the water.

- Lay on your living room floor, tucked into a protective, fetal ball, drooling and mumbling until your spouse kicks you and sends you up to bed.

As you see, there are many things a teacher can do to ensure a smooth and productive year.

I am, of course, kidding (except for the comment about how much easier it is to find bulls instead of virgins). It is true however that the night before a new school year begins is one filled with nervous anticipation and, hopefully, excitement.

I have a simple routine I follow, and after many years in education, it seems to work pretty well.

After spending a fun day with my family (The Wife is a teacher as well...The Peanut wants to be a teacher some day, as well as a presidential, soccer playing, policewoman firefighting violinist) I will read for a bit and then turn off the lights. Before I glide into the deep waters of sleep, I pray.

I pray for patience. I need to remember that each student is a unique individual. Like fingerprints, no two students are exactly alike. Each comes to me at a different stage of development, academically and socially. It is unreasonable to want them all to be at the same level just because it would make my life easier. I need to do the best I can for each student where they are.

I pray for energy. I know that I am the single most important influence in my classroom when it comes to setting the mood. If I am happy, upbeat, and enthusiastic I increase the odds for that energy to permeate into my students. Likewise, if I am negative, sour, or tired the same will occur. Like a hot air balloonist, I have much control over how inflated or deflated we all are.

I pray for sensitivity. Twenty-five human lives from twenty-five different backgrounds, religions, and home situations will come to me. They will look to me to understand them, to give them acceptance, validation, and support. I need to remember that just because someone did not grow up with what I had or was not raised the way I was, that does not make me superior to them. I need to accept and care for my students where they are when they come to me. I also need to be open to the things I can learn from my students on a daily basis.

I pray for compassion. Some of my families are single parent. Some of my students are being raised by their grandparents. Some are the oldest and the responsibility for raising their younger siblings falls to them because mom or dad work multiple jobs just to make ends meet. Some are going through active divorce proceedings. Some are coping with difficult custody arrangements from past divorce proceedings. Some are coping with life situations that are so terrible and confusing that I as a thirty-five year old adult would struggle to comprehend them. These children come to my door each day and are expected to learn. I must remember that some days this will be easier for them than others.

I pray for wisdom. I know I will make mistakes. It is an inevitable by-product of the human condition. I pray for the wisdom to minimize my mistakes. I also pray for the wisdom to learn from the ones I will make.

I pray for endurance. A school year is a marathon, one run no matter what the conditions are like. I need to be mindful that I must remain as strong on the last day of school as I plan to be on the first. There are parts of the year that pass with the ease of a down hill race. I pray that I do not get complacent at those times. But there are also times of a school year that pass with the gut wrenching agony of an uphill race. I pray that my energy will not fail me when I need it most.

I pray for my colleagues. Though a school may be comprised of a multitude of individual classrooms, it is a community. I need to remember that the other adults in my building will be just as nervous, just as excited, just as fallible as I will be. I pray that I can be an asset and encouragement to my fellow teachers, that I will reach out to them when they are in need. I also pray that I in turn will reach out to them when I find myself in need of assistance.

Lastly, I pray that when my students leave my room that I will have made as much of an impact on their lives as I know they will make on my own. There has not been a year that has passed by where a class has not taught me a multitude of things about myself and the way I view the world, for good or for ill. I will always be indebted to my students and their families for the things they have taught me.

These things I will pray. Then, I will sleep.

At some point in the night my clinically insane beagle will shove her cold, wet nose into the small of my back. And some time after that, as the sun begins to rise, The Peanut will pad not-so-softly into our room and hop into bed with us, snuggling in between us. I will lay there for a bit, savoring the preview of heaven that comes from having my dearest ones so close.

Then my feet will hit the floor...and another school year will begin.