A great day!

A blurb from some time in my first year of teaching:

Today was a great day! Had Restorative Circles with my 1st and 3rd period classes and talked about childhood favorite television shows and childhood dream jobs! These were great questions! They got really excited and into it! Praise the Lord for providing me with these topic ideas relatively spur-of-the-moment! It's been God's grace with these circles, and with my relationships with all my students in general, seriously. Then after school I got to play a scrimmage volleyball game against our girls' team since the team they were supposed to play a game against today couldn't make it anymore! The principal and I pwned them! Hehe! He is pretty good -- I need to find out how he started playing. He has good hands, got some hits, got one super sick block, and was generally commanding our court/captaining our team -- he is the principal after all! I got set up for a few good hits and got a few good serves off too. (I missed a lot of serves too though. :( Can't win'em all... yet!) I love beating my students! =]

Even though things started out rough this week with general rowdiness, things getting thrown around the classroom, and intense workout sessions with students, I think I'm slowly building those relationships and that rapport with students that smooths out rough spots. I still have a long way to go, but I feel like things are starting maybe to look up (or maybe I shouldn't speak so soon...). I was so thankful and encouraged that, of all the things my academic dean could have pounded me about in our meeting on Tuesday, he said his biggest takeaway from observing my classroom was that relationships with students were much better than two weeks ago -- students were more comfortable talking to me, asking questions, being themselves around me. Wow, I was relieved to hear that! Praise the Lord that every good and perfect gift comes from Him!

fairly convinced

I am fairly convinced that I was hired for my current job more or less as a last resort. I was hired not because I was an amazing candidate who had an amazing interview and/or an amazing demo lesson, but simply because there was no one else who could fill the spot. But it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, I am where I am by the will of a Sovereign God, and so I'm going to do my best there, not to prove anything to anybody, but simply out of gratitude to the One who blessed me with a job to pay the bills.