I just completed my first full day of work at my new
school. This is only my second job since
graduating from college, but it is amazing how different this week has been
from my first week at Farmville Central.
My friend and mentor at FCHS, Kristy Dail, has joked that it took her
months to get to know me because I was so quiet – and it is more than
true. I was shy and reserved around my
coworkers and felt excited but terribly intimidated by the job of being the
only teacher in my own classroom. Five
years later, I have such a different approach to the new job. I know part of it is that the staff and
administration at Myers Park are super welcoming and approachable. However, I think the biggest difference
between this year and the 2007-2008 school year is that I feel confident. I feel like I know what I’m doing for the
most part. I might not understand all
the school procedures, but my time at Farmville and the wonderful guidance I received
from coworkers there has built me into a real teacher. I will be forever grateful to the people who
impacted me at FCHS and helped me become a person who can feel comfortable in a
school the size of a mini community college with 3000 students! As I reflect on the differences between my
first year at Farmville and this first year at Myers Park, though, I can’t help
but notice one glaring commonality between the two experiences, and it is that
I want to make friends and connections.
When I started working at FCHS, I was quiet and reserved
because I wanted people to like me. As
is clear from some of my previous blogs, I am a big fan of keeping the
peace. I was raised to be polite and
accommodating. I don’t talk about
politics or hot button issues; I don’t tell jokes that could be offensive; I
admit I struggle with the sin of gossip, but in a new setting, I don’t say
anything bad about anyone because I have no idea who is friends with whom, and I
have no interest in alienating my coworkers.
This year, though much less quiet and reserved, I am still very focused
on being someone people like and want to help.
I don’t know who is who at school – I don’t know who could be one of my
biggest allies and who could be a complete thorn in the side, so I try hard to
be friendly and nice to everyone.
And, anyone who has ever worked in a school can tell you
that there are some people that you should go absolutely out of your way to
treat nicely. For any future teacher
readers, those people are the custodians, the librarian, and the office staff. These are people in the school who, unfortunately,
often don’t get the respect they deserve.
Their job is so valuable, and they can be such a great help to teachers,
but they are often grossly unappreciated.
If they like you, they can make your life soooo much easier at school,
and if they don’t, you might find yourself struggling to accomplish tasks or
get resources because you’ve alienated the one person who could help you. So, even though I work hard to keep the peace
and be kind to everyone, I make a special effort with these people because I’m
aware of how much they can help me.
This week, however, I found myself in two conversations with
people at school where I had to remind myself of my goal to be kind. In the first conversation, I found myself
getting frustrated at the response I was getting to a request I had made. The process that was described for having the
request met seemed ridiculous to me, and I wanted to say (with a bit of an
edge), “You mean this is the process
for getting a pack of pens?” Instead, I took
a deep breath, put on a big smile, and said, “Thank you so much! I’ll be glad to do it that way.” On the way back to my room, I reminded myself
to keep “grinning and bearing it” because this person was one I knew I’d need
on my side.
The next day, I became engaged in another conversation with
a person I had gone to for help on another topic. This person was very helpful, but it was a
busy day, and when she continued in friendly conversation long after my
question was answered, I found myself growing impatient and ready to leave. After about ten minutes of shifting feet and
trying hard to be polite because I knew I’d need her help on other occasions, I
felt the Lord say to me, “Shannon, people are important. This is
important.” Wow. The whole time I’d been speaking with her,
all I could think about were all the “important” things I had waiting for me in
the classroom. Instead, the Lord
refocused me and told me that more important than all those things was this
person in front of me (whom he loved) telling me about her life. His words gave a peace to my heart that allowed
me to really engage in the rest of the conversation, and it felt like gentle
discipline for the way I’d been approaching my coworkers at Myers Park.
In all fairness, I do like people, and I genuinely enjoy
being nice, but often, in difficult situations like the two I mentioned, I’m
nice because I’m thinking about what that person can do for me. I understand that I’ll have to work with them
for the next several years, and I want us to have a good relationship so that
work is a pleasant place for me to
go. In that way, being kind is all about
what I can get out of it. This week, I
feel like the Lord reminded me that being kind should be done not for myself
but for him. As you know, I’ve been
reading Ephesians, and verses 4:32-5:2 came to my mind as I was thinking about
the topic for this blog. They say, “Be
kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ
God forgave you. Follow God’s example,
therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, Just as Christ
loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to
God.”
These verses reminded me that Jesus was not only kind to us,
he loved us enough to die for us when we were in COMPLETE opposition to him due
to our sin. It is easy to be nice to the
people who are nice to us. It is easy to
be accommodating when we feel like someone is respecting our time. It is hard to be kind when we feel like someone
is being demanding or unreasonable or rude or just plain mean. It is hard to be respectful when we don’t
feel respected. But look at Jesus. He is ultimate love when we are ultimate
failures. He is gentle and full of grace
when we are dirty and full of sin. He is
compassionate when there is nothing respectable in us. So, who am I not to show love to his people –
the people he loves as much as he loves me and sees as equally valuable. What makes me any better or my time any more
important when Jesus says they are as good and as loved and as wanted as I am.
And of equal importance is the reminder the Lord spoke to my
heart this week – that people are what is important. Ecclesiastes 1:9-11 says, “What has been will
be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the
sun. Is there anything of which one can
say, ‘Look! This is something new’? It was here already, long ago; it was here
before our time. There is no remembrance
of people of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by
those who follow them.” Granted, Solomon
is a bit morbid in his description, but it is true, right? What we do on earth really isn’t all that
important. Lesson plans and copies and
classroom decorations and parent letters and IEP plans…all those things are
essentially meaningless in the short amount of time we have on earth compared
to the eternity we will have in heaven.
What is important is how well love.
Consider 1 Corinthians 13:8 & 13: “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will
cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge,
it will pass away…And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Said a bit more eloquently, Paul simply echoes
Solomon’s words – nothing we do here really matters. The only thing that really matters is that we
love.
And what is love? It
is patience, kindness, humility, forgiveness, respectfulness, protectiveness,
perseverance (1 Corinthians 13). It is
taking the time to realize that people are more important than our “to do”
lists. For me, it will mean realizing
that listening to student tell me about his weekend is more important than
starting our warm up on time, that being patient with people who are bitter or
angry is more important than responding in kind, that staying up late to go to
one of Andy’s intermural games is superior to going to bed when I want, that
being peaceful when someone cuts me off in traffic is better than becoming
irritated and rude. As I start a new job
in a new city and work to build new friendships, I want to try to remember in
every interaction I have, that people are always more important any other plan
I have for how to spend my time and energy.
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