School year #6

Apparently I am only updating my blog once a year now. :)

I have finished my 6th year of teaching. It was one of (if not the) best year yet! It was also my hardest in some ways. But God is SO faithful.

It started off a few weeks before the school year was supposed to start, when through horrible miscommunication (or complete lack thereof) and awkward situations, we found out that we were down a teacher. There was no 3rd/4th grade teacher and we didn't have any money to hire a replacement. Wow. After the initial shock, Christine and I jumped right in to figuring out how we would make it work, and Renee soon joined us in the "ok-we-can-make-this-work" mode! God was definitely in the process. We didn't have any 6th graders and only 1 first grader, so we rearranged the class groupings and created an incredible puzzle of moving pieces, so I suddenly found myself teaching kindergarten and 1st grade combined! I also was teaching 3rd/4th grade reading, Bible and history. I also took on a new music class with 1st-5th and continued with Art 1st-4th. I had already volunteered to teach the 7th/8th grade Earth science class for this year too! I don't know how we did it (besides by the help of God) but we got all these classes arranged in such a way that everyone had a teacher for each class at a time that fit with everyone else! God is good and it was hard work, but for the most part I loved it! It was the hardest I've worked on teaching, especially for the first part of the year as I figured out how to teach older kids and how to grade their tests that were so horribly bad as far as spelling and grammar is concerned (hehe). But I figured it out and by the end of the year it wasn't that bad! :) And teaching 7th/8th grade science was like a dream come true! Not quite, but it was super fun at the beginning as we started with Space and learning about the stars, planets and sun. I showed them Louie Giglio's video and blew their minds! It was only 4 boys and they loved it. By the end of the year it wasn't quite as exciting, but we managed to finish the entire text book!

I started the year off with a "new" classroom as I moved the old library out into the other classrooms (my summer job) as well as the left overs into the empty classroom. Suddenly my room was twice the size it had been and I found a bulletin board had been hiding behind all the bookcases. Mom and others helped me decorate and set up my classroom and I loved it! It had a cozy corner with a beanbag, cute carpets, stuffed animals, books, white board, and the bulletin board that said, "Knights of Courage" which was my theme at the beginning of the year as I only had 3 boys. Andrea helped me make a paper castle for the bulletin board, and we talked about how Knights of Courage do what is right even when it's hard. One of the sweetest memories of this is when my 1st grader (precious Harry - whom I had last year and adored) was feeling discouraged and tired and wanting to give up as we worked on reading together after lunch. Suddenly his face brightened and he smiled and said, "Oh yeah, knights of courage!" and he persevered in his reading! Heart melted.

He was my challenge student ironically. My two new kindergarten boys were perfect angels. They sat silently and raised their hands from day one practically! I was floored! Easiest training ever. Then I met their parents and understood why they were so good! Both dads came in for Parent Teacher conferences at the end of the 1st quarter and they both asked if they could pray for me at the end of the conference. Awww! I never felt so blessed by parent/teacher conferences! They were quality families who were doing a great job with their kids. Cahill's dad was reading Narnia out loud to him which of course made me happy since Daddy did that for us. The cool part was Cahill's dad had never read them so he was really getting in to it and struggling with Cahill interrupting sometimes. :) I was so blessed by them raising their son with quality literature and goodness (he also couldn't watch Sponge Bob because it "wasn't appropriate" and hardly knew what the video games were that Harry always talked about!). Josh is also a sweetheart and was the best at remembering to say, "Yes, Miss Murray" consistently. So consistently that this is the first year that my class actually got trained to say it and do it All Year Long! Thanks, Josh! :) He also was so excellent at sitting still and quietly when he finished his work (as opposed to what I am used to, which is immediately talking or calling out to me or fooling around) that I had to teach him how to tell me he was done so he wouldn't sit there for 5 minutes doing nothing until I finally noticed he was done! Precious.

A couple months in to the year we got a girl; Angelis, who had the biggest eyes in the world. She knew Josh and Cahill from church and she was there to have fun and hang out with her friends, not so much for learning. But we managed to learn despite trying to have fun all the time and giggle a lot. ;) He was a sweetheart and things started to click, especially when she finally got her first 100% on her spelling test and we all started cheering and applauding! She looked at me with a huge smile and said, "It's because I studied at home!" Yay!

Spring break brought sad news. My "trouble" student, Harry, whom I loved but was a little challenging behaviorally, was diagnosed with a autoimmune disease and started chemo and steroids. Suddenly I was so protective of him, had so much extra grace for him, and started praising him and building him up and encouraging him. And he flourished! He was already doing so well academically and making great progress (like reading! So much fun to have a 1st grader who clicked with reading so well), but now he took off and it was so exciting to see! And a powerful lesson for me. If I treated all my students like they had a fatal disease and showered them with grace and praise and love, would they all flourish that much? I love that kid. So much.

So my kindergarten/1st grad class has a very special place in my heart. They were my easiest class and I love them dearly. And so I decided they were my grand finale and I have quit kindergarten and am moving on to 3rd/4th grade next year! Eee! :)


Oh yeah, and my team won Field Day again this year! Theo was my team captain and we were required to decorate team t-shirts and we rocked at it and won the competition! It was a fun day with great school spirit and Mr. Maxcey even played the bagpipes for the opening ceremonies (which was nothing except him playing the bagpipes as we walked around the school to the field, but it was still awesome).
  

This was also Steve's last year as headmaster! Oh boy. But he is super positive about the new headmaster we've hired (despite the fact that he is younger than me!) and we already have 12 new students for next year I believe.... So God is still at work. And we had a good retirement party for him with tons of people sharing their thoughts and memories and it was really nice. And Awards night was pretty sweet and he cried a lot. And the last day I brought him sunflowers and had the kids give him candy and sing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" and sign funny retirement cards. I hope we survive without him.