Thoughts and Amusings

Praise be to God!

How easy it is to say that when you are in a church with 200 other people who are saying it with you. How much harder it is to say when you are in a classroom full of needy children, screaming and pulling at you and wearing you down. I am so thankful that God is steadfast and his grace is never ending!!!!! Today was the day from Hell. In the teaching profession there is a stat that evidently

75% of kids will do what you ask
15% will swing either way
and
5% are generally off task.

the class I had today went like this

70
20
10

Despite this the kids evidently loved me and were busy telling the duty teacher how much they were enjoying me, even though I kept telling them off! They are one of the hardest classes in the school (and the Deputy Principal told me it was very brave of me to have said yes to taking them) and I was throwing so many of them out (but evidently that is usual for their normal teacher too). Evidently the idea of following instructions was not something the vast majority of them wanted to do. They talked and they talked, they screamed at each other, they had snot running out of their noses, they had hair in their eyes. One of them had a really pussy eye. They are created in God's image.

They were a very very needy class. I had one child whose writing was totally illegible but was so incredibly proud of her work, she took 30 minutes to write 2 lines. They kept punching and poking each other. During silent reading they talked all the way through their reading time and I think it likely that only about 1/3 of the class read anything. We had a good time though - we laughed a lot, we learnt stuff and we did a really cool wordfind.

Again I say that teachers who work in low decile schools are amazing. They are some of the most dedicated self sacrificing people you will ever come across. I truely admire people who do this full time. We work with children who come to school having had chips and chocolate for breakfast whose parents don't take them to Kip McGrath for remedial maths when they get slightly behind. In low decile schools we work with kids from war torn countries - with some kids who have never experienced school before, work with kids with severe behavioural needs , provide stability. We teach kids basic social graces (how to say please, how to say sorry) as well as normal teaching stuff that teachers do - say the curriculum and dealing with bullying.

Still you will see us outside on the playground throwing hoops or reading a book at lunch time with the kids. You would expect us to be taking solace in the staff room? Nah! It's about a deep sense of Aroha (love) that no amount of money from the MOE can buy me for

Where is God on Monday? Tuesday? Wednesday? Thursday ? Friday and Saturday? He is in exactly the same place that he was on Sunday. Its just me that's moving. In my case I need him even more than I do on Sunday