Letters. Check. Math. Check. Reading. Check. Science. Check. History. Check. I feel proficient in all of the content areas, that I am not even teaching right now. But why am I SO exhausted by the current teaching taking place in my class when I haven’t even started any content? 

Right now, it’s social-emotional 101 with Miss Sarah. “Wait your turn.” “Let your friend go first.” “Not yet.” “We will do that tomorrow.”

Patience. 

The funny thing about teaching students these social- emotional skills is the fact that as a 22 year old adult, I question if I have even ever learned them or even if we ever do.  I mean, on a small daily scale, I am more than capable of waiting my turn and abiding by the social constructs of the world, but patience is in fact a skill that I am continually working on in a multitude of aspects of my life.  

My mother sent me a letter a week about with a copy of for pages from a book of wisdom about that very skill, with various underlined sections “subtly” hinting at a suggested reflection of my own.  I can admit that I can be undoubtedly hard on myself.  I want to be the perfect teacher for my students.  The one that walks in and does everything right and makes it look seemingly effortless.  And when my well orchestrated classroom, looks more like chaos between the crying, the constant redirection, the ditched lesson plans for impromptu dance sessions, I in turn feel a wreck.  There are many times a day that I feel like I have no control over my class.  But the scarier realization is when I feel as if I have no control over my life.  That I live in chaos with no constant forces.  New job. New city. New friends. New life. How do you make those “news” all work at once? And what do you do when you don’t feel you are being unsuccessful on all accounts? That the dreams you have for your students and most importantly yourself aren’t coming into immediate apparition? 

You wait.

On the first page is the inscription “Looking at the small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished.”  

Strange how we hinder our own greatness in the practice of impatience. And yet, when my students ruin their own chance for success by attempting to swing across the monkey bars before they learn to hold their own body weight up, we know they will fall.  We know they will learn. It just takes time and vision and one day they WILL have success.   

Great affairs will be accomplished in my classroom. We are 5 days in.  We will transform. We will get it right. It will take time. More importantly “great affairs” will take place in my life. I struggle daily to change education and the structures that currently exist that allow for my students to fail. But I need to remember that I won’t get this done today. Not even tomorrow. I am struggling with my changing class schedule.  I am struggling with working in a team.  I am struggling with the demands of TFA.  I am struggling with the demands of Head Start and my position. Right now, I am struggling to make it through the day.  Great affairs are those created under the guidance of time.  I will continue to have a vision for change but realize that time will be my patient partner.  I need to stop evaluating myself on a basis of immediate indicators.  I don’t have my life figured out and I need to stop feeling like I am failing if I don’t have it all together in all areas of my life.  I need to remember to have faith in the bigger picture and in the power of time.  Some people turn to a God as that orchestrator of the bigger picture.  While I struggle with the identity of such a force, I prefer the idea of an infinite love, our own malleable source of expansion, current reality, and return.  That love is the constant in our lives, a deeper source of connection, when the chaos impedes.  Therefore we have no reason to fear, when this greater picture always exists/ed.

It reminds me of my students actually.  Like myself, they are making a huge life transition.  While I picked up and moved my life to a new place, leaving the ones I loved behind, they too are entering a new stage of their lives- leaving their parents for the first time.  They fear their parents leaving them, alone in a classroom surrounded by strangers. The parents are hesitant to leave their crying child, so innocent, facing the world independent of their previously constant guiding hand. However, they are not alone. I am their teacher and I stand there knowing they will make it.  They will have success.  I am there to teach them lessons, brace their tumbles, give them restrictions they don’t yet understand they need and love them.  I am their teacher and they will be successful. It just takes time.  I need to trust that the same care exists for me on a greater level and that with the practice of patience, I will also experience success.  Maybe instead I can call this “infinite knowing power,” my teacher.  The title seems more suiting to me.