I actually had a good day today!! Today's post is dedicated to the small moments of success I've had over the last two months. Too often I get bogged down in needs and failures, and forget about the small daily victories God gives me.
I learned a lot today. Here's a short list of the things I learned.
1. Who Gucci the rap artist is.
2. What Nubian Twists are (hairstyle, really cool-looking)
3. The name of the language they speak in Eritrea.
4. That a surprisingly high percentage of my students don't know who Matt Damon is. But they all know who Lil' Wayne is. So I taught them who Matt Damon is (most of the recognized his picture).
Here are some of the small success stories God has granted me so far.
1. Several students who were failing badly have (after many phone calls and pressure from me, home, etc.) are now paying attention in class, doing work, and no longer failing!! And when I say lightly "several students" read hours and hours of phone calls and thinking what to do and conversations with these students.
2. I actually got some much-needed one-on-one time after school today with several students who came in, and was able to actually build some solid connections and relationships with some students who are right in the middle: not super bright, not super talkative, not problematic, work hard but struggle some. These are the hardest students to reach in class, because they aren't as vocal or as needy, and my energy goes out to put out fires, not help the middle students (as I wish it could). But the one-on-one time today was HUGE. Yay.
3. I'm starting to figure out who's related to whom and who's friends with whom, which helps me understand the invisible social network and connections, which are so critical for teaching high school. For instance, now I know that one girl had major attitude toward me because her boyfriend is that guy I was having daily discipline issues with, and when he and I were having issues that affected her behavior as well (totally another class, so I had no way of knowing with a school this big that they were dating until she texted during class on HIS cell phone which she had, which he came in to pick up after I confiscated it).
And despite my 15 or so daily discipline problems, I have so many students who are well-behaved. For the eight per class period who don't have their stuff, twenty three of them do. For the twenty percent per class period that don't do their homework, eighty percent do. For the thirty percent who could care less about grades, twenty percent REALLY care about their grades, to the point of being willing to come in and re-do work to get it right if it will raise their grade.
Of course, the deeper truth is that I need to get my eyes off both my problems and my success and keep looking at Jesus if I'm ever going to serve him in this new environment.
