HEY TEACHER LEAVE THOSE KIDS ALONE!

All the nice little students with their halos march orderly into your classroom. Taking their seats, they sit in silence waiting for you to fill their heads with knowledge. A student in the front row smiles, raises his hand and asks: "Teacher, can we please take a test today?" If you think that's the normal beginning of a Teacher's day, you must be smoking something. A day in a Teacher's life is more like trying to stop a fallen leaf in the Niagara River from going over the Falls! A Teacher must be a highly skilled relationship builder who Teaches children how to navigate the rapids of life. How do you build relationships with students?

If you're looking for a quick fix and a simple list of rules to follow, go read a book on manners and etiquette. Go with the flow is a good way to describe relationship mentoring. That does not mean you hop into the Niagara River and join the leaf as it goes over the Falls. What I'm about to describe is a process that BEGINS WITH YOU! The first relationship you must build is with yourself.

If you have not already done the deep soul searching of knowing who you are, drop your pens, pencils and paintbrushes and start seeking. Here are some good questions to begin with:

• What are you good at?
• What is your learning style?
• How do you get out of your comfort zone?
• Do you know how to ask for help?
• Why are you a Teacher?
• What is a good risk?
• Do you know what compassion is?
• How do you form a relationship with someone who rubs you the wrong way?
• Are you positive or negative?

There are many other personal queries that will help you "know thyself." If you don't understand yourself, you cannot begin to understand the true responsibilities of a Teacher.

Here is a story I read once that describes the life of a typical child that will come to your classroom. Wolves eat caribou. The wolf pack will have a meeting and discuss which one of the caribou they would like to eat. They look at the young, elderly or disabled. After having made their choice of which caribou they will kill and feast on, they identify which of their own will be the killers. One or several members are chosen as the slashers. Their job is to chase down the chosen victim and slash the caribou. After the initial slashing, the wounded caribou retreats to the safety of the herd. Bloodletting begins to weaken the slashed caribou. The slashers renew their pursuit and slash the victim again. Sometimes the victim will fall, sometimes they return once again to the safety of the herd, The loss of life as the blood drains away eventually causes the victim to weaken and give up. The wolf pack moves in and dines on another defenseless victim.

Children come into the safety of your classroom. They are escaping a world of abuse. They are escaping the gang in the street. They are escaping the older sister who urges them to get pregnant and live off the system (because they did.) They are escaping a Mom who tells them to quit school and get a job so they can support Mom's drug habit. Everyday the caribou student comes into the safety of your herd and escapes the wolves of the world. Can you handle that?

Thanks for your time. Go do something nice for somebody.
Jesus loves you and so do we.