My job

So let me just say that I love my job.

I mean it. I LOVE my job. And I have to say that I enjoy it more every year I do it.

This is my 6th year as an elementary music teacher. I see around seven classes (one of each grade level, including 2 kindergarten) every day for 45 minutes (25 for each kinder), and get paid to teach them to sing, dance, play instruments, and play games. Each year, I grow to love my students more, and enjoy the challenges that each class and student brings.

Now don't get me wrong. There are those days when I really wish that certain classes would just forget to come, or that certain kids would just be absent :)....but overall, I really, really enjoy my days. Have the same exact group of 25 kids every day would freak me out...I get to rotate them out every 45 minutes, and love it.

I'm the one that all the kids know. If a kid in the bus line is having a hard time, they know me and I know them, and I LOVE that. I'm the one that all the kids hug, especially the little ones, but even the older ones the longer I stay at one school. And I LOVE that.

The one part of my job that I despise the most usually has the best overall results...PROGRAMS. I hate setting up for them, sending out the letters, trying to get the kids to memorize speaking parts and songs. But with only one exception, I have never come away wishing I'd never done it. It means the world to those kids to be able to show their parents what they can do, and vice versa.

For the most part, my class is one that kids look forward to, which makes motivation pretty easy. Discipline also becomes easier each year as the kids know me well, and know that the expectations stay the same.

Today I had my extended resource kids. One was a new gal who is severely autistic. She came and sat in my lap and let me comfort her....and she SMILED, a rare event from what the aides who were with her said. I got to crawl on the ground with these kids, fly around like eagles, and slither like snakes. These kids, for whom most of school is borderline torture, can smile and have fun in my classroom without worrying about matching up. Two days ago I worried about not ever being able to have the new gal in my class. And she smiled. Praise the Lord, she smiled.

I had one of my fifth grade classes yesterday that has been divided into the four houses of Hogwarts. I got to award points to houses that did well in my class. I LOVE that.

Public school provides its' own challenges, but I am so grateful to be here. There is an abundance of children searching for someone in their lives to love them. And I get to do it on a daily basis.

Thank you, Lord, for putting me a place of such joy. May your presence bring a light to these children who so many times are living in such a dark world.