Untangling the Mess

Welcome new teachers! We hope you are able to enjoy the items in your red totes! They were packaged with love and appreciation. We know you often feel overwhelmed, underpaid, and under appreciated. But what you do matters so much! You are the silent heroes of our community, and unfortunately you hear most of the complaints! From parents, students, administrators, state boards of education... But you are the ones in the trenches, and we are eternally grateful for all you do for the students of our community. We wish we could give you more than a red tote, but it's a start! This blog is a place where teachers in Michiana can come and share of few "Me too" moments and strategize how we can help each other in the trenches!

We know what it's like! We're teachers too! There are certain parts of our job that we love ... namely, the students. We want our actions, our words, our promises, our lives to scream to them "You matter! You are not an accident! You are not someone's second thought. Someone's punching bag. Someone's scapegoat for their own lost dreams. You have a reason for existing and a part to play in the good and beautiful side of this world. The sky's the limit . . . "

But our voice competes with the cold square bricks of concrete, the upcoming state tests, data team meetings, funding issues, students' homes where basic needs aren't met, our own homes that vie for our attention as well, and evaluations that remind us to to "stick to the standards." But are we ok with the standard that our students often feel like another filled desk, another word on a faceless roster, another bad kid waiting to get caught, another ID bar code to scan in the lunch line, another test score waiting to land on a graph? Of course not. But we often feel overwhelmed by what seems to be a system that is a tangled mess!

Good news, in the middle of this tangled mess is one simple fact. You love your students. One by one you are brightening their world, their minds, and their futures. Can we single-handedly untangle the tangled mass of issues facing public education today? No, but what we can do is take the few strands we have and weave them together to make something beautiful and strong, so we can hold on to each other in the middle of the mess. One strand, one day, one lesson, one class, one student at a time.



"If we are to achieve the quantum leaps the future seems to be demanding of us, we must risk to leave our containers-turned cages and find grace to dance without stepping on toes. . . Many of us choose security over freedom to such an extreme that we confine ourselves and profoundly limit our experience of life. Maximum safety, minimum existence."
Gordon MacKenzie, Orbiting the Giant Hairball

"I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you'll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior."
Jesus (Luke 16:8b (Msg))