Be Flexible

Last month I stayed at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky for the better part of a week.  The monks there are predominantly contemplative.  They pray the Divine Office, largely composed of the Psalms, which they chant in unison, seven times a day.  However, they also perform various kinds of work there at the monastery.  They have made cheese and fudge and fruitcake.  Some of them write spiritual texts.  Others plant and grow and pick fruits and vegetables on the grounds of the abbey.  Still others tend the grounds of the abbey.

During my stay at the abbey, I got to speak with a couple of the monks more than once.  One of them entered the abbey when he was relatively young, and he is now elderly.  He mentioned more than once to me that he had authored a booklet containing some of his spiritual musings.  Since he mentioned the booklet to me multiple times, I figured I should pick it up from the abbey bookstore.  Accordingly, I stopped into the bookstore and bought this monk's booklet.  In it he relates how he was asked to change jobs at the abbey.  I took his change of situation as a good example to follow, and as a way to help maintain perspective.  Things could be more challenging than they have been for me, and in additional ways than they already are.

I have a warm, encouraging, sympathetic, patient, accommodating and helpful principal as my boss now.  I have co-workers, both teachers and staff alike, who are pleasant, helpful and supportive.  I work in a calm, serene, sane workplace.

Given that I feel unversed in teaching a group of students with such a wide range of abilities, I have felt severely challenged in this work.  However, I chose this job, unlike the monk I noted above, who was being asked to take on a new position, who knew nothing about the kind of new work he was being asked to start doing.  Further, I am not making this career shift as an elderly person, unlike the monk I described above who changed jobs once he was aged.  He made those changes as an elderly person, being flexible despite his age, adapting to the new and unfamiliar demands made upon him.  I am not so challenged as he was.  As I consider him, I feel called to keep my situation in perspective.  I am reminded that my situation could be more challenging than it is.  And I take him as inspiration.  May we all accept what we are called to do as he did. 

Why Did You Send Me Here?

This week was not without its challenges for me.  That's to be expected, but the predictability didn't lessen the difficulty.

Amongst the challenges I've faced, I've felt overwhelmed with contact with other people.  I am an introvert for sure.  As I've heard described fairly recently, introverts recharge themselves by being sure to spend adequate time in solitude, a tendency I definitely have.  Thus during this school year, I've felt overloaded with interactions with others, largely by spending so much time in the classroom and otherwise at school.

At one point this week, I was feeling unable to cope with so much contact with others.  Honestly I felt like I was not able to do this job because of the combination of multiple challenging factors.  It entails not only interacting so much with other people, but also teaching students with such a wide range of abilities, and also handling behavioral issues in the classroom, often all at the same time.  Feeling like I simply was not able to do this job, I prayed to God, asking Him, "Why did you send me here when you knew I wouldn't be able to do this job?  Why did you send me here knowing that I would fail?"  I was in the completely wrong mindset to be able to receive the answer.

Later, I was praying to God in a very matter-of-fact way.  Essentially, I was just talking to Him.  Feeling inadequate to do this job, I told Him, "If you want me to do this, you have to give me your grace and your strength.  I literally cannot do this without you."

And with that, I placed myself in a position to be able to receive the answer.  Simultaneously I had taken a posture which allowed me to receive the grace and the strength from God both to enable me to understand His answers to my questions that I had asked Him, as well as to enable me to succeed.  When I had asked God why He had sent me where He knew I would fail, I was trying to do it on my own.  When I stopped trying to do it on my own, when I acknowledged that I couldn't do it on my own, when I admitted that I needed His help, I became able to do it.  Thus, He sent me here, where He knew I couldn't do it on my own, so that I would have to rely on Him.

God wants us to ask Him for help.  He wants us to bother Him.  He wants us to ask Him for the strength we need to do the work that He calls us to do. 

Very soon after I prayed to God, telling Him that I needed the grace and the strength from Him to be able to do the work He has called me to do, He answered me.  I felt a peace settle in my being.  I can describe it somewhat as serenity.  I can also say I became stronger.  I was no longer anxious.  He had given me the grace and the strength I had requested.

Having been rescued by Him, the next morning I found a particular reading very appropriate.  In the morning, as I was gathered with the Brothers of the Christian Schools, with whom I live in faith-based community, at our daily weekday morning prayer session, we were reciting Psalms in unison as usual.  I found it apropos, in light of how God had answered my request so quickly and thoroughly, that we were reciting Psalm 30.  Psalm 30:1-3 reads:

I will exalt you, Lord,
for you lifted me out of the depths
and did not let my enemies gloat over me.
Lord my God, I called to you for help,
and you healed me.
You, Lord, brought me up from the realm of the dead;
you spared me from going down to the pit.

Just as the Psalmist wrote, God lifted me out of the depths.  He rescued me from the despair that comes from trying to do it alone.  I called to Him for help, and He did in fact heal me: he healed me from the angst I had been feeling from following the impossible, ill-advised, short-sighted strategy of trying to rely on myself.  He spared me from the extremely unfortunate consequences which would have befallen me had I persisted in that ridiculous, foolish approach.

Glory be to God.  He delivers me.  He gives me the grace and the strength I need to be able to do the work that He calls me to do.  This is what Jesus meant when He said, "Ask and you shall receive."*  If we ask Him, God will give us what we need to be able to do the work which He calls us to do.  

* Matthew 7:7

Site Visit

After I accepted the invitation to become a Lasallian Volunteer (LV), the Director of Lasallian Volunteers called me to discuss my site preferences with me.  After accepting the invitation, before we spoke again on the phone, I had a few days to think about what I wanted to get out of the program.  Thus I felt that I had gathered my thoughts enough to be able to explain well to the Director the kind of experience I hoped to have as an LV.

I considered the Brothers of the Christian Schools, the religious order which founded the Lasallian Volunteer program.  The Brothers have taken vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to God.  However, they don't live in monasteries.  They live in houses much like anyone else does, yet they live in Christian faith-based community with each other, sharing prayer and fellowship together.  Given how I've enjoyed spending time with people who have consecrated their lives to God, I told the LV Director that I had a very strong preference to live in a community with the Brothers.  I want to see what it's like living as the Brothers do, rather than live in a community composed solely of LVs, as a small number of LVs do.

I also told the LV Director that although I had indicated on my application that my first choice would be to teach ESL (English As A Second Language), I had thought further about work positions and had decided that my first choice would be to serve as a high school teacher, and that my second choice would be to serve as a middle school teacher.  Since I had interviewed to be an LV, I had thought about how in a previous job, I had expressed uncertainty about my ability to do certain tasks well, which had led my supervisor at the time to say to me, "Don't give me that Scarecrow from 'The Wizard Of Oz' routine!"  After I had interviewed to be an LV, I had started applying that advice from my former supervisor, trying to shed my uncertainty, and instead telling myself that I was able to teach high school or middle school. 

As the weeks after the interview passed, the LV Director contacted me from time to time to update me on the process of selecting a site for me.  At one point, she contacted me and informed me that the site selection process had narrowed the options for my site down to three possibilities. 

A short time thereafter, she informed me that the principal of a middle school in Chicago soon would be contacting me.  Within a week or so, perhaps in the middle of April, the principal called me.  We had a pleasant conversation, which I took as a good sign.  He told me that he would be in touch with me. 

At the end of April, he invited me to come visit the school.  He asked me when and for how long I would like to visit.  I told him that I wanted to visit the school as soon as possible for a few days.  He purchased the tickets and less than a week later, I was flying to Chicago in early May. 

I landed at O'Hare in the afternoon and took the subway's blue line into the city.  The principal had arranged it so that a teacher picked me up from a stop on the blue line to drive me to the community house.  In the small world in which we live, as we chatted in the car, we found that one of his best friends had served with me in the Peace Corps in Morocco over the last couple of years! 

I enjoyed my stay at the community house.  Two LVs in their first year of service, Whitney and Megan, had been living in the house thus far during their year of service.  At the end of their first year of service, during this summer, they moved to the other community house which is across the alley separating the two houses.  They'll live there during the second year of their service, that is to say, for the next 12 months.  I enjoyed talking with Whitney and Megan, who are very friendly and happily answered my questions about serving as LVs and about living in the community. 

The first thing in the morning, at 7:00 a.m., the Brothers, Whitney, Megan and I gathered for morning prayer.  We read aloud together out of the Shorter Book Of Christian Prayer, reading mostly Psalms, and at times other Scripture passages as well. 

After the brief morning prayer of about 15 minutes, most members of the community gathered for breakfast in the dining room.  There's a fair supply of cereals, as well as oatmeal, toast, English muffins, and coffee to be had in the house. 

At the community house, we also gathered for evening prayer.  Technically it is late afternoon prayer, given that we met for evening prayer at 5:00 p.m.  Evening prayer is substantially similar to morning prayer. 

Immediately following evening prayer, we shared dinner together in the dining room.  One night during my visit, we had gumbo! 

During my site visit, when I wasn't at the house, most of the time I was at the school.  I had a long enough site visit that I was able to spend three full days at the school.  It's a small school, only serving kids in grades 6, 7 and 8.  There are only about 28 students in each grade, so that each grade is entirely contained in its own classroom.  The vast majority of the pupils are of Mexican heritage.  Well over 90 percent of them qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch.  Given that the school serves so many poor children, I had been looking forward to going to the school. 

From the moment I stepped onto the floor on which the school is located, even before meeting any of the staff or students, I had a good feeling.  Then once I started meeting the children and teachers and other staff, I felt even more comfortable and excited to be there.  The kids are fairly well-behaved and are exceptionally respectful.  I found the teachers and other staff to be friendly and happy to answer any questions I had. 

Once the school day got started, I got to see first-hand how each student reads 90 minutes each day, a practice I think is wonderful.  The principal had me sit with individual students who were reading, confirming their accurate pronunciations when they seemed uncertain, encouraging them, and correcting some of their mistakes as they read. 

The principal also asked me to teach the 8th grade religion class one afternoon so he could see how I would interact with the students.  Since the students were about to start learning about Pentecost, I decided to teach about Pentecost, when God sent the Holy Spirit down upon the Apostles.  I started off the lesson asking the kids what types of events worry them, and how they react to such events.  Then I asked the students how the Apostles felt right after Jesus had been crucified.  A student replied that the Apostles were worried.  I had a student read the Bible verses in which Jesus had assured His Apostles that He would send the Holy Spirit upon them.  Then I asked for a half dozen volunteers.  I had the six or so students come to the front of the class and they and I took turns reading aloud as we made our way through the second chapter of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, in which Luke the Evangelist recounts how God indeed sent the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, strengthening them and enabling them to do great things.  After we had finished reading from the Bible, I referenced and called upon the Scripture passage to illustrate how God wants us to trust in Him, and that when we do, we are empowered to do great things for Him. 

After the class, a teacher asked me how the lesson went.  The principal happened to be passing us at that moment.  I deferred to him.  I responded, "You'll have to ask him."  I was glad to hear that he was pleased with my teaching style, how I involved the students in the lesson, and how I handled unexpected occurrences during the lesson.  He noted that in my interactions with students, it helps how I speak with energy and show animated facial expressions, tendencies which I hadn't considered as being helpful when I teach. 

While I was glad to hear that the principal had been pleased with my teaching style, I was still concerned about being able to teach well.  Thankfully, he gave me a couple of fantastic books to read, "The Essential 55" by Ron Clark and "Teach Like A Champion" by Doug Lemov.  After reading them in May, June and July, I recommend them both, as they contain very helpful tips about teaching.  In the first book, Clark tends to focus on getting kids into the right mindset for school, both for studying well and for behaving well both in and out of school.  Lemov shares his observations of how outstanding teachers convey knowledge and cultivate reasoning skills, and also how they manage their classrooms well.  I found both books to be insightful; after reading both of those books, I'm less anxious about teaching.

I'm excited about the coming school year.  I'm looking forward to teaching.  And more specifically, I'm glad that I'm going to be teaching at a school where poor children attend.  I'm also glad to have co-workers who share my Christian faith and who are trying to express their faith by caring for others, especially those who don't have a lot.  I'm happy to be trying to live my faith, being supported by those who share it and hopefully supporting them too.