You will know if you’ve been checking out my Facebook statuses the last week that I have embarked on yet another new “adventure” for the next several months.  I am teaching Junior High Language Arts full time covering a maternity leave for the regular teacher.  It’s been a steep learning curve navigating around a new computer program, as well as setting up a classroom in preparation for the students to return to school especially since most of the teachers had to move entire classrooms, myself included to accommodate the phenomenal growth our school will see this year.  One hundred more students than last year!  Whew!   Needless to say, it may be a bit of a challenge to blog as regularly as I have been but I’ll try!

I LOVE working at the school, a private Christian School, where I have been a regular substitute teacher for the past eight years.  I know the students already, either by name or reputation ~ tee hee 🙂 so I’m pretty fortunate that I’m not really the “new” teacher on staff, however I am still relatively new to the back to school preparations the faculty and staff go through each year and it is truly a privilege to be amongst a group of teachers who will spend their first morning back at school praising and worshipping God!  What a great way to start the year off!

Perhaps the most profound words I have remembered over time were spoken by a guest speaker in chapel several years ago, who asked all teachers to consider NINE LIFE/EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES TO LIVE BY:

~PURPOSE is more important than position.

  ~WHO YOU ARE is more important than what you do.

  ~PEOPLE are more important than things.

  ~RELATIONSHIPS are more important than skills.

   ~FEELINGS are more important than facts.

  ~VALUES are more important than knowledge.

  ~GIVING is more important than receiving.

  ~DEVELOPING OUR STRENGTHS is more important than correcting our weaknesses.

  ~The WALK is more important than the talk.

“Let us fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” 

Hebrews 12:2

I am blessed to be a Christian teacher, to interact each day with men and women who love the Lord and want each one of their students to grow in their faith and to become those disciples called by God to reach a hurt and hopeless world.