One of the more frustrating parts of my job has been
teaching. While I’m here as a dorm parent, my visa states that I am a teacher
and so I’m therefore required to teach as well. It’s not that all teaching has been
frustrating, some has actually been really fun. But as someone who has never
taught in a secondary school before, it has definitely been challenging.
In particular, my Photography class was the roughest. It’s certainly
not the subject that annoys me—I love photography—it’s the kids. My first
semester here I taught Graphic Design and my class was comprised of 11th
and 12th-graders. They were interested in the subject, respectful,
attentive to direction, and did their best. But the second semester I taught 9th
and 10-graders who, for the most part, only took my course as a means of
staying out of choir class. Many of the students had little interest in
photography or doing the assignments. In particular, the boys were immature,
rowdy, and apparently deaf to my voice. And one girl seemed to feed off the
boys’ need for volume and invariably ended up screaming for no particular
reason except to make herself noticed.
On the night of the school play, I planned to do an exhibit of
some of my students’ photography. So, in class, I went to each student and
picked out their best image and discussed the ways in which the photo could be
improved, corrected and retouched. All each student had to do to achieve an “A”
for the assignment was to follow my directions. That’s not difficult…right? The
teacher says, “Do _______ and you will get an A. Don’t do it and you will not
be in the exhibit.” It’s a no-brainer. The results? Several followed directions
exactly. Others followed my instructions more or less. And a few decided to go
their own way. They either chose a completely different (a.k.a. worse) image or
refused to make the required changes to the image I chose, instead choosing to
make some crazy alterations that actually ruined a perfectly decent picture.
I found myself extremely frustrated and asking, “What is
this? This was not what we discussed. If you had followed my directions, your
photo would be finished and would look great. But this is not going to work and
needs to be redone. Try again.” But in my head I was screaming, “Why would you
do this? You just made things worse! Why didn’t you just listen to me? I know
what I’m doing. I know better than you do! I have a lot of experience in this.
You barely have a clue what you’re doing. When you do what you think is best
you just ruin it!” Bing. At that moment, wrecked print in my hand, a light
comes on. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my
ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than earth, so are my
ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Isaiah
55: 8-9).
I actually began laughing to myself. I wonder how many times
God has wondered what in the world I was doing. How many times has He observed
me from His heavenly throne and shook His head in discouragement at the way I
was wrecking a perfectly good blessing. How many times has He thought, “Ben!
What were you thinking? If you had just followed Me, everything would’ve worked
out great. I had it all set up for you, but you went and did your own thing.
You have no idea what you’re doing. You don’t realize that doing things that
way is going to end up really badly. Please pay more attention to My class!”
Yep, that’s me. I’m the loud one in God’s class….too busy blabbing on and on
about nonsense that seems important to me….all the while I’m only drowning out
the voice of God and completely missing His instructions.
The effect of this “ah-ha” moment is that I become more
patient with my kids because I can totally identify with their flaws that
frustrate me, which in turn causes me to be a better teacher.
Thank you Lord for those teachable moments when you
turn on the light in my head and I realize that the very thing that was pushing
my buttons was divinely appointed to enlighten me and bring me closer to You.
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