Content with drawing

I rarely miss a day of school, but this past week I was sick and had to be out a few times. I had left detailed sub plans and piles of things to do. State testing is approaching and the missing work board is full. Graphs and charts, research, reading responses, and science notecards are on my to-do list.

But not theirs.

When I returned, I had an incredible amount of paper scraps all over the floor. Marker stains on desks. My entire stack of scrap paper, which usually sits at a happy 3 inches, depleted. I looked around, searching for signs of completed assignments. I found most children now had two or three name tags (all very meticulously designed) taped all over their desks. Apparently, my artistic fourth graders preferred to draw over doing the extensions and extra practice assignments I had left for them.

When I returned, we got right back to work. Pushing into close reads of text, searching for evidence to back up their reasoning, writing about their reading. They moaned and groaned. They doodled all over their notebooks. Some even refused to do the assignments, gnawing on the backs of pencil erasers until the rubber was soggy and useless.

So we had a chat. About expectations. About laziness. About taking the easy way out. About settling for less than our very best.

But it's hard! They whined. But I just want to finish my drawing!

I am not anti-art. I am not anti-drawing, anti-creativity, anti-imagination. But I am anti-laziness.

As I sat perched on my chair, reminding them of expectations to work hard, regardless of who is in the room, of pushing themselves to be the best they can be, and to soak up knowledge instead of resist, I began to feel a knot of conviction in my heart. As if somehow I was also giving myself a little lecture. But I'm a hard worker! I'm not just cutting and pasting and drawing! I'm responsible, I told myself, and hoped the knot would go away.

It didn't.

Several hours later, sitting with a dear friend, I began to unravel that knot of conviction. What was it about what I told my class that bothered me... that made me feel as if I had been lecturing myself?
And then slowly I pulled the loose string that began to untie the cords that have bound my heart.

I have been content with the easy things and resisted the hard things. I have started to view my job as just a job. I've let teachable moments slide.
Because I'm spread so thin and I have so much to pack in that slowing time down for a child who's falling behind is hard.
Because it's easier to get frustrated and angry than to slow down and ask "why?"
Because it's easier to call someone out from across the room than to come close and lay a hand on their shoulder.

Because it's easier to just go through the motions, go through the minutes, and let moments of eternal impact slip away. Because "I don't have time for that right now."

Because it's easier to let the day happen than to make it count.

Today I pushed them hard. We read, we underlined, we explained, we wrote, we proved, we quoted. We rewrote, we fixed, we checked our spelling. And then the boy who rarely writes more than a sentence wrote a whole page. This boy who rarely ever writes to a prompt because he's too busy doodling his own imaginary world wrote a page. A page detailing the author's purpose of using figurative language in a tall tale, complete with examples from the text of onomatopoeia, similes, metaphors, and idioms.

And instead of just nodding my head in approval, I recognized a teachable moment. Because I, too, am always learning.

I recognized a moment where hard work paid off. And so after slowing down my march around the classroom long enough to point out the excellent things I noticed in his writing, I slowed down time some more. He stood up and shared it with the class. He got two rounds of applause, and twenty one hands in the air eager to share what he did well. He looked as if his chest would burst with pride. Because what he had done had taken work. It had taken perseverance and thought. And he had a final product to show. I know he will remember that moment for a long time. Because it took a tremendous effort, and he yet he prevailed.

It takes work, real work, to teach a class of twenty-two kids for eight hours a day. It takes perseverance to keep pushing them to be excellent even when I am tired. When it would be easier to give them a stack of paper and just say "have at it; color all you like!"

And it takes real work to truly invest in them as people. To make a day count. To slow down to listen, to notice a tear, to ask "why," to let them invade my lunch time, and to take time -- to make time to celebrate their victories, and encourage them to be better. To push them when they're not working their hardest, to let up when they're at their breaking point. To know them and love them deeply, even when I'm tired. To be present.

The cords of my heart have been cut loose. The prayers I used to pray with my mom and my brother each day before heading off to school are echoing in my mind...

Help us build into Your Kingdom. Make today count for eternity.