Connected

There is a lot I could talk about under this title, but I am going to focus on two things: the challenge of making students feel connected and the way in which I connect with others and God.

Last week, at one of my monthly new teacher meetings, one of my professors from Gordon spoke about students with social-emotional disabilities. This could range from anxiety to Autism. One of the things that struck me was this: he said that students need to feel connected and wanted in school. Feeling wanted comes down to my job as a classroom facilitator and mentor. My students come in and I greet them at the door with a smile on my face. I laugh with them and even listen to some of their anecdotes. However, I want to do a better job with communicating to those on the outside. There are a few students in my class that I know very little about because they are more reserved or do not initiate conversation. Feeling this sense of "being wanted" is something that through years of being a camp counselor, I know is an important part of a child's experience in a place. They want to feel important and CONNECTED. This leads into my next segment.

Feeling connected. As you have been reading, you might have gotten the sense that my class has some characters in it. There is the student who only wants to talk about hockey, there is the student who only wants to talk about or read about cats, there is the student who just wants to talk about how excited he is to take a nap after school, and there are others who just want to talk about whatever. There is a large group of boys in my class who all have similar interests. However, about 3 of my boys have totally different interests. The girls are all so unique. There are mini cliques of girls in my class: the two girls who are "serious students," the two girls who only talk about cats, the 3 girls who just giggle, then there is a girl who wants to just hang out with the boys. There are however a few more that don't fall into these categories. I'm trying to figure out ways to get them connected to the larger class. I'm not sure how to do that though.

Now to talk about my second point of connectedness: how do I connect with others?
Since graduating college, I feel somewhat disconnected from my friends and community. In college, I lived with my 5 best friends and down the hall or down the hill from other friends. I went to church every Sunday with those friends. There were events at school to go to, and if not there was always a movie night to be found. Now, I live down the street from two friends who I see occasionally and usually end up going to church with one of my roommates. The weekends are low key and I have a lot of alone time, which I am learning to value. I have not done much getting involved in my community in the town, besides joining the YMCA which doesn't really count. I'm still helping at youth group, but want to find a young adults small group to join. It is a stage of disconnectedness, but also a stage of contentment and peace (about life, the future, my career...).

I have also felt in many ways disconnected from God. This could be because I have been stressed at work, but what it comes down to is that God was not my priority during the first part of the year. This caused me to feel…disconnected. I went to church once during the month of December (besides Christmas Eve) and would quickly read the Bible before bed without spending time thinking about its implications for my life. One of my New Year's Resolutions was to start the day off with some time with God. This started as reading the Bible when I woke up, but quickly I became tired and that time has transformed into listening to worship music on the way to school each morning. This music calms me down and when I sing along, I feel connected. It sets my day off right. Singing I've found is one of my main ways of communicating with God, whether at church or in my car.

Have a great week my friends! Thank you for following me along this journey of being a first year teacher.