Chalk

27 Apr 2013 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Learn, Teach

It’s always at the same time, the class. Of course, classes are like that. Scheduled. This class is scheduled when the morning sun is growing strong outside. Inside, sitting on cold, plastic chairs with flip-up desks, stomachs begin to grumble hungrily.

There are windows in the classroom. Four walls, of course. Two of them are half wall, up to my waist, other half window, up to the ceiling. A third wall is chalkboard, waist to ceiling. The fourth is wall. Wall and door.

I sit at the front, in the middle of the row. I like the front, in these classes. I can see her. She can see me, I suppose, if she wanted to. And I can’t see the movement, the whispers, behind me. I can hear them, though.

She’s tall. Stands up front in her high heels. She paces back and forth; stands on the right side of the classroom. My side. Stands on the left side of the classroom. I turn in my chair then, to see her. But of course, I could see her anyway, because I sit in the front row.

She stands in front of the board, writes on the board. She writes her thoughts, because she’s the teacher and is expected to have them, but she writes our thoughts more. I suppose that makes her different from most- in her class, we work together to remember, to understand, to learn.

She asks questions, of course. She stands up there in her high heels and her cardigan and she asks questions. It’s a rhythm, a pattern, that I know back and front now. She asks a question. Stands, pink lips pursed, looking over the right side- my side- and the left side. She looks for a hand to answer.

We all sit there in cold desk chairs, waiting for a hand. And meanwhile, her hand shakes, shakes, shakes the chalk.

Long fingers curled, she cups that little yellow stub of chalk and she shakes it in her palm. She looks around the room, waiting for a hand, welcoming a hand. Give it a moment and her eye brows raise, expectant, encouraging. Usually we don’t even get this far; someone’s already offered a response, an idea, a countering question.

And she points and she nods and she listens, and all the while, the chalk rolls gently back and forth in her curled hand.

In a morning class, a different class, we discussed role models. Someone said Abraham Lincoln. I wrote her name on my paper, instead. Then I thought about Abraham Lincoln, because maybe I should scratch out a teacher and write in a president. But I’ve never seen Abraham Lincoln shake the chalk in his hand while he listens to students learn. So I left her name on my list.

~Natalia

Now than Later

24 Feb 2013 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Moody Bible Institute, Teach, Words of Wisdom

I’m taking six classes this semester. I realized recently that I have not really told you about my classes, and that oversight may be rectified soon, but suffice it to say that there are six classes. Three of these classes pertain specifically to my major; for nine hours a week, I sit in a classroom while drab grey clouds scurry across the February sky, and I learn how to be a teacher.

I love those classes.

The other three classes, a history class, writing class, and an in-depth study of the Gospel of John, are all highly interesting classes. I study for them, read for them, attend them, and enjoy them. But they’re not education classes.

The advisor of the Elementary Education department teaches two of my classes. She’s a wise and experienced woman, who taught for various years in local Christian schools before becoming a professor. Her passion for teaching, and for training future teachers, is manifested in a wealth of knowledge about teaching methods, practices, and studies, and it’s a wonderful experience to learn to teach from a teacher that I so respect.

She said one day, quite early in the semester, that it’s okay to feel overwhelmed by the prospect of becoming a teacher. And this professor didn’t just say it’s okay; she teaches strong and authoritative, with sharp, gentle eyes that see a classroom well, and she kept talking. I’d rather you be overwhelmed now than be overwhelmed when Teacher is your official title, and you have a classroom with desks, and students to go with.

It’s better to be overwhelmed now, and learn as a result, than overwhelmed later, when the stakes are so much higher.

I was relieved to hear her words; I’ve been known to have moments wherein I marvel at my own audacity: Become a teacher? How could I possibly? I’ll never learn everything that I need to know in order to teach well. That’s Impossible. Becoming a teacher is already hard, overwhelming, stressful, and I’m not yet halfway through my studies. I’ll never make it.

But there’s a purpose to this occasionally-overwhelming load: we’re learning how to be teachers. And I made a chart of all my assignments for the rest of the semester, and there’s a touch of anxiety brewing inside, for things that aren’t due until April. But I know why we’re doing this, and reading chapters on developing lesson plans and discipline in the classroom, and teaching students with disabilities, sometimes is rather overwhelming. But how much better to be overwhelmed now than later.

And how exciting to become a teacher.

~Natalia

Wax Museum

22 Dec 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Bible, Church, God, Love, Teach

It’s a rare day that there aren’t extra hearts, visiting smiles, in this house, and one extra is three little girls running around. We’ve finished nails and I’m not fixing them anymore, so please just sit still for a moment more. But they’re off and ready to play again and the tall one, the neighbor child, has a list of games as long as my arm.

I nix Sardines and Freeze Dance and Hide and Go Seek. I shake my head to running around and an accident waiting to happen, but then she’s waving a hand in the air, freshly blue nails gleaming, and what about Wax Museum?

And suddenly, she’s not the third-grader anymore, I am. I’m nine years old and I’m nine years wise to know that this might be the best Sunday School class I’ll ever be in. It’s the best truly, but it’s so very different, too. Because we’re not sitting around a table, and this room is painted dark, painted Narnia.

There’s a pond in the corner with real water and Aslan’s on the wall, eyes bright because there’s glow in the dark paint and black lights on the ceiling will do that. It’s a fun classroom to be in, but I’ve been there during the week and the people make the class.

An older couple, his beard is long and white like her hair. He’s tall and she’s short, and nine years old there are few people I respect more in that church body. Third, fourth, fifth graders in that woodland magic classroom, and maybe I don’t remember the Bible lessons, but sometimes real life, real hearts, teach much more than a curriculum.

Because we sat in a circle by that tiny Narnian pond, and the buzzer passed around beeps faster and faster. Hold your breath, it buzzes on you; these teachers love the LORD and they adore the Word and do you know the verse? Because we’ve each got a stack of little yellow papers, so very many verses, and I’d rather be in this class than any other, but these two people of God take Him seriously and I’m motivated by their passion for Him because I want to know Him, too.

And they invite us over to their house for a movie; elementary school students packed into the TV room to watch. Pizza and soda and even their dog is excited. Because do you know the weight of value, the weight of worth, settling on third grade shoulders because these two, these two who led by serving, these two love us and we can feel it in everything they do?

They taught humility in action, respect in their own, love in every word and deed. We learned and we played and we trusted and we grew. And sometimes, at the end of class, we played Wax Museum in the dark, the strobe light flashing white over two faces whose love was tangible in that Narnia classroom.

~Natalia

Here to Learn

17 Dec 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in College, God, Grace, Grow, Teach

As wondering thoughts about what I would have done still linger in my head and my heart, I happened across this, written for Foundations of Education. And somehow, words I’d written weeks ago were a peace reminder right now. Because I don’t have to have all the answers now, or ever; God guides hearts and leads lives and provides just what His children need, in just the moment that they need it.

I’m twenty years old. Almost 21, actually.
Four years old when Jesus called my name,
and He’s been helping me follow Him ever since.
Fifth grade, sixth grade, I’ll be a teacher, I say.
The future is far away and I’m swimming in wiggle room.
Mind changed, fear rules cold. Teaching must be hard and I’m scared to try.

Ten years later, God’s will is stronger than fear,
stronger and safer, too,
and I’m going to be a teacher, now.
My steps are tentative yet steady;
God doesn’t place where He won’t use,
and I’m clinging to His faithfulness with every class, every assignment.

I’m not teaching yet- school exists for a reason,
and I’m here to be trained.
Read the books, soak in the information, and Lord, inadequacy feels so deep.
But calm my heart, still my fear,
and He returns me once more to where I stood before;
holding fast to Him, broken and parched for the grace He’s so merciful to give.
And pick me up, place me back on my feet, take another step, child.

Because there are people here to train me, to teach me how to teach.
I don’t know much, but I’m learning fast.
There are rules and regulations and methods and ways
and I underline books in pen because I need to know this.
I’m learning things that I’ll implement, things I must remember,
things that He’ll use in me, in my classroom…

~Natalia

Come, Lord Jesus

14 Dec 2012 4 Comments

by nataliaria in Hurt, Prayer, Teach

Sometimes I wonder what it will be like to be a teacher.

I like considering the future;

what grade I’ll teach,

what the classroom will be like,

what my students will say, think, do.

The possibility of being a teacher is taking on the tint of reality,

and I’ve come to like thinking, daydreaming, wondering.

But there’s a tragedy in Connecticut

and the very heart of God breaks

with the sorrow that has flooded our nation today.

And I’m still considering, still thinking about the future,

but I can’t stop wondering what I would have done.

There’s a whole world of hypotheticals

for the worst event that could ever happen to a teacher,

to a student, to a family.

But as much as I roll scenarios in my mind,

a future maybe is not what happened;

a this morning horrific is what happened.

Pray and pray and pray,

because there’s a classroom of sweet child hearts

who will never come to school again,

never learn again.

And a family that goes with every single one of those souls.

And I beg comfort over them,

and I hold Jesus courage against the wall of fear

descending all around.

But I wonder deep how did this even happen?

And Come, Lord Jesus never cried so real, so tangible,

until now.

~Natalia

Just a Note

04 Dec 2012 2 Comments

by nataliaria in Moody Bible Institute, Teach

I keep forgetting to tell people.

Like my parents, for example.

Or anyone really.

But I remembered today.

So everyone,

I want you to know

that I got a letter in the mail recently

that read:

We are happy to confirm your official acceptance

into the Elementary Education major

as a part of the Christian School Education program

at Moody Bible Institute.

So there you go,

now you know;

I’m that much closer to being a teacher.

And I’m really excited about it.

~Natalia

This is Your Time

30 Nov 2012 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Moody Bible Institute, Teach, Writing

Written for Foundations of Education

Teacher on one side, student on the other,
this isn’t an against and apart,
education is working together to learn, to uncover God’s mark in creation.
Education is teacher, student, parent, community,
together with the grace of God
running rich and deep over us all.
Each member has a part, has a role.

Teacher’s responsible to God, to students, to self.
Student’s responsible, too.
Responsible to God, responsible to teacher, responsible to self.
But I’m not sure if you understand, student.

You are so very blessed, student.

Homework is consuming and there’s more to life than school.
Relationships are complex and why is life so hard?
But, oh student. That is the joy of it all.
Look around- do you see where you are?
This place, this hall of education, is your training ground.

Do you understand, student?
This place of learning, where teachers bow before the Creator,
and God’s image in you and in those around you is recognized,
this is your training ground.

Oh, student. Don’t waste this, your education.
Days may drag, months are eternity,
but blink and you’ll be done and the real world comes hard and fast.
You are safe here, student.
Not safe from pain, not safe from hurt;
sin reeks everywhere humans breathe,
but you’re safe to try, safe to learn.

Now, student, now and never again in your life,
will you be in such a place.
Here are teachers, mentors, leaders, who teach you content,
test your skills, give you the tools you need to learn and grow,
and then step back and let you try.

So try, student. Try and then grow.
You’re not perfect, you’ll make mistakes,
but don’t you see? This is a place of grace!
The blood that dripped off the cross dripped for you just as much as your teacher,
as your fellow students,
and try now or you’ll only fall harder later.

This education is overflowing with the redemption work of Jesus,
so open your heart, open your hands, and allow Him to work.
Try things, learn lessons, step in faith;
now’s your chance, student.

The teacher who stands, who moves among your class,
is just as broken as you are.
Struggles you battle and why do I feel this way is not alone. Even as you learn, even as you do your best to glorify God
with every assignment you do, every project accomplished,
even as you do all that,
soften your heart, and allow God’s truth, God’s Word, to work hard on you.
It’s your responsibility to learn, student; it’s your job.

But the gospel was meant for imperfect people and legalism crushes hearts
and this is your time, student.

~Natalia

The Purpose of Education

19 Nov 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in College, Grace, Moody Bible Institute, Purpose, Teach

Written for my Foundations of Education class.

Why are we here? Why am I doing this?
Sit at a desk, stand besides a chalkboard,
it doesn’t matter what side you’re on
we all need purpose, we all need reason,
and what we have now just isn’t going to cut it anymore.

We’ve heard to get a job, and it’s just what we do,
but twelve years, add on four more,
five days a week, homework on the weekends,
all this that we do needs more reason than that.

Because wake up! Look around!
If the purpose of school is job,
and 50% of the schooled don’t even get jobs,
we’ve got a 50% reason to educate,
and that’s just not gonna cut it.
I’m going to need more reason than that.

So what’s the purpose, really?

Why are we doing all this? 

We do this- we educate, we are educated,
for the purpose of God’s glory.
Sit in that classroom, complete this worksheet.
Do that project, read this book,
learn these concepts for His glory.

Do these things, do learning, do education
so that His name rolls easily off the tongues of man.
So that His joy, His honor, becomes so real,
becomes so heavy upon us
that we can taste it.
Do it for His glory.

A purpose now, a reason to do what we’re called to do.
A deep-settling, rock-solid why to our what.
It feels good, feels secure, to have a reason, to have a purpose.
But yet, we need more.
His glory is enough.
That His majesty pour over our endeavors
until we’re drenched in awe of Him is enough.

But we need to know, I need to know, what it looks like.
What does educating to God’s glory look like?

It looks like grace. Looks like grace, and feels like grace, too.
There are strong academics in grace, but education that satisfies itself with performance
is no grace at all.
Grace is I do well, and you don’t, so I help you.
I come alongside, student to student, teacher to student, student to teacher,
grace smells powerfully of humility,
and tastes rich of friendship and help.

Now I’m the teacher and you’re the student.
I assigned homework and you turned it in late
and there are consequences, you know.
Grace doesn’t take away consequences,
someone pays every time grace rears its head,
but grace says I know your story,
I know your situation, and I choose to say “No” to legalism,
Grace says I know what the rules would have me give,
how the rules would have me respond,
but I choose different.

Grace says you can’t fix this, you can’t earn this.
You can’t work your way up to this, or buy this from me,
but you can have it.
Grace gives.
Grace gives until hearts extended run dark with sticky crimson;
grace gives until it bleeds.
Grace gives when it bleeds.

Grace isn’t teacher to student, boss to employee, instructor to pupil;
grace is the horrific price Jesus paid on the cross,
one death for the sins of all
and we’re all drowning in a gift we’re wretchedly short of deserving.
This is education that glorifies God.

~Natalia

This, His Will

16 Nov 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Casa Hogar, God, Grow, Kiddos, Longing, Mexico, Purpose, Sovereign, Teach

The following is the second part of my application to Moody’s Elementary Education program. The first part is entitled Why I’ll Teach.

The story of Casa Hogar, and the profound impact this orphanage has had on virtually every aspect of my life can hardly be overstated. I believe that God will continue to weave the Casa Hogar part of my tapestry, my story, for many years to come. Living with my family in central Mexico during my senior year of high school, we met and promptly fell in love with the children and directors of the Casa Hogar. Anywhere between 30 and 50 children who, for reasons as varied as the child, cannot live with their families. Abuse, neglect, abandon: these young hearts will forever bear the scars of the evil in this world. An evil they did not instigate and yet have no defenses against.

While no longer living in Mexico, my family maintained contact with the Casa Hogar, and with Manuel and Tere, the middle-aged couple entrusted with the care of these children. We visit when we can, a couple of weeks once a year devoted to sharing life with these precious individuals in Mexico. My first trip completely solo, July 2012 slipped by with the blink of an eye as I lived in Manuel and Tere’s home, spending almost every waking hour at the orphanage.

Even then, scant weeks ago, I clung to my children’s ministry title. I knew I loved working with children. I knew I would work with them. The pull of teaching, of education, tightened around me, but I fought; my heart swells and breaks alongside every broken hearted child whose hurt leaks into my own story, but surely I can’t teach, right?

My plane hasn’t been in Mexico for two hours when Tere pulls up the subject of English classes. You know English, she says with a smile as children’s voices ring out across the orphanage’s gravel courtyard. Will you teach English classes for these three weeks that you are here? I glance out the window, watching precious young ones zip past on their hand-me-down bikes, and then turn back to her.

Yes, I will teach them English classes.

Roughly mimicking techniques I’ve seen before, wracking my brain to remember how my own mother taught these children when she tutored them, I stumble my way through our English classes. The littlest students nail down their colors and basic greetings, while the older children, jr. high students by their own right, work through verb tenses and lists of verbs that we work together to create. We all make it through the three weeks, and I’m happy with the results of our time together, but something is gnawing inside me.

A lurking wondering, a gentle longing. I know what it is, but I’m scared to approach the question head on. Yet the thought will not go away, and finally, back in the United States, I am forced to deal with my unease head on: I’m a children’s ministry major, but my brief stint in the classroom in Mexico have stirred something in me.

I want to know how to teach. I want to learn how best to deal with a rowdy classroom. I want to understand how a young mind learns, what is the best way to explain a topic, how to structure a lesson plan.

Once I start thinking about it, I find I can’t stop. The tapestry grows and develops, and God gently and firmly continues to reveal to me my own heart. My own desire to teach. Clinging to His assurance that what I’m doing is right, that His faithfulness continues to the end of time, I take first one step towards elementary education, then another, my heart filling with His joy and His peace with every confirmation of this, His will.

~Natalia

Why I’ll Teach

20 Sep 2012 4 Comments

by nataliaria in Beauty, Casa Hogar, Church, God, Grow, Kiddos, Mexico, Moody Bible Institute, Swimming, Teach, Writing

I wrote the following last night, as a part of my application to the Elementary Education program at Moody.

Twelve years old, and it’s Sunday morning. From where I’m sitting in this basement sanctuary, I can see the front; the worship team, the pastor. I can see them, but they’re not all I see. Two rows up, three rows over, even to the very end of the sanctuary, I catch glimpses of the children of the church. Little ones, younger ones, that I’ve known for weeks, months, years. Little ones whose hearts and minds I’ve come to know and love.

An hour later, the service is over and I’m not in the aisle anymore, not seated on the blue padded chair anymore. I’m in the church lobby, a chubby toddler named Emma balanced on my young adolescent hip, her older sister, a lean kindergartener, clutching my hand.

Individuals my age are hard to come by in this church body, but that’s okay; I look up to the college students, relishing the time they spend investing in my life, and I spend my after-church community time where I most want to be: in the children’s classrooms. The adults in my life, starting with my parents, are showing me how to love, how to teach, how to train a heart, and I’m knee-deep in the practical application of the life lessons I’m soaking up from them.

I’m in the Sunday school room, playing and interacting as the children wait for their parents to come collect them. Balanced on a child sized chair, I listen to Isabelle tell me about her craft project, her frizzy braids bobbing up and down in her excitement. A pull on my hand and Elijah fights to capture my attention, his four-year-old cowlick sticking up rather comically from the top of his head. All around me, little ones, precious young ones, are growing and living and learning, and I’m head over heels in love with their hearts, their lives.

Twelve years old and people ask me what I’ll do when I grow up. I don’t know exactly, but something with kids, I tell them. I know it’ll be something with kids.

Years have passed, I may be older now, but my answer has not changed; something with kids. I attend Moody Bible Institute and list myself as a children’s ministry major; there are young ones, growing and developing hearts and minds, all over the world, and when I finish school, I’m going to minister to them. Minister to these children because that’s what I’ve felt called to all my life. That’s what has brought me the greatest joy. I know what I’ll do.

But slowly, another thought begins to take shape. An idea, a vague conviction, that’s been pulling at the back of my consciousness for years now.

The majority of the young ones I interact with daily are no longer church-raised children, but rather young individuals that I coach on the youth swim team, or fatherless children at an orphanage in central Mexico. Some of them have the Holy Spirit working in their hearts, some of them don’t, but they are still growing, still learning. Jesus in their hearts or not, someone is still teaching these children, training their minds, molding the way they think about the world, the other souls they interact with daily; molding the very way they see their Creator.

I’m still deeply entrenched in their lives and stories, I still love them with a love I now recognize only the Lord could give, but something pulls at my heart. These children, Christian or not, need someone to teach them. Their schools are teaching them facts and information, but they’re also teaching them so much more.

Day in, day out, the precious ones here are learning, learning because they are always watching. Watching teachers, watching role models, watching peers. They’re picking up on worldviews that come naturally; humanistic, individualistic ways of thinking, of living. They don’t know the names of the beliefs that they’re subconsciously making their own, but what is being taught explicitly and implicitly in their schools, whether Christian or otherwise, is affecting the way they see the world, the way they see everything.

There’s deep beauty in their own hearts. I didn’t know the word for it when I was 12, but I do now; it’s the image of God. These precious, God-created children bear the image of God in them. It’s what makes them, makes all individuals, beautiful and at the same time deeply tragic. Tragic because this image we bear is a scarred, marred image.

We’re fallen and need for the Redeemer to heal our hearts, to heal the way we think and see.

Does the way children are being taught the world over teach them to see the Redeemer? To see Him in their peers? In the creation we’re utterly surrounded by? In themselves?

I’m fallen and marred, too. I don’t always see the beauty, the Creator, as I should, but part of being a Redeemer is that He chooses to use individuals who are broken, who are marred, and yet who have chosen to serve Him. He chose me, I chose Him, and I choose education. Because these children, these students, need someone to show them the image of the One who made them; someone to show them, and to teach them to see Him everywhere.

~Natalia

Previous Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 195 other followers