As schools are starting back, you're on my heart a lot right now. Whether you are walking into a public school or private school, you're headed back to the front lines of a battle you haven't been prepared for.
You're prepared to teach--I don't mean that's the battle. You know your material, you have your curriculum, and you've been trained in all the methods of classroom management. For that matter, teachers are required to get more hours of professional development each year than many of the health professionals I know. You know your subject matter. You've spent hours figuring out 3 different ways to understand something so that you can walk into a classroom and teach it...usually 5 different ways. You are more than prepared for the education side of your job.
But that's not why you're on my heart. That's not your main battle.
The battlefield you walk onto every morning is the one on which the battle for the souls of our children are being fought, and I don't know that there's enough training in the world to prepare you fully for that fight.
You are facing landmines of apathy and disrespect, fiery darts of anger and ignorance. You have agreed to teach children in a world that is pushing everyday to take childhood away. They are exposed to lies and evil at every turn, even in the kid's shows that are supposed to be "safe" for them. They have had their innocence stolen, and they've been pushed to think that innocence was a bad thing, anyway.
You are fighting against social media, where worth and meaning are determined by "likes" and clicks, to instill in the kids in your care a sense of self-worth, a sense of dignity based on the fact that they are made in the image of the Almighty God. But while you're trying to show them how they have inherent worth, the world is telling them that they should change their entire identity, that if they feel awkward and out of place--two feelings inherent to the adolescent experience--then they must have been born in the wrong body. While you are trying to teach them to take responsibility for their own decisions and actions, the world is telling them that ever choice they make is simply the result of all the things that have happened to them in their lives, things out of their control, and that means they have excuses for every poor decision and wrong choice. While you are trying to get them to learn to pay attention, to have an attention span greater than that of the average goldfish, you are being told by the "experts" in education that you should change your instructional method to match their non-existent focus. While you are trying to teach them that hard work and doing your best is what matters in life, every other message being pushed at them says that those are "old fashioned" concepts at best, racist and bigoted at worst.
You are being told all the time to keep your beliefs to yourself, to just sit down and shut up with all those old ideas. You are told that you can't talk about your beliefs with students (totally wrong and unconstitutional, by the way). You are told to keep your faith out of your work, that the values our nation has honored up until about 5 seconds ago are hateful and unloving.
You are in a battle against a world that has taken pride--something regularly condemned and warned against in Scripture--and turned it into something to be celebrated. A world that has decided that God's truth isn't really true after all, a world that teaches our children to "live your truth" and "follow your heart" instead of acknowledging that there is an ultimate Truth outside of anything any one of us thinks or believes.
You are in a battle that drains you on a daily basis. I know your heart; I know you are in this fight because you have been called by God to take a stand for these kids. My prayer is that you will have the strength and courage to stand firmly in your faith. I pray you will be bold, that you will in all ways at all times be willing to be a defender of the faith, a mighty warrior for God. I pray you will love these kids enough to want the best for them, which means expecting the best out of them, no matter who is standing against you in that.
I pray you will take the time each morning to put on the armor of God so that you are ready for the day's fight. I pray you will practice the Fruit of the Spirit with the kids who have been entrusted to you, and that when you don't have the strength to be patient... or joyful... that you will feel God's strength. I pray you will stay the course and keep fighting, even when you feel like you're fighting on your own or that the battle is too hard, and I pray that you will be given glimpses of what your fight is accomplishing in the hearts and minds of the kids you teach.
Hang in there. Keep fighting the good fight.
