Devotions for Teachers: Pressure

3 You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. 

James 1:3

If there’s one thing we can all agree upon in the teaching world, it’s that this path we’ve chosen comes with some pressure. That’s not to say that other career paths are pressure-free…I’m certain that emergency room doctors feel intense pressure at certain points in their day. Lawyers probably feel unsettling amounts of pressure to win a case for a client. But, teaching is unique in the sense that we always have this dull sense of pressure in the back of our minds. We don’t have a point where the case is over, the surgery is finished, and the pressure is released. We have this constant awareness that young lives are being shaped by us every day. They need us. They look up to us. Their lives will go on after they leave our rooms, and we will have made an impact on them, whether it’s for better or worse.

Layered on top of this constant nagging feeling that we’re being called to do some pretty important work is the surface-level, meaningless pressure from all of those with the upper-hand in the teaching world. Policy makers, politicians, textbook authors, stakeholders, parents, administrators, the list goes on. Another thing that makes teaching so unique is that everyone was touched by it at some point. Everyone feels like they have a good idea of how to best approach education because-heck-they were students once, after all! This leads to use hearing, year-after-year, month-after-month, day-after-day, that we’re just not doing it quite good enough. The nation’s scores aren’t where we want them to be, so let’s try some new standards. Ehhh…maybe we need some new programs? How about some new curriculum? What about some new methods? After a while, it starts to feel like maybe the world just wants some new teachers.

This kind of pressure really gets to me. I don’t like having my professionalism questioned. I got two degrees in this field so people would think I was good enough. If I had gotten two degrees in architecture, anthropologies, medicine, graphic design, you name it, I don’t think my aptitude would be questioned nearly as much as it has in eight years in this field. I don’t think I would be expected to shoulder so much of the blame for what wasn’t working. If the teachers have never been allowed to make choices for themselves, why are the teachers being held responsible for the poor scores??

So, what do we do? Especially as teachers of faith?

Control the Controllables. What can we control here? Our attitude. Easier said than done right? When you can’t control even an ounce of anything else happening in your professional life, it’s tough to decide that you’re just going to have a good attitude about it. But, at the same time, your attitude is the thing no one can take away, so we have to take ownership of it.

The pressure is an opportunity. This is loosely inspired by something my pastor said recently. When the pressure shows up, and life begins squeezing you, what comes out? Is it anger, bitterness, resentment? Or is it peace and a calm energy? What will make a bigger impact on those around you? Blending into the noise and rabble and constantly griping, or approaching things professionally, calmly, and peacefully, knowing that God’s got the stuff that really matters?

The pressure is an opportunity to help the world see how Christians are different. We’re calm and collected, even if the world is saying that the sky is falling. Think about David and Goliath, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, Mary when the Angel told her she would give birth to The King of Kings…people of faith don’t go into their rooms, shut the door, and simply gripe about how bad this is. They trust that at the end of the day, what really matters in life is already taken care of. We are given an opportunity to witness to others every day-not by preaching or speaking…but simply by living differently.

That’s not to say that the pressure isn’t real, and that some of the things piled on your plate aren’t ridiculous. I don’t want you to turn a blind eye-I want you to charge right in and marvel others with how peaceful you are. You know your life’s mission. You know you’re a child of the King and you have been specially designed to do this job. You don’t believe that some big wigs writing curriculum can change that, and with everything else they have control over, they can’t take your peace. They can’t control your attitude.

Teach with peace in your heart his week that you can control the controllables, and God has everything else. Treat your pressure as an opportunity to show others how life-changing God’s love can really be.