Hanging on When Everything Changes
My family is in a state of great transition.
I went back to teaching after three years at home. As a result, I brought my kids to school with me. This is my son’s 2nd year of school (first grade), so he had to switch schools. That has been tough. This is my daughter’s first year of school ever (kindergarten). So, that has been a different kind of tough. And, because I’m working full-time outside of the home again, the baby had to go to full-time daycare. That part has been the absolute hardest.
Lots of transition.
I’ll be honest with you, nothing about this transition has been easy. There have been more days where I have woken up and asked myself if I made a big mistake than not. I was feeling lonely at home. I genuinely missed teaching, and I was sure that this would feel like a good fit once I got into it. But, so much has changed about education. The things that I missed feel like they have been stripped away and replaced with things for the worse.
Going back to teaching after three years at home is not like getting back on a bike, which is something many teachers told me. I thought I’d hop right back up on that bike and keep riding, like I never missed a day.
But instead, I climbed up on some kind of foreign bike with pedals and gears that didn’t work the way I remembered. And, to make it worse, the road the bike is on is completely unfamiliar. I don’t recognize what I’m doing or where I’m going.
And I’m not sure if I like it. I know I still like teaching, if I strip away the bureaucracy and red tape. But, that’s almost impossible to do right now.
I know that the act of teaching children something that they did not know before is still who I am at my core. But, is that enough to keep me in it? I’m not sure anymore.
I’ve had a bit of an identity crisis over this entire idea. Who am I, if I’m not a teacher? What will I do with my life? What is my retirement plan if I don’t stay in education? How do I keep my sanity with this transition swirling around me? My family’s life has changed drastically with my choice to return to work, but on top of that, my work life is an ever-changing landscape. I don’t feel like I can keep my head above water, at least not for long.
So, what am I left with?
“3 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears[a] we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”
Who I am is a Child of God. What I do here on Earth may change, or maybe it won’t. But my identity is not in crisis.
As our careers shift and change, one thing remains steady: we are God’s and He is ours. Life will keep changing. Teaching will keep changing. Not all of those changes will be for the better. But, God is good, and He has chosen us. If we choose to stay teachers, and we stick out the revolving door of policies and programs, our identities will not falter. Because school does not dictate who we are.
This week, if you are heading into another week of struggling to remember why you started this career in the first place, I propose two things for all of us:
1.) Let’s start our days in prayer and scripture. Let’s remember who we really are. We are not our work. We are more than that.
2.) Let’s end our days in prayer and scripture. I highly recommend the app Lectio365 for both mornings and evenings.
I need to remember to separate my identity from my job daily. It helps me to serve my school, rather than be a slave to it. I pray the same for each of you.
Happy teaching, everyone.
XOXO, Stephanie