First Day of School....

I've been going through a bit of a funk lately, especially after getting back my student's AP English scores from this past year. I don't want to go into it, but the pass rate was miserable. In the teens.

So, obviously this means that I'm a horrible teacher. The administrators aren't saying that, of course, but I kind of feel that they're thinking it. So that made me go into a bit of a tailspin, questioning and doubting my cause, my purpose and in general, feeling pretty darn worthless, especially from a vocational standpoint. I mean, I'm hired to do something and I can't do it. And it wasn't like I didn't try. I just...didn't.

So that has been hard. And last night before the first day of school, I spent a lot of time praying. In my small group, we're watching this sermon series from LifeChurch.tv, called the Life Development Plan. The pastor, Craig Groeschel, talked about how everyone arrives somewhere, but not everyone arrives somewhere on purpose. I have been thinking a lot, as I approach my 30th birthday, what my life is all about. What am I supposed to do? Are there "good" things that I've been devoting myself to? Are those things preventing me from doing something "great?" What does that even mean, to be great? I want my life to matter. In the Bible, they talk about is God's glory. In the Hebrew, the word "glory" could also be translated into this idea of having "weight." God is heavy. You know when He's around. He impacts you. I want to be a person who has weight. One of those people who walk into a room and make a difference.

So I tried something different with my junior class. It's one of my tougher classes to get through to. The first day of school is nothing but taking role, and teachers handing out green sheets, which is basically a list of class expectations and rules and policies, which looks identical to the list of every other teacher's list of expectations and rules and policies. It's stunningly boring.

By third period, the kids were already looking brow-beaten. The came in, and sat down. The bell rang, and I quickly took role.

"Are you going to pass out a green sheet," one of the more conscientious kids asked.

"We're going to do something different," I said. "Follow me."

I then walked out the door and led 32 kids outside. Out back, behind our school, we had these 32 small temporary buildings called "the lower portables." I say temporarily in the same way that Fidel Castro is temporary. They've been behind our school since 1982. Well, this past summer they got bulldozed as part of our renovation plan. I mean, they were levelled. That area is now just a big dirt hole, about the size of a football field. So I took my third period class out to the fence surrounding the construction area.

"Okay," I said. "Quick question. What used to be out here?"

"Portables," someone said.

"That's right," I said. "Is there anyone new here to this school? Anyone who this is their first day of school here?"

A girl in the side raised her hand. She looked like one of the stars from Laguna Beach. Bleached hair. Trendy skirt.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Sam," she said.

"Can someone tell Sam what those portables were like," I said.

"Oh man," said one hyper kid named Michael, a white kid with dyed black hair styled up like a punk-rock star. "They were freezing in the morning because they didn't have heaters and then in the afternoon, you'd fry."

"And they had those nasty curtains that smelled," a girl named Yessina added.

"Someone told me that water got under the floor and there was all this mold, and that's why it smelled," a tall kid named Kenny said.

"And they were dusty," someone said.

"And there were cockroaches," a girl said.

Everyone groaned a bit in disgust.

"That's true," I said. "How many of you liked those portables, liked having class in them?"

No one raised their hands.

"Let me tell you," I began. "The reason I am a teacher is because my experience in high school was a lot like those portables. It was ugly, and dirty and nasty and not a whole lot of fun. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. For some of you, school isn't a really fun place. It's a place where you go to, because if you didn't the police would come to your house, but truth be told, you don't enjoy it. It's not fun. You don't learn. And sometimes, you feel as though the teachers don't even believe in you.

Some of you have had teachers that have gone out of their way to let you know that they think you're stupid. And you suffered for an entire year, just sitting in your desk, wasting hour after hour.

Some of you hate English. You dread it more than anything because you're terrified that someone is going to ask you to read something out loud, and then everyone will hear that you don't read super well. English might not even be your first language. There might be another language people in your famiyl speak at home, and sometimes, English is hard. Maybe really hard. So you've never liked it. Some of you, you've never even read one whole book your entire life.

Here's what I want to do. I want to tear down those portables. I want to rip out those old conceptions of what school is, what English is, what a classroom is, and I want to build a new building. That's what I'm committed to. A new kind of English class. Where you learn, and want to read, and we talk and we debate and you think and you know that when you say something, everyone in the class is listening and everyone is interested.

I want to tear down those portables. They're smelly and stinky and it's about time someone came in with a bulldozer, anyway.

But I'm going to need your help. You see, tearing something down is a lot of work. You know how much a foot of concrete that's one and a half inches thick weighs? Almost 20 pounds. That's 12 by 12 by 1.5. Think how big an entire wall is. And this whole yard was filled with dump trucks. Thousands of pounds.

So you need to do two things this year. That's all. Just two things. Let me tell you what they are.

First off, you need to respect me. I'm the teacher. There are things I know that you don't know. That doesn't make me better - because there are things you know that I don't know - it just means that I'm in charge. It's my job to run this class. Just like it's a head coach's job to get the football team to win. So if I tell you to run, you run. And you don't complain. And you don't whine. Because if I tell you to run, it's for a good reason. Because if we don't run, we don't win. I'm committed to you. I need the same level of respect back from you.

But there's one more thing you have to do. And this is a lot more important than respecting me. You decide not to respect me, I can deal with that. I'm not that caught up in myself. But there's one thing that will just set me off. Make me go ballistic. And that's if you decide not to respect yourself.

You decide to not respect yourself, I will be up in your grill faster than you can think. If I start to hear you say things like, "I can't do that," that tells me you don't respect your own intellectual ability, and I'll be all over you. If you say something like, "I don't want to do that," that means that you have settled for mediocrity, and have decided that your academic potential isn't a goal worth reaching for." And I will not accept that. And if you start to slack off, and decide not to do your work, I'll know that's a sign of a person who put having fun as a higher priority than their own knowledge. And I won't accept that.

I will not accept you behaving in a way that diminishes your full potential. And if I see those attitudes, the second they pop up, I'm going to be playing whack-a-mole. I take you too seriously to let you look at yourself and see anything less than greatness. That doesn't mean getting As. It means doing the best you can. It means taking what you have and going as far with it as you possibly can."

The class stood in a circle, looking at me.

"Look at that field," I said, pointing to the area. "Right now, it's just dirt. But when you leave my class next spring, there will be something built there. And at the end of your junior year - this is what I commit to you - we will have built something, too. In your minds. In your character. In your ability to think, reason, debate, discuss and get along as a community."

I turned to Michael.

"There. That's my green sheet."

"That was a good green sheet," he said, patting me on the shoulder. "But I'm a bit concerned about what your tests are going to be like. We don't have to drive any heavy machinery, do we?"

And that...is why I teach.