~from the really great teachers~

I have found myself upon God's mighty anvil many times in this life of mine. 
Sometimes it hurts.  
Always it's for the best.

This life of ours is one of constant refinement and for me one thing is surely for certain.

The good Lord above is not nearly finished up with me yet.

I may have been a teacher for nearly 4 decades but that surely doesn't mean that I know everything there is to know about it all.  Life as an educator has been a most interesting one with never one of the those proverbial "dull moments".  Things change constantly, especially in the world of technology.  I've always found myself a step or two behind in that regard.  All I can say is this.

Thank goodness for kids!

I've never used the piece of technology called a "smart board" before.  I have seen them in plenty of classrooms in the past 5 years but just never had one of my own to use.  This year I do have one and although I knew that they could really help to enhance a lesson, my technology phobia started to rise each time I thought about using one.  Little by little I am getting better at it but every once in a while a little glitch will pop up and that's when I rely on the "spirit of youth" to come to my assistance.  It happened just yesterday.

The interactive board wasn't doing what it was supposed to for some reason.  Little weird things kept showing up on the screen.  No matter what I tried to do, I could not get them to go away.  I'm sure that I must have had a look of desperation upon my face.  That's when one of my students came to the rescue.

"Mrs. Renfro, it looks like you need to do a little calibration on your board right now.

The puzzled look on my face gave way to my lack of knowledge as to what in the world she meant.

"Don't worry.  I'll get it for you."

And with the touch of her finger, she did just that.

Lessons in humility are ones that I tend to learn the most from.  I'm always teaching the kids life lessons but yesterday the life lesson was taught to me.  I started out my career in the land of the mimeograph machine, a now antiquated method of running off copies for classroom use.  I admit that I am nearly 60 but in my own vain defense I started teaching at the END of the mimeograph era.  It looked something like this.

Now those were the "good old days" and we never even knew it.  Mimeographing was a messy process and one that usually always left your hands with blue ink all over them.  One thing I do remember about using them was that teachers were generally way more choosy about what kind of a worksheet they thought students should have.  I'm guessing that students in 1979 did not see nearly as many worksheets given to them as students do today.  I've never been a fan of putting yet another piece of paper down in front of a kid.  I think that is partly due to the way I began.

I hope to have two more years after this one to find myself in the classroom.  The year that I celebrate my 62nd birthday will undoubtedly be my last one.  40 years in the field of education is my goal and one that I pray to attain.  In the 2 1/2 years that remain, I am sure that I'll be learning even more things that I do not know.  More than likely that knowledge will come from the really great teachers.

Kids.

5 years ago seems like such a long, long time.  It was the year that I only thought I was ready to retire.  (Avenue A Elementary School at Hutchinson, Kansas 2009-2010 school year)