Joy & Survival

I have now been student teaching for 4 weeks. 4 entire weeks! It's been exciting because every week I see myself improve, make connections between my experiences and classes I have taken previously, and build more and more significant relationships with the students I serve. The students have been particularly fun because I never expected to love these kids as much as I do. They are each so special!

When I first started this experience I was heartbroken because this job was nothing I expected and everything I didn't want. I have spent the last 5 1/2 years of my life just trying to survive school. I was humbled when I walked into my student teaching experience and was back in a place of survival. I deeply desire to do more than just survive, endure and "make it through". I am coming to a place in my life where there won't be tangible seasons any longer. I've always been able to make it through a certain class, a specific test, or endure a certain professor, even fight to finish an entire degree, but at no point did I think I would have to apply those skills to my career. The further I get into this experience, the more I know the Lord is confirming my steps. There have been pockets of joy scattered throughout my days at school, and I know that the Lord is the One who orchestrates them.

There is an entire 5th grade class who knows my name and always smile and wave at me in the hall. There are two "problem" boys who run to hug me every day before they go home and any opportunity they have before then. These same little boys trust me enough to raise their hands and ask for me by name whenever they need help. There is a little girl who I have only met one time while in the classroom of one of my students who drew me a picture that says "Ms. Nolte, I wish I had a teacher like you". There are kids at the bus line that fight over who gets to hold my hand on the way to the bus and talk over each other to tell me what the favorite parts of their day were. There is a little Hmong girl who brought me a Hmong lunch because "it taste good" and she wanted to share it with me. These are the moments that solidify my desire to stand in the gap for these kids. I am becoming a teacher so that I support these students when no one else does, and esteem them as they struggle to learn things that no one has taken the time to teach them well.

I am exhausted and overwhelmed by the crazy amounts of "homework" my cooperating teacher gives me each day, but there is joy amidst my survival and for that I am confident that the Lord is the One who prospers me.