Tiny Teaching Moments--The Beginning

I am officially a one-room-schoolhouse teacher. Praise God :)

Greetings Friends! I am sitting in the cutest of Clayton Georgia coffee shops (or perhaps the only coffee shop in a many mile radius) reflecting on the first few weeks of my teaching career. After many "holy smokes...what am I doing??" moments, I am beginning to see a glimpse of what this adventure might look like. For the last four years, as I spent my days pouring over books on creating an engaging classroom environment, differentiating instruction, reaching struggling readers, and countless other teaching "buzz words", never once did I anticipate living in Tiger, GA (a tiny town with fewer people than students at my high school) to serve and teach in a one room school house. God has a sense of humor.

The invitation to pray with this tiny, Catholic community about the possibility of starting a grade school with them fell on indifferent ears last April. I had many plans for my life in Cincinnati--a new teacher with a new exciting, independent life. Again...God has a sense of humor. I had worked at Covecrest during one of my college summers . My time there as a camp counselor was filled with great joy and amazing growth. It was a summer home to me, and a place that I looked upon with grateful affection during my college years. But that is all it was--a memory that would certainly fade with time. My "post-invite" visit to Covecrest after graduation was entirely selfish, and my hopes to reconnect with old friends and have some time away served as my primary motivation. Through a great deal of prayer, tears, more prayer, and more tears, I felt the quiet invitation and gentle tug. I had known, without a doubt, that I had been given the ardent desire to teach and to foster a heart-warming love for learning. And all along, God has been planning to cultivate that in a way that I could never have anticipated. 

I could not fathom it--was God calling me to move away from everyone that I love? Everything I wanted? All of the plans I had for myself? The answer came easily. Yes. Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the decision of the LORD that endures. -Proverbs 19:21. While my "YES" to this new job and new life certainly did not come as easy as recognizing what he wanted, I prayed for loving obedience. And he is faithful! 

I spent the summer in joyful planning as I prepared for what a one-room, two student (!), multi-age classroom might look like. Confused? Hold on...I will tell more about the interesting circumstances in just in a few :) I knew a great deal of work had to be done--desiging a curriculum and preparing to help renovate an old double-wide that served as a bunk house during the summer months. The countless dreams of what my future classroom would look, sound, and feel like, was taking on a new vision. How could my teaching experiences in inner-city Cinci schools (experiences which I have loved and treasured) transfer into a dream for this new, very different, classroom? I had countless questions, but never wavered in confidence that God would show me what to do.

 For those who are unfamiliar with the mission of Covecrest, it is a small Catholic lay community that resides in Tiger, Georgia. Covecrest is a summer camp for part of the year, and serves as a conference/retreat center during the rest of the year. The community is made up of families and young adults that desire to live in community and serve the greater mission of Life Teen (lifeteen.com). All who have visited/lived/worked/prayed here can attest to the "holy grounds"--a place where prayers seem to be lifted up with a certain ease and, I am quite confident, a place where God is forming saints. The families that live here have prayed for many years that education would be a part of this mission--and out of these prayers has blossomed a beautiful Montessori preschool that has been up and running for the last few years. This school has come to be a place of growth, learning, and love for not only the children who live at Covecrest, but also children from neighboring communities. I have come here to begin the next stage of learning for the lovely children of Covecrest. Right next to the Montessori school is now the elementary school--my new haven :)  Hense the two students. This school is the beginning of, God willing, a place for future learning of the students of the Montessori school.


For those of you who are perhaps interested, this blog will serve as a way to share with you the moments that make this teaching experience one of great joy. I am not so interested in sharing detailed descriptions of my thoughts on teaching and learning, or any teaching wisdom I have gained (for I fear that I am still quite new to all of this!). But rather, as the name suggests, I would like to share the tiny teaching moments that reconnect me with why I have chosen this profession--this calling. These moments, the ones where I step back and say WOW, are the ones that I hope will form me as the the type of teacher that I would love to be. The type of teacher who treasures moments shared with her students--the small moments that reaffirm my convictions that great learning happens where great relationships flourish...thanks Dr. Knestrict ;)  So here goes. Here are my tiny teaching moments at a tiny, lovely school. How fitting that we are called Little Way Primary School!