S4: E106 What's Next

Season Four
Episode 106
What's Next

If you listened to any of the reflection episodes that I shared recently - episodes 101-105 to be more specific - you heard me share some ways to reflect on different areas of your life - virtual teaching, summer, focusing on today only, your mental/physical/emotional health, and what’s ahead for fall.  Reflection is important because it helps us see where we’ve been, where we are, and where we want to go.  I’ve finished teaching for this school year and this coming week at work we are finishing the school year out with teacher inservice meetings.  What’s next is several weeks of summer to take time to rest like we might not have ever done before.  Never before have I had a summer that is so wide open with literally not a single item on the calendar - except one possible short trip with my parents, but even that could change depending on what the CDC and the states decide.  Even over this past weekend I struggled internally so much with relaxing - with doing so little and not getting something accomplished.  I told my husband that I really had to work to relax.  Maybe you’re the same way.  This time that’s ahead of us for summer is the most amazing opportunity to rest.  And that might be hard.  I’m concerned about how to prepare for fall when there’s so many uncertainties and I want to figure it all out, but I really have no direction or idea of exactly where to begin.  And I think for me the first thing I need to do is not do anything.  To take some time - even as little as a few days or a week or several weeks - to allow myself to just be.  

So as far as what’s next - I don’t know.  A bit of a letdown - for me and for you if you were hoping I had an answer to solve anything becuase I really wish I had the answer.  But truly - I don’t know. Depending on what I’m reading, where my head space is, and how I’m handling the stresses around me (and all of these things seem to change day to day) I can be either entirely optimistic, uncertain about everything, or convinced that we’re doomed.  What’s next for me really comes down to how I can use my past experiences to encourage myself (and others) and how I can put my faith into practice.  I think doing these two things can help me keep my head in the right mindspace.

1. We’ve never faced anything like this in terms of virtual teaching or considering possiblities for music education in the fall without any real idea of what the year might look like- what ensemble rehearsals, grade level performances, choirs/band/orchestra/general music performances will look like - but we’ve faced other things in the past and come out better, different, or stronger

What are the things you’ve figured out in the past that aren’t the most ideal, but gave your students something instead of nothing?  That allowed you to teach music in new ways?  That allowed you Things like rehearsals in a cafeteria during a lunchtime of grade levels who are eating and talking.  Things like figuring out how to teach content and plan PTA nightly meetings when you don’t know how many of your students will actually be able to be there to perform.  Things like having a less than ideal schedule, but finding creative ways to make it work.  Figuring out how to use the materials and instruments you have with students.  Teaching on carts.  Inside other classrooms.  In portables.  In tight spaces and wide open spaces.  We’ve taught in it all.  We’ve made it work.  It hasn’t always been ideal, but we’ve done what we could.  

This isn’t anything new - we’re just seeing a different side that is a challenge in a new way.  Literally we create miracles every day and we’ll continue to do it.  Will it be hard?  Yes.  Will it be worth it?  Yes.  Why do we do what we do?  Because we know the importance of music education in the lives of all of our students.

One of the things that’s been hard for me is that I know what it feels like to be in the classroom with students and what we’re able to do.  And I now have experience teaching through Zoom, creating videos for students to watch and participate with, and assigning lessons using online resources.  It’s been a challenge to create musical experiences the way that I feel are beneficial and impactful for my students and fulfilling for me as an educator.  It is important for me - and likely for you - to realize that music experiences and classes may not look the way we want them to look for a little while, but that whatever we are able to offer our students is meaningful and worthwhile.  And to find ways to do that.  When we return to the classrooms I’m believing that it’s going to be even more fulfilling than it ever was because I now have context for what it has felt like to teach in a completely different way and I miss so much of what was.  Until then it’s helpful to do what we can with what we have where we are.  And then let it be.

Personal difficulties

This applies to our personal lives as well.  Sometimes I only see the obstacles and challenges where I am and I forget how far I’ve come.  We can all likely think of something that was hard in the past that we never thought would work out or that made us question whether we were truly made to be an educator and what it’d be like to do something else - something easier.  Or that set us back and we wondered how we’d ever get back to ‘normal’ again.

Resigning during my third year of teaching

• Traveled on a mission trip to Thailand, drove 18 hours to TX, three days later began new job in new place… my only friends moved back to Michigan

• Principal Mike Savage  - 4 weeks of personal leave

Double Foot Surgery - 3 months after Riley was born I began acid foot treatments.  Plantar warts.  9 months after Riley was born in February 2008 I had double foot surgery.

2.  Putting my faith to practice

It’s easy to say what I believe, but living it out is always the bigger reflection of what I believe.  Faith with action has more weight.  And it makes a bigger impact inside of us when we truly live out what we believe.  One of the ways that we can put our faith into action is simply being - not doing.  Sound counterintuitive to think of doing something with action by actually just being, but it’s important that we realize that when we believe in Jesus that His death on that cross secured our salvation and our healing and our right standing with him.  He did the work and took on our sin.  He simply asks us to believe and trust in Him - not ourselves and our good works.  But in what He did for us.

Our community group at church has been doing a devotional about the Beatitudes from the book of Matthew.  One of the chapters focuses on hungering and thirsting for righteousness.  And in it is one of the stories that always speaks to me - because I see so much of myself in Martha and how much I desire to be more like Mary.

The story is in Luke 10:38-42.  

The author of the bible study, Kay Arthur, writes that “If we want to increase your hunger and thirst for righteousness, you need to pursue one thing: to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship or His sufferings and to become conformed to His death” - this is taken from Philippians 3:10.  

I love control and I have spent so much time trying to figure out what’s going to happen in the fall, how I can prepare for all the things and how I can fix it all.  Instead I need to do some next steps that likely don’t look like anything that I would typically do.

So what’s next?  Taking time to rest.  Taking time to reflect.  Taking time to do nothing except binge watch some new shows and play with your kids.  Take time off social media.  Do something outside of your teaching job that is fulfilling in a different way.  Let the work rest.  Let your mind rest.  Remember that you’ve been through harder things and remember that God is in control.  Spend time in prayer, and trust, and simply being with God.  We can trust that He will take care of us and that it will all work out for our good.  I encourage you to ask questions about your faith in this time and ask me questions about my faith if you’re interested.  I also encourage you to remember what you’ve already survived in your life and how you’ve overcome hard things before.  And to trust that in this season that you’ll get through it stronger and better than before it.  Because we always do.  Take care friends!