Apparently, my personality type craves change, and I guess that's true in some ways-- I'm in a calling where my clientele change every nine months and I have some freedom about the way I do things and the materials I work with-- but there are some things I like to stay the same.
One of those things, for me, is my classroom.
I love my classroom.
I love the way the sun pours through the windows in the mornings-- I know it's done battle for me on days when sadness would want to wrestle me to the ground.
I love the sound of the band practicing outside my window in the fall-- I love to watch the kids playing in the yard before they get on the buses. It reminds me. It reminds me that these big boys and girls who swagger down the hallway and puff their chests out when being told to be quiet are really children still, and that expression leaks out of them still at the end of a day where they have been confined to cold, hard spaces. It reminds me that they are not widgets. I love to hear them scream with laughter.
I love the old brown chalkboard that Don and I found behind the ratty old whiteboard that had been drilled over it for who knows how many years? It's perfectly chocolate brown with no blemishes...except this one area where now-graduated students have left their marks-- my name in Mandarin or in fancy script, or a "your favorite student" note, or a joke. I have a graduation gown hung over that area in my room-- to protect the message, but also to serve as a reminder to students that this gown is what they're working for. That day that they walk across the stage-- that's the first of many finish lines.
I love the old school (literally) wooden closet at the front of the room. It's crammed full of things I might need one day: a small fan, a box of construction paper, a couple of my old winter coats, an old Agnes Scott sweatshirt, an umbrella, and boxes of just...things. Taped inside my door is a poster that I made a bunch of my students sign, many years ago that says, "When I die, I want the people I did group projects with to lower me into my grave so they can let me down one last time."I love the solid wood cabinets and shelves, pulled from the pile of old cabinets and shelves at a school being remodeled in Decatur by my old department head, Dr. Jackson. I love that they were rescued by her and how heavy they are and how real they are. They have gone with me to three classrooms at HHS. Solid old school (again, literally) furniture.
I love my furniture. I love the flexibility I have with the stools and chairs and the design of the tables. I love that my students get to sit on padded seats when they get to my room. I love that they can sit on four different types of chairs.
But mostly, it's this sunlight pouring through the windows.
I just walked in to the room, back from a meeting, earlier this morning and I thought to myself, I hope my classroom doesn't get moved next year. Being in this space has lifted my soul when so many things have threatened my peace over the last few years.
And do you know what that God of mine whispered to my heart as soon as I though it?
"Don't you think I can fill any space you're in with enough sunlight to fill your heart?"
Sigh. He is so good.
