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A New Journey

http://www.jdbeam.com/images/sized/images/uploads/project_images/RTHS_-_Front_Entrance_1-320x210.jpgThere are only 3 more weeks of school. I can hardly believe it. The cyclical nature of academia is something I have adored since I was tiny. I might have been in the 3rd or 4th grade when I started to really look forward to the first day of school, and then in May, looked forward to the last. As I got older, the cycle became my life, a stable force of anticipation and expectation on both ends.

Sometimes I wonder what it is about teaching that I love so much. I know for sure that I love the kids, especially these high school kids, but I also know that I love the idea and reality of teaching, too. The idea of "imparting knowledge," "creating lifetime learners," sounds so impossible that I want to know how to make it possible. Learning and teaching are such organic processes and sure the basic ideas of learning and cognition remain somewhat the same, but as new generations of children grow up, the world around them changes and so learning and teaching must change. I think that this, too, is cyclical in a sense, and I want to be part of that cycle.

In the fall I'll be on a new journey, leaving the teaching and learning home that has been a 7-days-a-week part of my life for ten years. It's a strange sensation, and yet an exciting one. I have been so blessed to have been part of a ministry that is on the brink of incredible things. I truly believe that great things are happening there. And yet I also know that God has called me to this next journey, to join the faculty at a new school, just up the road, to become part of what He has called me to do through this thing we call education.

It's not a decision I took lightly, nor one I made without prayer and consideration for so many things and people. It is a decision that I've fought over and cried over, sat and stared at a wall for hours over, I've talked with people I trust. I am so grateful to all who have walked and talked and served and loved with me the last 10 years. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow as a follower of Christ and as an educator. I am grateful for the mentoring I've received and for the opportunities I've had to pour into the students around me. I can only hope that I've made a fraction of the impact the students and faculty and administration have made on me. It was a hard decision to make.

In the end, it comes down to this: God called. And so I go. Onto a new journey, an unknown yet exciting one, one that I step into with fear and trepidation, and yet still with anticipation and expectation.


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