I AM THE TEACHER

Lecrae lyrics start blaring through my phone around 6:30 in the morning. I turn over and look at the phone and hit the snooze button. 9 minutes later my phone starts singing again as I reach to turn it off and put my feet on the floor of the 3rd story room I recently call home. I am not a morning person, I think to myself as I make my way to brush my teeth and get ready for my first day of school. This the first day of school is something that I've done many times around 23 times in my school career but this one is unique. For the first time my role had changed. For the first 22 times I had done a first day of schools a student, a role I'm pretty comfortable playing. But this time I am the teacher. I AM THE TEACHER. Sometime between the teeth brushing, grabbing a cardigan, and straightening my hair I think that hit me. I AM THE TEACHER. Double check my handy teacher bag: lesson plan ✓ laptop ✓ my Book ✓ water bottle✓ raise the roof for my students, myself, and my team ✓ . Mr. Li has arrived and honks the horn to take us to school. Breath and head out the door.

We arrive at school and there is a flood of Chinese students making their way to class. Our team talks in the van about our general excitement, nerves, and emotions. Breath, I AM THE TEACHER, breath, maintain communication with Him, tell myself again I AM THE TEACHER. Walk into the office, put my bag down, read over my lesson plan again, and walk out the office door.  

I put one foot into the door of the classroom, smile and breath I think to myself, as I look up I'm greeted by beautiful Chinese faces. My students, or at least the first group of them, the ones I'm anxious to know and teach and learn from. I put my lesson plan on the desk and am greeted by the class monitor. She introduces herself to me and hands me an attendance book. SCORE!!! This is huge I think to myself, this is not a given in a Chinese classroom and I'm super thankful to be given such a great resource so early in the semester. (I know, I know my friends who have never taught in China may think this is no biggie but here its never a given.) I make sure to receive the book with two hands and quickly open it, and realize I've hit the goldmine of a TEFL classroom. I have an attendance sheet on the first day of class with ENGLISH NAMES in it!!! 

I begin to take roll because well I AM THE TEACHER and thats what teacher's do. I make my way through my lesson plan, I introduce myself, learn about my students, introduce the course, and get them talking in English. Now don't misunderstand me here it was a first day lesson plan of a new teacher it had some pauses (thankfully no major ones) and I'm pretty confident that none of my students left that class speaking flawless English.

I am not perfect and I do not have any awesome gift of implanting a difficult language into brains effortless but I AM THE TEACHER and sometime during that first 2 hour class I was met with the reality of what a privilege that is. I am not a teacher because I posses a lot of great teaching skill, knowledge, or even because I happened to be born in a country that speaks English. I AM THEIR TEACHER because this is where I have been called, to teach an incredibly difficult language that I happen to call my native tongue to students who upon entering college may have never met a foreigner or only had English classes taught  mostly in Chinese. To use the gift, that I rarely see as a gift, to be able to live in another country and experience more of the Father's beautiful creation and get to know those who are also made in His image. My students aren't actually mine, I only see them for 2-4 hours a week, they don't look like me, and the chances that we would even ever meet were slim without some serious intervention, they have unique personalities and interest and I get the privilege of helping them learn English while getting to know them for the unique, beautifully created, loved individual they are. I AM THEIR TEACHER but I am also still learning.