The Grammar Lesson That Was So Much More

Many times I have found myself discouraged with my abilities, my talents, and who I am as a person. I have always struggled with having confidence and often believed the negative words that had been spoken over me.

After graduating from high school, an authority figure tried to talk me out of going to college. She said, "School wasn't my thing." I went through college, believing that someone would tell me I wasn't good enough. I thought every new experience was going to be the end of my college and teaching career. "This was going to be it; this would be the day they saw the real me. Today was when they would tell me I couldn't do it." Time after time, these reoccurring thoughts would fill my mind, but I still managed to take each step, until one day when my fear almost became a reality.

It was my first longterm field experience, and I was teaching grammar to a group of 30 sixth graders when I realized that I didn't even know or understand the topic I was teaching. I remember the way my body felt; my legs hurt, my temperature increased, and I started to shake. I looked at the 30 students and realized they were not at all understanding what I was teaching. How could I expect them to understand when I didn't even know what I was teaching? I looked to the back left side of the classroom at my 6-foot 7-inch male cooperating teacher. He was sitting on a stool, taking notes, and watching me teach. I felt as though his face was saying, "What are you doing? You are doing it all wrong!" My eyes started to swell with tears as I went to him and whispered (so the kids couldn't hear), "You can teach it. I'm done. You can go up there. I can't do this. I'm too dumb for this." At that moment, I felt I knew that this was IT; for sure, this time, this would be the moment I was done!

That's when he looked at me and said, "What? Get back up there!" I explained to him that I didn't even understand the concept and that he should just go back up there and finish the lesson so the kids would understand. I was expecting him to get up and go up there. He was responsible for this group of kids and making sure they learned. He would be accountable for their test grades, and I was teaching them wrong! He looked at me again and said, "Get your butt up there!"

Feeling super embarrassed and annoyed, I walked back to the front of the classroom. I finished teaching the entire lesson wrong, but I finished because he made me. The only thing he said to me after was, "You'll get it. I wouldn't know this stuff if I didn't have to teach it." I didn't believe him, but again I was wrong. I was still going, and that was not the day I would be DONE.

I am in my ninth year of teaching and working on my masters, and I often find myself thinking about that moment not just because it was embarrassing for me, but because of all that I learned in that one moment. When he sent me back up there, he taught me one of the biggest lessons I learned in my four years of college, to not give up. That single moment showed me that the one person who thought I was going to fail was only myself. He taught me that one failure doesn't ruin everything. He showed me how to not give up on someone. He let me go back up there and teach HIS students incorrectly. I gave them information that was totally and completely wrong, and he knew it was! It took me a long time to understand why he would do such a thing, but today I know. That grammar lesson wasn't for those 30 kids; it was for me.

"Be patient with me, God is Not Finished with me yet."