Sunday, September 09, 2012

Open Line Friday

I'm back facing that familiar double-edged sword that many teachers encounter at this time of year: one blade is intense excitement over the progress made in these early stages, and the other is a flat-out fatigue.

For those of you who might not be aware of the Teacher September-Syndrome, it hits many of us and stays until our bodies can adapt to the pattern (and at my age it gets a bit longer each year).  The adrenaline rush of teaching and the gung-ho schedule drive a teacher to such a weary state that the face-in-the-dinner-plate position is not unfamiliar to members of said teacher's family.

Ah, but the rewards in the classroom!  P has gone from a flat-out 'F' to a fighting' 'C', and I see him grasping the concepts of the Godhead and the truths of the Bible.  L has learned to take his eyes off himself and work as a team and I see him taking notes that are actually legible...he's trying.

Then there is M, who is a step short of stunned by the Bible.  It's not an emotional excitement I see, but a sit-up-straight electrified intensity at most every word on the PowerPoint.  She is locked in on the target.  

Friday was Q & A time - I call it Open Line Friday, where I take questions from the students.  Queries ranged from the subject of angels to questions of how would a person get saved if he never heard the Gospel.  The questions were all intense.  So was the listening.

More to write later, but let me just say that this group of classes has a great potential.