Schooled. In a good way.

I began teaching Dani and Micah Wednesday morning. They are eight and six respectively. I’m teaching Micah first grade material and Dani is into a mix of third and forth grade work. They come trundling over to Shundel and I’s house each morning usually with Joggy (their dog) in tow. Yesterday they also brought their pet turtle Moses. But I digress. Teaching school well is loads different then doing school well. And while I could tell you lots of qualities that make a good teacher-consistency, knowledge, organizational skills, commitment to planning-knowing these qualities and living them are quite different things. It is Friday now, I’ve finished three days. It’s going relatively well despite my completely forgetting to use one of Micah’s books the first day, my flip flopping instructions, my forgetting that in first and fourth grade school still needs to be fun and listening to an “interesting” textbook is not fun. I’ve adjusted, cut down on the reading of “Streams of Civilization” and ramped up the “lets make an alphabet scroll just like the Egyptians!” I’ve started making a schedule; a “Daily Assignment” list like Mamma made for Zachri and I back when we were in first and fourth grade. I don’t know how my mother did what she did homeschooling us kids. I struggle making one days worth of an assignment sheet-she did it by the week-AND it was clear, challenging but not frustrating, AND we covered the material we needed to. School has always come pretty naturally to me; but I have also had the privilege of having good teachers. Teaching school isn’t coming naturally-but I still have had the privilege of having good teachers. Thank you to my teachers and most especially Mamma. I thank you now for the work it took to make it look seamless. I know now that it was work. I don’t know how you did taught me and made it fun at whatever level I was at.  My hope is that these kids, despite having me, will see glimpses of you my teachers and of the Master Teacher.