*Ding, ding, ding* What on earth? *Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, dong, ding* Good lord….
I awoke from my slumber to the high pitched ding of a xylophone. Yes, it’s 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and it sounds like the opening to Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You, coming from downstairs- but the tune is definitely not as good.
“Shoosh!” I hiss from my bed.
The high pitched dings continue.
“Shoosh!”
A singular *Ding*
“Be quiet!” I raise my voice slightly, but not enough to wake everyone (hopefully).
Quiet. Stillness. Peace.
*Dong*
Insides beginning to boil.
It could only be one person that would be playing a xylophone this early in the morning. It could only be one child, that when met with repeated hisses and shooshes, would counter those warnings with one final ding and then a adamant dong.
My son, Isaac.
Since the ship of sleep has officially sailed into the distance, I put on my robe and make my way downstairs to the living room. Sure enough, there he is sat on the couch with the xylophone (twice his size, now mind you) resting against the couch. His grin says it all. My stern face begins to soften.
Gee-whiz, this kid can drive me nuts sometimes, but he’s some cute.
“Isaac, can you please not play that first thing on Saturday morning, everyone is in bed?”
“Okay, dad,” he replies. “I didn’t mean to.”
So begins another Saturday morning at The Eason Clan house.
Kind Students
I love being a teacher.
Sure, we get summers off and like every holiday as well – but for our mental state, and your Childs (if you have anyone in school) we ALL need it. School can be quite taxing, but man is it worthwhile.
I had spent seven years as a dispatcher for the police, a challenging, yet rewarding career. Now I’ve been on a new chapter for a while, in my fourth year teaching – and I love it. I have my own classroom now, decorated to my style and personality. My classroom is filled with students who are going to be leaders someday, and I have awesome coworkers and friends.
Here a two awesome things that happened recently.
The first thing happened a few weeks ago, when a student of mine told me that they were making a comic for me. I was taken aback. Yes, I’ve had students make me pictures of Vision (a Marvel superhero) in my classroom, and now another student was going to draw me a comic. Pretty cool, hey? Well, when I received the comic on my desk, I was officially turned into a comic book hero!
My superhero name? “HISTOR-E”
Like “History” and “Eason” put together. Yes indeed, I have a textbook symbol on my chest, and an anchor–shaped emblem on my forehead (representing our school, Anchor Academy). In my very first issue of the comic, I was fighting a mad robot, with beams of light shooting from my eyeballs.
It’s special when you know a student cares about what you like.
Every morning, I make it a point to say “Good morning” to students when they first come into school and as they walk down the halls. I do my best to say their name as well. I find it more personal when someone says my name because it makes me feel like they care. So I take a lesson from Jesus – Do onto others.
On a totally separate note, I don’t understand some peoples logic when as a teacher, I make a mistake by saying something incorrectly or not knowing some random math fact, and their response is “And this is from a teacher?” or “Some teacher, eh?” or more all-time favourite dig, “Those who can’t do, teach.”
It’s ironic really. One of the most influential roles in our society – one that can be so positive or very negative for a student – is a teacher. It’s the same as police officers. The amount of negativity I heard when I worked for the police, about how they’re “Never in the right place when you need them” or “Yeah, your not going to do nothing, are ya? Some good my tax dollars are.”
I guess for some foolish people, if they don’t physically see what happens behind the scenes, their short-sighted assumptions become concrete fact and reality in their eyes.
Whether it’s the police officer who isn’t coming to deal with your land dispute, who is instead dealing with a domestic assault; or the teacher who doesn’t teach well, who actually spent two hours the night before correcting assignments – we all could use some sprinkles of grace and a heavy pinch of humbleness.
Regardless of critics though, nothing can beat walking down the hall, and saying to a student, ‘Morning __________, how are you doing?” and having that student reply, “Great, and how about you, Mr. Eason?” Ah, you’ve just invested in my career just a little bit more – you just showed me that you also care.
Have a wonderful week.
Christian
The Eason Clan 