Filler Words

Well student teaching is flying by faster then a rocket ship and now I'm just about halfway done with my second placement! Teaching in a middle school definitely has its challenges but it is starting to grow on me, I think.

I have the opportunity to teach two sections of 6th grade health and I must say I love it! Teaching in a classroom with 4 walls, desks, and a chalkboard has such a calmness to it, which is reliving after having to constantly project my voice and blow my whistle just to be heard by the least rude students in P.E.

I just started a unit on the body systems which brings me back to my A&P, exercise phys. and bio-mechanics days! I have always known that the human body is amazing but after learning about the body from a teacher's perspective I just have to say that the design of the human body is simply AMAZING!! The intricate detail and design of the body starting from the teeny tiniest cell that make up a variety of body tissues all the way to how the body systems function together is brilliant. God is brilliant! I have always known that. I long for the opportunity to tell my students that. Teaching in a strictly "scientific" way can be smothering sometimes.

Trying to describe to my students how each system works and just how truly amazing each detail about the body is that God invented, without actually incorporating God into the lesson is a challenge bigger then behavior management. It feels like I talk with filler words, like I should tell them how it really is. Sometimes my lessons feel shallow and empty even though I know my students are learning something. I know that God gives me the words to say, I just hope that my students can see a glimpse of him through the words that I speak, even if it just a faint one.