10 Commandments to Working in a Hostile Environment

I absolutly love this book! It is written by T.D. Jakes. Every Christian should read it!  Unfortunately I've worked in many "hostile" environments and the stress that comes along with that coupled with the stress of teaching period, sent me over the edge. A friend of mine in another school recommended I read this book. I read it a couple of years ago and it changed my life.The commandments are as follows...

1- Know that you are anointed for the job position that you hold.
This is one that I struggled with for a long time. God has truly blessed me with creativity and talent. But since I am a minority I've heard too many times "she only got the job because she's black". In the four schools I've taught in, I've heard it at at least three of them. After reading this book I realized that God had blessed me with what it takes to teach children and those qualities had gotten me the job... not my skin color.

2- Don't expect to be appreciated.
Teachers are already underappreciated as it is... this allowed me to refocus my energy into what my calling was and stopped dwelling on the fact that I live in a society where teachers are undervalued.

3- Embrace opportunties for change.
This was huge for me... I thought I would DIE a second grade teacher... but here I am in the fourth school of my career teaching third grade.

4- Do the job well while remembering the vision.

5- Don;t let the environment get inside of you.
I have to remember that "greater is he that is in me, then he that is in the world." 1John4:4

6- Increase your capacity to work with difficult personalities.
Lord knows I've had plently of opportunities to do this! And I must say, the more tolerance I have for people like this, the better I feel inside.

7- Where you are is not where you're going.

8- Achieve optimal results with minimal confusion.

9- Do not pledge alligence to cliques and groups.
This is huge! With my newest teaching assignment I have chosen to seperate myself from the negativity that can come with cliques. This is why I do NOT eat in the teacher's lounge at school and try to keep socializing about nonwork related items to a minimum.

10- Always keep your song near you.
I took this literally... I have a collection of inspirational and gospel music in my classroom. Before school, during lunch and resource and after school I love to listen to my music.

Don't get me wrong... I'm cordial with everyone and I can laugh and joke with the best of them. But at the end of the day I have to remember my purpose and my purpose is to teach those children to the best of my ability and I don't have for anything that is going to interfere with that.

Valentine's Day Scrapbook

I got this idea online a couple of years ago and finally was able to do it with my class last year. I took five pieces of construction paper (white, purple, pink, red, white) one stack for each child and bound them together on the binding machine. First I had each child decorate their scrapbook cover anyway they wanted. Then I gave each child a sheet of valentine headers copied on green construction paper. The students cut apart the headers and glued one header on each page. Then the students read through their cards and taped/glued them on the page where they thought they belonged. At the end they had a nice cute scrapbook to go home and show their parents!

cover of scrapbook

inside of scrapbook

inside of scrapbook

students working

students working

What do your students do with their Valentine Cards?