Vocation

"The doctrine of vocation is Luther’s theology of the Christian life. It has to do with how Christians are to live in the world, how they exercise their faith, and how their ordinary lives are charged with meaning.

More specifically, vocation addresses how God works through human beings. He gives us our daily bread through the vocation of farmers, millers, and bakers. He protects us by means of the governing authorities. He grants healing by means of the medical vocations. He creates works of beauty by working through artists and musicians. He creates new life and cares for children by means of mothers and fathers.

God is at work in all of the people who do things for us—the ones who built our houses, made our clothing, prepared our food, picked up our trash, designed the technology that we enjoy, worked in the factories to manufacture what we need, gave us services to make our lives easier—and He is at work through us. Luther goes so far as to say that vocation is a “mask of God,” that behind the server in the restaurant who brings us our food, behind the shopkeeper, behind the business executive, and behind us in the things that we do for others, God Himself is hidden.

Luther writes, “What else is all our work to God— whether in the fields, in the garden, in the city, in the house, in war, or in government—but just such a child’s performance, by which He wants to give His gifts in the fields, at home, and everywhere else? These are the masks of God, behind which He wants to remain concealed and do all things. . . . He could give children without using men and women. But He does not want to do this. Instead, He joins man and woman so that it appears to be the work of man and woman, and yet He does it under the cover of such masks. . . . God gives all good gifts; but . . . you must work and thus give God good cause and a mask” (Commentary on Psalm 147; Luther’s Works 14:114 AE)."

http://witness.lcms.org/pages/wPage.asp?ContentID=814&IssueID=47

I am on a mission.  I may not have my vocation as wife anymore or my vocation as mother, but I do have my vocation as a teacher. Behind my mask God is working though me to bring His love and joy of our human brains and our capacity to learn to children who live in poverty.  These children have so many needs and so many things wrong with their lives.  They don't feel safe.  They don't have food.  They don't have homes.  They don't have books.  They don't have real conversations with adults who care about them.

My district sends them to Kindergarten now and gives them all the drill and kill and none of the joy of education and school.  This last year they did not get recess, PE, or library.  I liken it to starvation and a killing of the magic of reading, writing, mathematics, art, music, science and social studies.  Gone are the days of hands on realia.  They get "intercession",  phonics, phonemic awareness, and math(by the numbers).

After thirteen years of KG I moved to 1st grade because I could not handle, physically or mentally, the rigor( and abuse) of 2 and a half hour kindergarten.  (Hey got to be able to pee sometime!)

In my 2nd year of 1st grade I am getting the first group of these deprived kindergartners.  I am putting the "fun" back in school!  We are painting, making applesauce, cutting and pasting, glittering, and reading good literature.

My vocation is not only to teach them to read and do math but to experience the full joy and excitement of using their God given brains to explore the world around them

Learning is fun and teaches perseverance and how to live in this world.  It breaks down generational poverty and opens the world to all students!  It is the hope that God has given us through His son Jesus Christ.  

God created us to use our brains.  He did not make stupid people.  He made us in His image.

My vocation is to teach.