Strength Enough

God gives us always strength enough,

and sense enough,

for everything he wants us to do.

-John Ruskin

I've been praying for strength recently. We're going into the last few months of school, and all the turmoil that goes with them. I'm going to need whatever strength God can give me! Today we started the state testing for math, and it was a mad rush throughout the day, and the feeling of constantly putting out fires. It's a feeling I usually try to avoid, as I like to be prepared before things actually start happening, but it's not always possible to be as prepared as I would like. Since testing involves working with a number of other teachers and paras and their schedules, I cannot always require them to work on my (preplanned) schedule, nor can I plan ahead for sickness and people being home. Needless to say, I'm tired, and I was ready to unwind with yoga class tonight.

I'm counting on God to provide strength for me in these last few months of school, as we go through what seems to be endless testing for No Child Left Behind (and No Teacher Left Standing!), and then the district testing on top of that, plus all of the "fun" field trips and learning experiences that make up the end of the year. I'm going to need a lot of strength (and patience), because I'm already feeling pretty frustrated with the fact that we've practically stopped teaching at this point. Between district and state testing, and the aforementioned "fun" activities, we might as well pack up our classrooms and put away the text books. Pretty sad, huh?