ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL
An Open Letter to School Administrators, Teachers and Students
September 3, 2019
I felt the air of excitement, dressed in a new shirt and freshly ironed slacks this morning. It was an air of excitement that I've felt many, many times in the beginning of September. It's an air of excitement and anticipation, mixed with just a touch of nervousness. But it's a fresh air that fills my lungs and it energizes and youthens me. But this air of excitement exhaled with a rush when I realized that my car wasn't taking me to a school this morning, but rather, along the same mundane, ordinary paths it travels everyday.
Teachers, cherish the role you play in helping to form minds and bodies and hearts and spirits and souls. Cherish those who will sit in front of you for the next 180 days, whether they be intelligent or don't get it the first time (or maybe even the second or third time), shy or off the wall, cooperative or challenging, whether their feet hardly reach the floor while sitting in their desks, or whether your neck aches at the end of the day from straining to look up at them. Cherish who you are and who they are - all God's children - loved and gifted for some special purpose that right now is God's secret.
And students, let the same excitement and newness you feel today stay with you everyday throughout the school year. Remember, you are not just learning facts, equations and concepts to pass a test. You are learning lessons that no book can contain, that no teacher can explain, that no PowerPoint can make clearer. You are learning lessons for a lifetime . . . no - so much more than that - lessons that reach far beyond this lifetime and into eternity.
So administrators, teachers and students, realize how lucky . . . no - how blessed you are. Perhaps through the fatigue, disappointment, hard work, challenges, successes and failures you might face this year you won't appreciate it all, but someday you will. Like I do. You're SO lucky and I am SO envious.
