A Teacher's Prayer for the New School Year.

Please let me teach…

…without the PA screeching a most important announcement.

…without a student getting an early release.

…without a child who thinks they need to go to the health office, the bathroom, the water fountain, the vending machine (‘I’m starving!!’), the guidance office, the locker room, the phone to call ‘my mother.’

Please let me teach…

…the importance of thinking through a problem to a clear analysis with examples to support, written in a way that any reader can follow the thinking—especially someone who doesn’t know what is being talked about but also for someone who does and who will look for holes in their logic.

Please let me teach…

…the love of gently drifting into a story that haunts their days and keeps them up at night.

…the love of being dragged kicking and screaming into the storyworld and seeing life and the world through someone else’s eyes.

Please let me teach…

…real poetry that grabs their souls.

…real writing that is meaningful to their hearts.

Please let me teach without…

…fire alarms interrupting.

…loud, roving bands of unchecked students yelling in the hallway.

…equipment and technology breaking down.

…a bee holding us hostage until he finds the unscreened window again.

Please let me teach…

…the meaningful, the deep.

Please let me be.

Please let me teach without the teststeststests that frighten full grown intelligent educators and take our focus off the teachable moments and put our focus on CYA type methods.

Please let me educate, excite, motivate, embolden and challenge.

Please just let me teach.