Faith

Any teacher who started teaching after about 2005 is going to have a difficult time understanding this, but at one time, teachers were judged on the amount of and times per use of glitter.  For real.  You see, back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, glitter glue did not exist.  Sure, you could buy it in craft stores, but you could not purchase it in quantities and prices that made it accessible for school use.  Listen to what I am saying.  There was no way to squirt out glue and glitter simultaneously.  If a teacher wanted students to have the ability to make their projects sparkly, he/she would have to allow them to pour out copious amounts of Elmer’s onto their paper and then give them a glitter shaker bottle and let them shake glitter all over the paper and the entire Earth.  The ability to allow this process to occur really separated teachers into two groups: teachers who used glitter, and teachers who did not use glitter.  I’m not sure that parents really knew of this divide, but students knew.  You could hear them in the hallway.  “That’s Mrs. Jones.  I really want her for third grade.  She’s the best.  She even lets you write your spelling words in glitter!”  Then you would hear, “My teacher is so mean.  We haven’t used glitter all year.  I don’t think she even has any glitter.”  I fell somewhere in the middle, but a little closer to the mean teacher, I’m afraid.  I did have glitter, but it did not come out of the cabinet very often.  And when it did come out, it was in a very controlled fashion.

As best I can recall, the glitter bottles were only available in 96 ounce sizes.  They were huge.  And the holes on the top were the size of quarters.  First grade hands could NOT control such an unwieldy vessel.  But I did try to bring the bottles out at Christmas.  I would allow my students to decorate at least one project with the dreaded glitter.  They could drown their papers with glue and then bring them to the back table, and then (and here’s the really bad part) I would sprinkle on the glitter.  We would place the projects near the heaters and six weeks later the glue puddles would finally be dry and they could take their projects home.  I will have to admit that this very Scrooge-like use of glitter put me on the teacher naughty list for sure.

So I am sure you are wondering what glitter has to do with faith.  To be quite honest, I am kind of having to remind myself this at this point.  I’m all caught up in memories of long ago Decembers in my first grade classroom.  Oh right, now I remember.  (Santa is probably putting Prevagen in my stocking this year.)  Control.  My problem with glitter was my inablity to control it.  Glitter goes everywhere.  The slightest movement sends it off in every direction.  It is impossible to retrieve once it has been released.  You will find it in the oddest places for the longest amount of time.  It will be inside the tiniest crevices and there is just nothing you can do about it.  I hated that.  I wanted to wrap Christmas up and put into neat little plastic bins before I left for Christmas break.  My classroom had to be set for January before I headed out after the Christmas party.  Snowflakes were hung from the ceiling.  Martin Luther King Jr. was on the bulletin board.  Glitter had no place.  I had control of that environment.  If there was something that I couldn’t control (i.e., glitter), I simply wouldn’t bring it into the environment.  Problem solved.

I loved things I could control back then.  I still do now, but I have learned to let go a little.  I had to learn the hard way, as most of us probably do.  Things happen that are beyond our ability to control.  Way beyond.  It is a terrible feeling, because we really want to do something to make it better.  I have always been a doer.  I want to change something to make it better.  Take something away or do something different or work a little harder.  That does not always work.  Sometimes the solution does not lie solely within us.

When times are very dark and the light at the end of the tunnel is not yet visible, faith holds our hand until we can see that speck of light in the distance.  For me, faith in God and faith in other people have held my hand a few dark times.  But I had to reach my hand out, and it was hard.  It was hard because I had to admit that the situation was beyond my control.  I also feel blessed, because I have reached my hand out and held onto someone until she could see the light.  I will never take that faith for granted, not my faith nor hers.  It is an unbelievable gift to trust when you cannot see.

P.S. I have learned a lot since the early 2000s and I do feel that I cheated my first graders out of some glittering experiences.  If any of you are reading this, please feel free to come to my house and I will let you glitter a project right at my kitchen table- with shaker glitter!  And I won’t even get out my Shop Vac until all four wheels of your car have pulled out of my driveway. (But I will be watching for that closely from my window.)