How do i start this electronic correspondence? It surely is open-ended enough…The question was to write about Circle… At this present moment, (Tuesday January 22nd) one day after M.L.K. i sit in my classroom ready to take on the kids of North Philadelphia…I think about who and how and what kind of teacher i want to be? Is it a stern, strong, disciplinarian type…Ha ha…no thats not me…Is it the younger, more socially conscious, compassionate type…yeah sounds a little better…No what i want to be is a reflection of JESUS…I want to love my kids cause GOD loves me…and i want to reflect that love to them…Through the community at Circle with cell and the P.M’s and more importantly personal relationships with members of Circle i feel that i receive that love and am more reminded than ever that GOD IS LOVE AND LOVE IS REAL!!! This relationship spills over into my life with my kids…and my friends and family…I thank God for Circle…and its mission to display the love and compassion of Christ…I think we do an amazing job of it…especially for a bunch of broken down sinners like ourselves…So as one fallen person writing to the next i must be going on my way to educate the kiddies in the north ill-a-delph…Wherever this finds you i hope this finds you smiling…and in more realization of how blessed we are as a body of believers to have each other as a tangible representation of Jesus and his love for us….
Much love
Nicholas
Yo Brudda’
I definitely empathize with your struggle. I agree that I prefer the latter to former, however I have learned that because many of our students don’t tend to have a lot of structure, it becomes necessary for we who care for them to establish and maintain structure. This feels a little uncomfortable for some of us as we would like the students to be “free.” But I’m learning daily how much the students need the structure I bring them in order to feel safe.