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A thought hit me as I was pulling this devotion together. Kids are freer to be themselves when they feel safe. They sleep solidly when they feel safe. And they relax when they feel safe. Maybe the reason that kid always sleeps in your class is because he knows you’ll love him no matter what. Or maybe that kid who drives you nuts behaves that way because he is comfortable in his skin and safe in your class. Food for thought. Safety is an attractive comfort.

In our classrooms, while consequences matter, so do mercy and compassion. When we read the scripture today, think about how mercy and compassion accompany boundaries and consequences and seek to apply them into your daily interactions with students.

How we interact with our students matters. Empty threats, whole group punishments, and inconsistent rewards do not equal trust. Constantly changing our minds or vacillating on our yeses and noes creates chaos inside our classrooms. Like my professor, we should be respected by our students and trusted to speak kind, encouraging, and productive words. Our students need to know that we mean what we say and never question that reality.

One of the characteristics I love about God is his consistency. No matter how far I run or how much I mess up, he’s always there wooing me back to his heart. His love is unchanging and his words are always true. I feel safe with him because I never have to wonder about his love. He can never love me any more or any less than he does right now.

Our homes are the same. Creating places for items and processes for trash, dishes, and laundry help the house run smoothly. Schedules for meals, bedtimes, and wakeups help with consistency too. Procedures in the home provide security, comfort, and safety.

The same is true in our classrooms. Safety and love go hand in hand. One of the ways to create safety in the classroom is consistency. Teachers who are regularly in attendance and arrive on time provide comfort for students. Rules and discipline that are practiced fairly show consistency. Our speech and words impact the feeling of safety as do our actions or inactions. Having set procedures, routines, and jobs also adds to the safety of a classroom.

Like the National Cemetery, we often see loss after loss. There will be casualties, but they don’t have to happen on our watch. Let us pray for open hearts. Open eyes. Open hands. And open arms. Let us diligently seek the ones that might be lost to these cruelties of this dark world. And let’s protect these kids while we can; and stop the casualties of war.

None of the Jews were a mere statistic. And none of our students are either. Each life matters and even if assigned a number, that number will always have a face and name attached. Our students matter. They matter to their classmates. And our future. The way we teach could impact and change a kid for the rest of their life.

Back to my year of teaching, I vowed to help my students learn that life wasn’t about right and wrong choices; just choices with different consequences or rewards. On decisions of morality, we learned right and wrong, but answers in the classroom, I had to teach these students they were not defined by their answer choices. They each had a unique personality that could never be measured by a test. As teachers, we must be aware of this differentiation and teach our students to

In a politically correct world, teachers must be cautious, but we must also be creative. My students learned how to research, but they also learned that just because a teacher teaches something doesn’t mean they have to believe it. Every person has a right to believe as they choose.

While I am a huge fan of compulsory education, I’m not fond of the turn education has taken since this pioneering generation of settlers first began. Education is not a one-size fits all. Back then, it was a treasure and a privilege to learn how to read. Parents were thrilled when they had someone in their home who could read, write, and do math computations. We’ve somehow lost the wonder and excitement of literacy.

As teachers, sometimes our standard that measures success is off. In my book, Lenny made it. He achieved a huge goal by starting a business and offering mechanic services to people in our town. But as teachers, we often snub our noses at “menial” jobs like this. If our students don’t become doctors, lawyers, nurses, or scholars of some kind, they haven’t arrived. But that standard isn’t how we should measure the success of our students. Our students are more than numbers.

Do you see yourself in this list? Have you or do you struggle with these areas? Maybe it’s time to do some research and see if you are scatter brained or affected by ADD. Therapy and medication can help those adults who suffer from ADD. At times is can seem like you just can’t get a grip, but in reality, it could be a bigger problem that has fixable solutions.

I think of PTSD as anxiety on steroids. And it’s not just shootings or school violence that creates PTSD. Abuse. Stalkers. Prolonged mistreatment. Bullying. And anything our body and mind internalize as significant, fear-based stress. When an educator wrestles with PTSD, life could be perfectly normal in the classroom and one thing could trigger that teacher without warning. We just don’t know from day to day.

Bipolar does not disqualify us as educators, just like my ESOL teacher friend. Once she was properly medicated and received the correct treatment, she went back to the classroom as good as before. The problem arises when a bipolar person swings from one extreme to the next, possibly losing control of every emotion and strand attached to reality.

Many educators understand the hardship of anxiety. It’s a daily struggle to just show up, keep focused, and make it through the day without overanalyzing or worrying about every possible scenario that most likely would never happen but is certain happen because it could. Anxiety isn’t rational. And it’s not something people can just turn on and off. It’s like a member of the family that we wish would go away and never come back.

Depression is real. It’s real with educators and it’s real with our students. And no one is exempt. Even Christians. If any of this resonated, please do whatever is needed to get help.

Open with Prayer Opening Story : I’m one of those people who loved school. Even if there were occasional teachers I didn’t care for, the learning kept me coming back. I read all the time and often got in trouble for staying up too late with my flashlight under the sheets. Even when there was teasing, aggression, or meanness exhibited toward me by my peers, I plowed through without deep struggles. I navigated social settings with calmness and instinctively knew h

Our kids and family can absolutely overwhelm us sometimes. Maybe it’s not this exact scenario, but we are feeling the stress of trying to keep it all together. Being an educator in this society is hard enough, much less everything at home falling apart. How do we keep this out of our work life? How do we function day to day when we are literally only able to go through the motions?

And the thing about addiction is that we think we have it under control. What starts as an escape then forms a habit and eventually moves into something that we no longer control—it controls us. And when that happens, the addiction begins to impact everyone around. It can destroy whole families. And as a teacher, when someone in your home is addicted, it becomes so difficult separating homelife from work life.