deep and wide

Sometimes I wonder why I didn't get a degree in something that would land me a job that paid the big bucks. I loved numbers, algebra, and problem-solving growing up. Why didn't I go into business or engineering? I love people. I could have been a physical therapist or a nurse. 

Why did I spend four years passionate about a profession that 8 out of 10 people think is a joke? I feel as though I'll spend half of my career defending health & physical education and the other half actually teaching kids about it. But I read a tweet from Lecrae the other day and I remembered exactly why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place...

"Fight for depth in life, not just breadth. What good is it to be a million miles wide but only an inch deep?"

I realized that while professional athletes make more money in a year than I'll probably make in my entire life...they're busy getting wide. They reach hundreds of thousands of people, yes. The majority of whom they will never meet. Strangers have their names written on jerseys and pictures and Facebook cover photos.

Engineers create buildings and ideas that will reach and accommodate thousands of people as well. Businessmen deal with numbers and clients on a shallow basis. Dentists and doctors put up with you when they have to, but usually they have 10 other people to see in the next hour. "...a million miles wide..."

On the other hand, teachers go deep. They care and mentor and encourage and love more than you can ever imagine. Sometimes they're so busy being moms and dads for students they hardly have time to be a parent for their own children. They believe in students who don't even know what it's like to have someone cheer them on in this tough thing called life. 

When I started teaching I was prepared to explain to my students how to throw and catch. I could handle teaching kids how to skip and gallop and juggle. When I started teaching high schoolers I was even prepared to teach them how to play flag football and what BEEF stands for when shooting a basketball. What I wasn't prepared for was how to console a student whose mom died after a 13 year battle with cancer. I didn't know how to treat 16 year old girls who had been beaten and abandoned. And I certainly couldn't help girls so lost in self-esteem issues when I have struggled so much with that myself.

Yes, college prepared me to teach health and physical education. But it wasn't so great at preparing me to teach students. 

So as I lay in my bed at 9pm on a Friday night, so exhausted from a week of teaching, I am realizing that teaching is so much than that. It's about caring and loving and praying, really praying, for you students. It's about going deep.