This is the time of the year when students of all ages face the reality of returning to school/home schooling. This prospect can be frightening for students. In many cases, we’ve been fed the notion that more will be expected of us during the coming school year. We can become overwhelmed as we look ahead.
Perhaps thoughts such as the following can ease the transition from summer vacation to the coming school year. First, getting the education that we need to find the Lord’s place for us in this world calls for the participation of many persons. STUDENTS: In spite of the competitive atmosphere that you encounter in our schools, you have a lot of people who are pulling for you, such as your parents, the principal, teachers, school staff persons, fellow parishioners, members of the communities in which we live and others. These persons want to help you to succeed in getting the education that you need. It is the Lord Who leads others to care about us as we develop. As we take this truth to heart, we will want to come to caring persons for help when we meet with hurdles in school. Acknowledging that we need the help and support that the Lord would offer to us through others is not a sign of weakness or inferiority, but of strength.
As students, let’s not overlook the opportunities that are present to help our fellow students. Sometimes, our classmates might be better equipped to help us when we get stuck than are our parents. For example, we and our parents might come up with the same correct answer to a math problem, but the way in which our parents arrived at the correct answer may differ much from the way in which our classmates and we are being taught to arrive at the same answer.
With the support that we receive and extend to one another, our Faith in the Lord calls on us to do our best in school/home schooling each day at a time. On the one hand, as we enter a new grade or step in school, we are not expected to master in the first month or two all that we are supposed to learn by the end of the school year. Worry results when we try to do too much at one time. On the other hand, it’s important not to put off to tomorrow what we can do today. If we put off studying until the time when a big test is near, we add a lot of needless stress to our lives.
As we return to school, let’s remember that we are not going to excel in all of the classes that we have to take. None of us are good at everything. On the one hand, as parents and as responsible adults, it is important that we encourage children and youth to put forth their best effort into every class that they have to take. At the same time,
It’s essential that we do not come down in a negative way on the youth entrusted to us as they discover that they can’t do as well as they would like to do in certain subjects or classes. As we as adults graciously accept ourselves with our own weaknesses and limitations, we will be able to accept this about the children entrusted to us. What we all need to experience as we face our limitations is that we are unconditionally loved and accepted for all that we are. We are all important because we are loved by the Lord.
It is in response to the love that the Lord offers to all of us that hopefully we will want to develop the skills and abilities entrusted to us for the good of all.
We come to discover our niche or the Lord’s place for ourselves in the Church and in the world in a growing awareness of both our strengths and our limitations in regard to relating to persons and in regard to relating to knowledge and information. This is one way of summing up the goal of the educational process in the light of our Faith. In this light, hopefully resuming the educational process in a formal and structured way will be seized as an opportunity to be embraced rather than as an ordeal to be endured.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Fr. Nelson Beaver – Pastor