School is back in session. Are you ready Plant City?
As I write this, I think back to the days when my children began school. As any parent can understand, they are days of mixed emotions. I was glad to see them headed off to school after a long summer, but I also realized I was getting a bit older as they advanced to each grade level.
Now, I watch as two of my children, who are educators in Hillsborough County, go through the same rituals of stocking up on school supplies. This time it is for their classrooms. There is so much excitement as school begins. So much anticipation!
Often I hear people talking about teachers, and how “simple” they have things today from when we were kids. But watching my kids and the teachers who are a part of my congregation, I don’t think they have it so easy today. In fact, I’d say it is harder with all the technologies and gadgets to be a teacher today than it was 30 or 40 years ago.
Granted, these devices aid in our kids’ educational formations and provide immeasurable assistance in research, but they also have a way of detracting from education. Sadly, many kids today have failed to spell correctly because all they have to do is hit spell check or grammar check, and instantly their mistakes are corrected.
Don’t know the answer to the problem? Google it.
So many kids spend hours and hours on their phones and tablets that they can forget how to communicate and be social with their peers and those in authority whom God has placed over them.
Let’s face it, our teachers put up with a lot on a daily basis and they need our support.
Did you know that our Plant City Chamber of Commerce hosts a breakfast for the nearly 200 new teachers in our community every year? What an awesome way to welcome these new educators in our community.
But our community support for our teachers, those with 20 or 30 years and those just starting their teaching careers, must continue throughout the school year. Just as students need encouragement every now and then, so do our teachers. Don’t hesitate to say, “thank you,” during the school year and give some words of encouragement to your child’s teacher. Don’t just tell your child’s teacher that you are praying for them this school year, pray for them right then and there. Go ahead, make their day!
As so many seek to keep Christ out of the classroom, we who know what a great and powerful God we have, know He is present everywhere, and that there is no way in the world anyone can keep Him out of any classroom. So let us not lose hope, but press on all the more. Let us not be ashamed of the Gospel but gladly live it out at home and at school.
As we start this new school year, let us do it in the name and power of our Lord who joins us together and will bless this school year — parents, students, teachers, administrators and staff included — with abundant blessings that know no bounds.
The Rev. Dean R. Pfeffer is the senior pastor at Hope Lutheran Church, Plant City. For more, email him at hopepcpastor@gmail.com.