Safe Zone vs. Faith Zone

Every Monday I get up a little earlier than most days and meet with a group of my friends at the Sun Valley Cafe. This week our Pastor invited all of our Mens groups, or anyone looking for a group, to meet at our central campus in Weddington. His message was on leaving the safe zone and entering the faith zone. As I sat their and listened to this message I drew an analogy to our profession. Sometimes we teach in the safe zone, sometimes we teach in the faith zone, and sometimes we teach in the danger zone, (another message, another day).

When I say we teach in the faith zone, I'm not saying we expect divine intervention in our lesson plans. What I am saying is that we have faith in ourselves, faith in the curriculum staff and faith in the leadership of our grade levels, of our school, of our district, and of our state. When we can all committ to a common goal and a common way to get to that goal, we call it faith and sometimes faithfulness. With faith, their is no fate. We have faith that what we are doing will lead to what we want. Think about it without faith in the way we educated children in a formal system of schooling where would we be. Here's an example, not long ago we believed that only men should be educated, furthermore only white men. We committed, through faith, that this was an injustice and as teachers we did something about it, becasue we committed to it. Now, in the United States we educate every person regardless of income, gender, ethnicity, etc. etc.

When I say we teach in the safe zone, I'm saying we are comfortable. I do my lesson plans, I come to work, pack my lunch, grade my papers, pull out last years test, and move on to another day. We are safe, affraid to try a new program, affraid to abandon one of our old lesson plans. We are safe in our routine, what time we teach reading, what time we do word work, changing that would challenge our sense of security. I think of Linus and his security blanket.

I am committed, through faith, to making our students, our school and our teachers successful. I have faith that this will happen. When we add up all of our faith, we create a powerful force. Never doubt that power, committ yourself to the mission of this school. I'm already beginning to see the great things that this committment can do for our students.

Faithfully,

Mike