Fab Feb - Fellowship

My first day of teaching
(probably the last photo of me with my natural hair colour)

❌Fitness

✅Free of alcohol

✅Fellowship with Friends

✅Fond (and not so fond) memories

In my mind, fellowship is an old-fashioned word for Youth Group. Yet, below that superficial meaning ingrained in me, is a deeper meaning that reflects the strong ties people have due to aligned goals and/or interests. Yes, I know there are other meanings and uses of fellowship, but not part of what I'm talking about today.

Fellowship describes the bonds I have with the people at lunch today. My first teaching job was at a Christian school where fellowship occurred in a structured way as part of our jobs but also naturally, due to our shared genuine care for young people and wanting to do the best in our jobs. But more than that, it was because we were there for one another and supported each other. As time went on, there was an increasing gap between the yes-men at the top of the hierarchy and the rest of us, which was made tolerable through true fellowship.

When I was brand new, I remember every time Lisa passed by me she would ask how I was going and mean it. One day my response ended up with me in the photocopier room in the love and care of Lisa and Rose so I could have a mini meltdown (it was the only room available without a toilet where students' eyes couldn't peer in). 

I remember going back to the staffroom one afternoon, sitting in a slump and being supported by Jane. One day I was involved in a car accident on the way to work and her husband, who also worked at the school, helped me out with a "Don't worry, I'll take care of it" and I knew he would, and he did. It was a sad day when he left this world, a heart attack took this beautiful man with a huge heart. 

I remember two young male teachers in my first staffroom working their butts off to have camp ready for Year 9 and 10 by Week 7 of Term 1 and I swore I would never do that job and I never have. They were immensely encouraging and generous with their precious time. One of these young men has just started this year as Head of History at a highly prestigious school in Sydney and the other is a Principal at a school in the Hunter Valley. 

I remember a couple of years later sharing a small staffroom with Margaret and Janet. One day I received an email which felt like a slap in the face from a manager I had respected over a situation where I thought I had been doing all the right things and I burst into tears, sobbed actually. Margaret rang him up and gave him a piece of her mind and he came down to apologise for not thinking properly before sending the email. I remember Janet and I trying to support a younger teacher, new to the school, battle her way through trying times. I remember Anne counselling my children through their own difficult times as students in the school. 

I remember the female music teachers being maligned by leadership because they weren't as hip as their male electric guitar-playing counterpart, who was also a nice guy. It wasn't his fault. 

I remember sharing a room with Debbie at my first school camp as a teacher and helping me out of a dire situation by supplying me with Imodium. I've taken some to every school camp since. 

I also remember my first encounter with the person who was assigned as my mentor and her eccentricity freaking me out a little. Little did I know at the time, it was her way as an introvert of coping with the approaching onslaught of 100s of daily interactions with students and fellow teachers. She was soon dropped as my mentor because someone else naturally filled the role but not long after, a friendship started and has lasted to be one of my nearest and dearest friendships today, fifteen years later.

Nine of us gathered today, sharing food and history and an appreciation for the time we were colleagues together, coping with the increasingly difficult demands placed on us at that school. We can mostly laugh about it, now we have moved onto happier places, but we agreed we miss the fellowship that we had there and have yet to find to the same strength elsewhere.