Ahhhh....Middle Schoolers.....

I've been working with the Middle School girls as their P.E. teacher this year. I can't believe I'm doing this. I thought Mrs. Wise and Doc Brown were crazy when making us take Teaching PE, telling us that we may have to use it one day. Us? Elementary Teachers? Use PE? Well, here in Christian school land, they sometimes hire people who aren't necessarily qualified to teach the subject they are teaching. We have a PE teacher also teaching 6th Grade English and we have me, a 5th grade teacher also teaching PE. The REAL PE teacher can't teach my PE class, he's a guy and they are girls.
All that to say, I don't really know all of what I'm doing. Praise the Lord for giving me brothers and for giving me the desire to play recreational sports and to pay attention in gym class throughout my years. It's amazing at how many things I can remember from Gym, the rules to games, and my experiences with those games. I wouldn't EVER consider myself an athlete, but more often than not, I have this longing, deep inside me, to play basketball or to be the first one to volunteer to play volleyball.
What I DON'T know how to do is deal with middle school girls' attitudes. The eye rolling, the talking back, the talking while I'm talking. It's very hard to get a gym quiet with 26 girls in a big open space. I'm really trying to demand respect, but it's hard. It's hard because I care what they think of me. I care that they like me. I know, I know. In the world of teaching, I SHOULDN'T care, but I do. I want them to come to me for advice and to ask questions. I tend to see the wrong actions of one particular person, and call her out on it all the time. She tells me that everyone else was doing the same exact thing. I KNOW she knows better. I know both of her parents fairly well. I know she can do better. AND, when I go about correcting her, I KNOW she knows how to respond. But...she doesn't. How do I go about correcting in love when the attitude I receive in speech is less than honorable? I know the things I say to her now she'll remember. I remember what my teachers said to me. My words are chisels, working to construct a beautiful child of God. It all depends on where I put that chisel and how hard I throw the hammer and if I am going to add to the beauty or destroy God's work of art.