Tonya Click, A Teacher Going Home

Tonya Click, A Teacher Going Home

“What nobler employment, or more valuable to
the state, than that of the woman who instructs
the rising generation.” Marcus Tullius Cicero

On Saturday, November 26th Ms. Tonya Click was
laid to rest. Physically her body has passed, but
her presence, her joy, her love still lingers within
her family, friends, educational peers, brothers and
sisters in Christ and the students she has taught.
Jacksonville, Florida will miss the love and devotion
that Ms. Tonya Click shared as a member of this
community and a teacher in Duval County Schools.

Habakkuk 3:18-19, prophetically Tonya Click is
rejoicing with the Lord and basking in the salvation
of eternal happiness. She is where we as all children
of God strive to go when it is our time to go home.
Pastor Brodes C. Perry (Educational Pastor of Shiloh
Metropolitan Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Florida)
preached recently about giving thanks and being
thankful. Even though as humans we do not
understand God’s ways he is always in control and
as always we should give thanks for what he has
and will continue to do.

I give thanks for the opportunity to have worked
with and able to call Ms. Tonya Click my friend.
I will miss her laughter, her glowing spirit and her
loving heart. The passing of a teacher creates
a void that cannot be ignored nor easily filled.
Teachers such as Ms. Click put so much passion,
love and pour their very essence into their
profession that the distinction is sometimes
lost between the person that is a teacher and
the person that is a member of another
family outside of education.

Teachers lay an anointing on lives that do not
just make a temporary impression, but they
create indelible marks in the lives of students
they teach and the families. No disrespect to
those in Ministry, but a teachers anointing is
powerful also, just look at the changed lives
they influence. Look at the hearts and minds
Ms. Click has influenced during her teaching
career. This does not stop here;
teachers influence their educational peers they
work with and the influences they have in the
community. Teachers many times see their
students longer than the students see their
own parents, teachers spend in some cases
more time at school than they do at their
own homes, and take their personal children
to work with them. This is reason alone for
men and woman of God to bless teachers
and anoint them with blessed oil not
just at the beginning of the school year, but
throughout the school year.

Ms. Click linked with so many lives as a dedicated
professional, friend, role model and member of
her loving family. Her personality shined with a
light that embraced people even before she got
into their presence. Ms. Click has a unique and
special presence about her that brought forth
smiles, laughter and happiness just being in her
presence. The laws of gravity propel the Earth
through space, but Ms. Clicks’ spirit of love and
peace gravitated people to her especially children.

You could feel the love she had in her heart and
the presence of a spirit that had the calling of a
teacher. As an educator Ms. Click understood her
role in the lives of her students, not just as their
teacher, but as their guiding light through the
challenges they faced individually and collectively
in the classroom. Ms. Click’s praise of her students,
sternness in discipline in their academic abilities
to succeed and social growth were strong. She
had faith in her student’s growth in positive ways
no matter the challenges each faced and support
of the student’s families often times took her
above and beyond her professional responsibilities.

The relationship with her fellow teachers was just
as involved and transcended a professional
educator’s relationship, but developed beyond
friendships; it melded into a family bonding. Those
that are not educators should not criticize educators
for they do not understand the diverse and intricate
relationships and professionalism that this career
has. Just as our proud Marines of the military state,
“Once a Marine, always a Marine.” Educators can
proudly state that, “Once an educator, always an
educator.”

Even in passing Ms. Click will always be respected,
admired and loved beyond measure and distance.
The peculiarities of being a teacher requires
following standards, developing lesson plans,
understanding benchmarks and evaluating data.
Mr. Click’s efforts to empower her students beyond
academics where note worthy. Working with sedulity
the individual student success was important and
paramount. There is an anointing that allowed
Ms. Click to move her students beyond where they
started academically and socially, her students are
the better because of her tutelage, calming embraces
that her students needed from time to time and
loving wisdom in the understanding that they (students)
are important in the world and that they will be loved
and appreciated.

Rarely do we hear of the efforts of teachers such
as Ms. Click until a retirement ceremony or unfortunate
and untimely passing such as this case. Let the
community know that Ms. Click possessed the best
of what it is to be a teacher, a child of God and a
role model for young women. Ms. Click looked
beyond personal position and stature, to work in
an anointing to help young people that
sometimes because of personal challenges are
sometimes overlooked or cast aside. Mr. Click was
and even now is in the right place at the right time.

A Teachers Prayer
Lord, let me be just what they need.
If they need someone to trust, let me be
trustworthy.
If they need sympathy, let me sympathize.
If they need love, (and they do need love),
let me love, in full measure.
Let me not anger easily, Lord but let me be just.
Permit my justice to be tempered in your mercy.
When I stand before them, Lord, let me look
strong and good and honest and loving.
And let me be as strong and good and honest
and loving as I look to them.
Help me to counsel the anxious, crack the
covering of the shy, temper the
rambunctious with a gentle attitude.
Permit me to teach only the truth.
Help me to inspire them so that learning will not
cease at the classroom door.
Let the lessons they learn make their lives fruitful
and happy.
And, Lord, let me bring them to You.
Teach them through me to love You.
Finally, permit me to learn the lessons they teach.

Author Unknown.