Everyone Listen

Author’s Note:  This one is for my fellow teachers, either in schools or churches.  (If you aren’t a teacher, you can still read it, and you should if I do say so myself. )  I hope you enjoy it.  Please do read it for staff devotions someday, or pass it along to a friend.  I write for Him.  I write to share.

I knew a teacher once who was a farmer. Every evening she would tend her courses. Every day she planted. When she moved, her arms would swing in big arcs, and the seeds of knowledge would fly invisibly from her extended fingertips. When she wrote, the letters looked like stems and leaves. Words like germination and growth clung to her dress like clumps of dirt, remnants of a recent crawl in the soil. She spoke with a voice that sounded like spring rain. Her face was warm sunshine.

She drew little flowers in green ink on her agenda during staff meetings.

The advice she gave me about teaching was that plants grow best where there is good compost. The students who give you the most trouble and who are the most resistant to learning are to be enjoyed the most, for they show great promise. They are the ones most likely to become teachers or pastors. You’d be surprised what springs to life long after we are done working the ground.

Maybe that was why she called her students sprouts.

She cried whenever she lost one to weeds.

I knew a teacher once who was a soldier. Every evening he would make strategic battle plans for the next day. Every day he would clearly communicate the plans to his students. When he wrote, it was always in large, easy-to-read bold print. Every properly crossed t would be lined up in formation on graph paper with every symmetrically dotted i. Words like meticulous and metric hung in the air around him like maps in a war room. In the summer he photocopied all of his handouts for the entire year and kept them in neat rows above his desk. When he spoke, he pounded his fist into his hand. His voice was like thunder, his passion like lightning.

He drew little stick-figure soldiers in solid black ink on his agenda during staff meetings.

The advice he gave me about teaching was that students were not the enemy, even though some days it may seem that way. The real enemies are confusion, chaos, and misunderstanding. Students are on the front line of the battle. Teachers are the corporals, lieutenants, and sometimes medics. We’re all in the same army. The day a teacher thought that students were the enemy was the day the real enemies won the skirmish.

Maybe that was why he called his students troops.

He cried whenever he lost one to ignorance.

I knew a teacher once who was a guide. Every evening he would watch slide shows of the beautiful places he had visited in the past. Every day he would point out something of wonder in the world and then explain it. When he wrote, the letters were all tree trunks and canyons, clouds and rivers. He spoke in a charismatic campfire voice that drew attention not to him but to the thing he was talking about. Words like explorative and environmental flittered and fluttered around him like bluebirds.

He drew wispy lines in different colored pencils on his agenda during staff meetings.

The advice he gave me about teaching was to never forget to wonder. Never forget to be amazed. Never forget to communicate to students that behind all the hurtful or sinful things pushed in their faces every day is a fascinating creation and a loving Creator. Field trips are not optional, he said; they are required.

Maybe that was why he called his students stewards.

He cried whenever he lost one to television’s new fall lineup.

I knew a teacher once who was a sage. Every evening she would read, ponder, or write. Every day she was a freight train delivering another enormous load of complex knowledge. When she wrote, it was messy and hard to read, the deep meaning of her words often conquering and eliminating tidiness and proper spelling. Her signature over time had distilled into two swoops, a line, and a dot. Her desk existed in quiet solitude under a blanket of unread administrative memos. When she talked, it was with a hint of arrogance and a whisper of self-promotion. Her nose wasn’t in the air as much as her head was in the clouds.

During staff meetings she drew small stars over and over again on her agenda in pencil, without looking down.

The advice she gave me about teaching was to never decide what is too difficult for students without first throwing it at them. Never decide that a student can’t do something without giving him or her the opportunity to try and then to succeed or fail. Some people are smarter than you think. Failure is not a lesson to avoid.

Maybe that was why she called her students achievers.

She cried whenever she lost one to self-doubt.

I knew a teacher once who was a clown. Every evening he would talk on the phone with his clown friends and get the latest jokes. Every day he would entertain and educate in a perfect blend of laughter and content. When he wrote he couldn’t help but put smiley faces inside of the letter o, small top hats on the letter i, and make the letter s fat and jolly. When he spoke, it was all limericks and rhymes. He was often seen grabbing other people’s sentences out of the air and twisting them into hilarious balloon-animal phrases and then letting them float about the room. He often laughed to himself for no apparent reason. He was a walking double meaning behind a hidden meaning behind a smirk. His lesson plans consisted of a cup of coffee with cream, sugar, and a shot of self-deprecation. Who needed a plan when there was a riddle behind every door and a joke at the bottom of every new box of chalk?

He drew doodles of the principal with an extra large head shouting “DETENTION!” on his agenda during staff meetings, using whatever pen he took from the person beside him.

The advice he gave me about teaching is that it’s only school. It’s not as big a deal as we make it out to be. It’s not about discovering students’ learning styles so much as discovering what motivates them. If you can make them want to be in your class and if you can make them want to learn, then you can teach them anything.

Maybe that was why he called his students monkeys.

He cried whenever he lost one to conformity.

I’ve known a great teacher my whole life. Every evening he goes through a large stack of prayers and responds to each in kind. Every day he walks beside every one of his students and guides all of them through their day. When he writes, the power behind the words pushes the words themselves to their limits, and it becomes clear that he is the greatest teacher. When he speaks, it is in a quiet soothing voice at the back of our minds, and those words communicate a perfect understanding of our flaws and forgiveness of our nature. Words like majesty and awe, nurture and shepherd emanate from his presence.

He draws our hearts and minds back into our work at every staff meeting.

The advice he gives about teaching is to start each day with prayer. To never forget that he is right there beside us. To remember that we do not walk alone. He reminds us not only that are we his children but also that every student is his child and that we are called to serve him as we teach them. We are doing his work here to prepare the minds of the next generation, and what we do is a good thing.

Maybe that is why he calls us his servants.

He cries whenever he loses one of us to a busy day.

They’ve become an irritation
The whistle and the cloud of steam
A minor chord
When you throw in the distant shout of the conductor’s
“All Aboard”
Always pretending it’s a question
When it’s really a statement
He turns back into the passenger car believing it
As the world sings the song of the everyday

I don’t need their music
I don’t need their song or their dance
So I remain
Sitting in the half dim
Under the poster for the circus
Rocking back and forth to my own melody
Softly sung so only I can hear it
Keeping it close
So it can’t be stolen away

There’s a chug
Wheels turn and scream metal on metal agony
As the real life train is birthed out of the station
But I stay in the womb
Pulling my tattered blanket around my shoulders
Humming now and leaning back into the wall

They’ve forgotten me again
But the trick is on them
Because I forgot them long ago

 
Reworked May 5 for dVerse (It did really need music.  Thanks for the prompt StuartM)

Author’s Note: As I’ve mentioned before sometimes I write to try and understand, and this is one of those pieces. I wasn’t sure where it was going to start or end, but I know I drove to work this morning wondering what it would be like to have nothing, and then I crossed the railroad tracks and was irritated by it. This piece formed a bit, and I took some time at lunch to finish it up. Enjoy.