Author Archives: TheshoeboxKitchen

“Knowing is Loving”: Part 1

In his book To Know as We are Known, Education as a Spiritual Journey, Parker Palmer takes some time in his first chapters to discuss the (d)evolution of the image and purpose of knowledge. To paraphrase, Palmer posits that in premodern times, knowledge was approached lovingly, reverently, and for the purposes of drawing the knower into a deeper communion with the known, that “hidden wholeness” of creation that Merton speaks about. Modern images of knowledge, however, suggest that we value knowledge only to the extent that it allows the knower to control, to manipulate, and to lay claim on the known. In other words, “we value knowledge that allows us to coerce the world into meeting our needs–no matter how much violence we must do.” Palmer cites the invention of the first atom bomb as an extreme example of this “violence.”

Palmer then connects this denatured image of knowledge to the story of Adam and Eve:

“In the language of religious tradition, Adam and Eve committed the first sin. In the language of intellectual tradition, they made the first epistemological error. [. . . ] The sin, the error, is not our hunger for knowledge [. . . , rather] Adam and Eve were driven from the garden because of the kind of knowledge they reached for–a knowledge that distrusted and excluded God. Their desire to know arose not from love but from curiosity and control, from the desire to possess powers belonging to God alone. They failed to honor the fact that God knew them first, knew them in their limits as well as their potentials. In their refusal to know as they were known, they reached for a kind of knowledge that always leads to death.”

I was immediately convicted by this discussion. As the teacher, “the mediator between the knower and the known, the living link in the epistemological chain,” I repeat this original sin in my classroom whenever I present knowledge as something to “master” or “possess” or “control” rather than something to love for the sake of bringing my students into closer communion with the Lover.

Even in classical Christian education, we talk about “teaching for mastery” and “mastery learning.” I tell my students every day that they need to “master” this or that. Sure, I also explicitly lead them in discussions and exercises for the express purpose of cultivating in them a love for math and God’s creation as explored through the sciences, but at the end of the day they are assessed and evaluated (“told their value”) based on what concepts and skills they have mastered. Is there something out of joint here?

Perhaps instead of telling students that I expect them to master the factoring of polynomials, I should say that I expect them to enter a state of loving communion with polynomials. This sounds kind of ridiculous, but is it not what Palmer is getting at? Palmer, Jamie Smith, and a host of others – not to mention our own experience in the classroom, whether as teachers or students – tell us that students are significantly formed by the “hidden curriculum” in our schools as much if not more as by what we explicitly teach. If this is indeed the case, then the words we choose to describe the “act of knowing” should really matter.

A Sheep, a Coin, and a Scoundrel

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I used to think that classical Christian education was all about rigor and challenge – a “time tested” method by which to best develop intelligent, logical minds. The “Christian” part came in I guess either when I gave an especially difficult test and students needed an “I can do all things through Christ” kind of prayer or when I needed to remind students that we, of course, do our best on this test to “bring glory to God.” (Oh, and I made the occasional reference to “the revelation of God’s character in the order and beauty of math and science,” but I’ve only really begun to “get” the significance of that integration in the last few years.)

So students who had a natural aptitude for math and science loved me, particularly those who enjoyed a challenge. Their parents loved me too.

Those students who worked really hard but just never quite “got it” became acquainted with a new level of frustration in my classes. I felt bad for them; but hey, hard work in life doesn’t guarantee success (just ask a farmer). Although I admired their hard work, my attitude towards them could best be described as pity. My job was to keep the brightest students challenged. As for those working feverishly in their shadows, well, “I hope they find a tutor who can bring them along.”

And then there were the students who lacked above average aptitude and either didn’t bother working hard or exhibited very poor work habits (granted those cases were the extreme exception). Well, I just wrote those students off completely. That was the “just response,” I thought, for not taking my class seriously. I guess I kind of took their laziness personally. “They’ll get the grade they deserve.”

Fortunately, not too long into my teaching career, God convicted me through the help of some very wise parents and the Gospel. If the Kingdom of Heaven is like a shepherd leaving 99 sheep behind to go search after the one that is lost, or like a woman with 10 coins who turns her house upside down when she loses just one of them . . . well, if I am going to reflect the Gospel in my classroom, then I need to be willing to go after those students who aren’t the best, who aren’t staying up with the rest of the flock.

So I resolved to do just that. Well, sort of. As it turns out, I fell short of what I think Christ intended by these parables. I started to pursue fervently those students in the second group above – that is, those who lacked the above average aptitude but worked their butts off. I adopted the credo: if you’ll give me all you’ve got, I’ll run along side you all the way. My new class mantra became, “All I want is your best. As long as you’re giving me your best, I am pleased.”

In other words, I went to bat for that second group of students because I came to value their hard work in lieu of aptitude. And boy did I come to love working with those students, mostly because doing so made me feel good about myself. “Give me a hard working student over a really bright lazy one any day,” I would say, with noble affect.

You see, a lost sheep is still a sheep. And sheep are fluffy and cute. And, to a shepherd, each one has tremendous value. Just like a coin.

Jesus’ parables made sense for the hard working student, but that student who refused to work hard or that student who just couldn’t ever get organized enough to be prepared for class – I still dismissed them both. They weren’t lost sheep or lost coins, they were just lost. Sure, I “loved them,” but pitiably so.

Last year God began a new work in me. Okay, that’s too euphemistic. He hit me in the face with a baseball bat. He basically said three things to me:

1) Every child bears my Image.

2) You are only as good a teacher as your “worst” student thinks you are.

3) You need to learn to love grace as much as you love the truth.

So this year I set forth to pursue even the lazy student, even the flippant student, even the student who refused to get organized or refused to work hard or refused to assume responsibility for his or her academics. But because these descriptions only apply to less than 1% of my students, I found that my “new plan” was actually more difficult – not less – to put into consistent action. After all, it is much easier to serve the overwhelming majority and ignore those on the fringe. Especially when your job is to “challenge and prepare academically able minds.”

In fact, a couple weeks ago I caught myself acting dismissively towards a student who not only failed to turn in a major assignment but also refused to come talk to me about it. I finally had to confront the student a few days later. When I offered an extension on the assignment, I received no gratitude in return. “Not even an appreciation of my grace! Why do I bother extending it?” Yes, that was my actual thought. Although I would never say it, I once again dismissed this student as feckless and “unworthy of my valuable time.”

So God took the opportunity this past Sunday morning to clarify for me the true meaning of Jesus’ parables of the lost sheep and lost coin. Enter the story of Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus may have been a “wee little man,” but that is where any potentiality for endearment ends. A chief tax collector in Jericho, Zacchaeus got rich by taking his own cut of the oppressive taxes levied by the Roman government. Unlike the sheep and coin, which had practical value to both the shepherd and coin owner, Zacchaeus would have been considered a hated scoundrel by everyone who walked with Jesus that day, and perhaps justifiably so.

So we might expect Jesus, who always advocates for those who are given the short end of the stick, to take the side of the crowd when he encounters the immorally wealthy Zacchaeus peering down from the sycamore tree. I can imagine someone in the crowd saying to Jesus, “Hey, this is our chance! Tell Zacchaeus how wrong he is! Put him in his place!!” Or even, “Ignore that guy, Jesus, he has gotten rich off of our hard-earned money!”

But that of course is not what happens. Jesus not only invites Zacchaeus down from the tree, but invites himself to be a guest in Zacchaeus’ house.

“So the people began to mutter, ‘He has gone to be the guest of a sinner!’

The crowd could not believe that Jesus didn’t choose someone “more worthy” to spend the evening with. Jesus’ decision made no sense in their economy. So Jesus has to remind them of Zacchaeus’ true identity: that he, too, is a son of Abraham.

Do we judge our students by their true identity (the Imago Dei), or by their academic efforts?

And then the story ends with the real kicker. Jesus says:

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”

Those words ran through my heart like a bullet. The “lost” aren’t just cuddly sheep and valuable coins; the lost are scoundrels.

And, when I thought about it, this is very good news for those of us who are scoundrels. And, if we’re honest, isn’t that all of us?

The very next day I looked at my “problem student” a lot differently. I pray that my actions towards this student follow suit. Holy Spirit help me. I must tirelessly pursue this student, because God has never stopped pursuing me.

So what does it mean to be a “Christian school”? The longer that I’m on this journey, the more strongly I believe that if we are going to reclaim the integrity of true Christian education, we must aim to reflect the gospel in all aspects of our teaching. For me that means I have to chase after not only the sheep, but the scoundrels as well. In other words, I have to chase after the students who are just like me.

The Tyranny of the Future

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I teach at a K-8 school, which means that our 8th grade students are inevitably distracted by the pressing and significant reality of choosing a new school. A few years back one of my 8th graders said to me, “I feel like all anyone ever wants to talk about is ‘what’s next.'” He was living in that difficult tension between wanting to play a responsible role in his high school selection process and wanting to be a 13-year-old kid enjoying his last year at a school he had been a part of for 10 years.

Life moves on for this kid, and for all of us, but this tension just finds a new manifestation in a new season.

I really like the way C.S. Lewis addresses this issue of man’s regard for “the Future” in The Screwtape Letters. Once again we have the demon Screwtape writing to his protege Wormwood:

“It is far better to make [men] live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity . . . To be sure, [God] wants men to think of the Future too – just so much as it is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow. The duty of planning the morrow’s work is today’s duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present. This is now straw splitting. He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We [demons] do. [God’s] ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him.”

“The Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity.” I just can’t get that line out of my head.

Recovering Wonder

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In my 8th grade Physical Science class we are currently exploring the history of the atomic model, which naturally leads to some thought-provoking discussions about the ever-evolving epistemology of the subatomic world as well as some mind-bending realizations of and wonder at the level of detail and order that exists at such a small, small scale. I just love teaching this unit. For many of these students, this is their first time every thinking about particles on a subatomic scale, where the rules of Newtonian physics fall apart and forces that are 100 undecillion (that’s 1 followed by 38 zeroes) times stronger than gravity exist. The rabbit trails are always plentiful and I will gladly entertain some of them for days at a time. It is during this particular unit of study that my class most closely resembles the format and atmosphere of a book discussion group versus a classroom lecture. And I think this atmosphere is born out of the fact that we are encountering some of the really Big Questions, some of the most fundamental ideas of creation – we are getting a sneak peek into the very mind of God.

I love watching the faces of the students when they learn that all matter in the universe, from a hunk of gold to a zebra, is made up of the same three basic particles: protons, neutrons, and electrons. The diversity of creation that comes from just those three particles is fascinating.

Today our particular topic centered around the nucleus of the atom, which contains both protons and neutrons. We learned that, much like a fingerprint is the unique identifier of a human being, the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom is the unique identifier for an element. Every atom in the universe that contains 79 protons in its nucleus is gold. Add one more proton to the nucleus and you get something completely different: mercury. (In fact, many historians believe that, due to many reports of his erratic and eccentric behavior in the years leading up to his death, Isaac Newton actually suffered from (and may have even died from) mercury poisoning. It was well known that he spent quite a bit of time behind closed doors practicing the “art” of alchemy, trying to turn mercury into gold). In the midst of this discussion, one student blurted out in disbelief, “Wait, are you telling me that the only thing that determines which of these elements (pointing to the Periodic Table) we have in our hand is the number of protons in the nucleus?!?” “Yes. That’s it.” And his face was filled with pure wonder.

And I was struck. The palpability of his amazement gave me pause. Suddenly I realized that over 25 years of holding these ideas in my head and 7 years of teaching them had sort of numbed me a bit to their wondrous beauty. I knew I had met with a moment that demanded contemplation. So I literally just paused and thought about the fact that adding one proton to the nucleus of an atom of carbon (a black, brittle solid) would instead give us nitrogen (an inert, colorless gas). And then it hit me.

“Students, do you find it fascinating that God used the extremely simply concept of quantity to differentiate all the elements of creation?!? By simply counting out a different number of protons he created a completely different element with completely different properties!!”

The more I thought about it the more excited I became. Sure, once you get to bigger things like molecules, the arrangement of atoms comes into play (like I discussed here), and sure, chemical bonding takes the complexity to a whole new level. But the fact that the fundamental building blocks of all creation – the elements – can be differentiated and uniquely identified by a simple count of protons . . . I don’t know, that is beautiful to me.

Eventually I could tell that my students were ready to move on (yes, Mr. F, that’s amazing, now let’s learn something else please), but I have to believe that it makes an impression on them when we, their teachers, are able to model wonder and amazement at God’s creation – especially as math and science teachers. I’m glad that one of my students caused me to pause and reflect so that I could retrieve that wonder that God’s creation and creativity demands. Oh that we could borrow the eyes of a child on days that we shrug at a sunset . . .

More on the wonder of a child in a future post – Alice has recently given me much to write about in this regard, not to mention my 6th grade science students (a discussion about the Aurora Borealis today evolved into 30 minutes of playing with magnets – by running a magnet through iron filings you would have thought I was juggling fire. “Whoa!! Do it again!”). Until then, recommended reading on recovering wonder in the classroom: Beauty for Truth’s Sake by Stratford Caldecott.

Storytelling

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My two-year-old daughter Alice sits at the kitchen bar table eating a snack. I am standing in front of her exhausted from a long day at school and 100% occupied by a jar of toasted almonds. My wife Anne (who is not only my better half but also the more conversational parent by far) has just left the room. The sounds of crunching and smacking are all that fill the room. Alice pauses from eating what appears to be just a mustard-soaked piece of bread from what used to be a turkey sandwich and looks up at me: “Hey Daddy? . . . ” “Yeah, baby, what’s up?” “Hey Daddy, will you talk to me?” “Sure sweetheart! What do you want to talk about?” “I want to talk about Daddy and Alice.” So I start with, “Well, Daddy loves Alice,” then proceed to recount some recent stories that involved her and me.

After this interaction with Alice I thought to myself, “This little conversation has nothing to do with this blog, but I just have to share it.” However, the more I thought about our snack time conversation and the setting in which it took place, the more I began to think that perhaps it has everything to do with this blog.

As Jamie Smith argues in Imagining the Kingdom, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” He goes on:

“Narrative is the scaffolding of our experience . . . Stories ‘mean’ on a register that is visceral and bodily, more aesthetic than analytic, ‘made sense of’ more by the imagination than the intellect. Stories are something we learn ‘by heart’ in the sense that they mean on a register that eludes articulation and analysis. A whole world(view) can be compressed in even the most minimal narrative because the story is ‘working’ aesthetically–it means in its cadence and rhythm, in what is said and what is left unsaid, in its tensions and resolutions. I ‘understand’ a story in ways I don’t know.”

Are we telling our children stories? What stories are we telling them? I thought it was so beautiful that Alice wanted me to talk about “Alice and Daddy.” Don’t we all want to hear stories about us and our Daddy? And don’t we all ultimately want to hear stories about us and our Heavenly Daddy? I do think it’s true that the Bible is best read as a love story written to us by our Heavenly Father. I think we all want to hear that Story, whether we know it or not.

But Smith goes on to argue that the most transforming stories are not those that are told discursively in a “once upon a time” manner, but those that are wrapped up in “all the mundane little micropractices” or “liturgies” that we engage in every day.*

So, what story was I telling Alice by the fact that she had to wake me out of my zombie-almond-eating state and request that I talk to her? “Will you talk to me?” is such a sweet, innocent request, but so loaded with meaning, is it not?

If we are too busy or too tired (or too hungry) to talk to our children, to tell them stories, we will still manage to tell them a story, but a much more significant, formative one.

Parents, what stories are we telling our children in those little, seemingly insignificant practices that we engage in (or don’t engage in) every day?

Teachers, what stories are we telling our students in those little, seemingly insignificant practices that are a part of our classroom culture and atmosphere?

The Gospel of Luke tells us “to be faithful in the little things.” Even (especially?) in the little things we are to reflect the Gospel. Are we paying attention to the little things? Are we telling good stories?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

*Smith develops these arguments beautifully in both Desiring the Kingdom and Imagining the Kingdom, and the practical applications are countless for anyone hoping to cultivate Christian virtue and wisdom in themselves or those around them. I am thankful to my colleagues in classical education for recommending that I engage Smith’s work; I passionately recommend these two titles, especially to teachers who want to do more with their students than just pass on information.

On Truth and Freedom (or, Math as a Liberal Art)

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“Mr. Faulkner, I really struggled with this problem. I knew I was somewhat on the right track but I just could not figure out how to get to the answer. So I started to get frustrated, but I kept working. Then finally I figured it out and I was so excited that I shouted, ‘Yes, I’ve got it!’ so loudly that my mom heard me from the next room.”

“And how did you feel when you finally found the way to the answer?”

“I felt . . . I felt free.”

__ __ __ __ __

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12

“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32

What Matters

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Everything in a true Christ-centered education (and, thus, a true classical education) comes down to this: are we nurturing the child’s soul?

The worst thing we can do with this question is to consider it globally rather than personally. Instead of conveniently asking, “Is our school nurturing the souls of its students?” we teachers need to be continually asking ourselves, “Is that science test I just gave or the way I just admonished that student who didn’t do her math homework or the methods I just used to motivate my cross country team or the conversation I just had with students in the lunchroom – are THOSE SPECIFIC ACTIONS OF MINE nurturing the souls of my students?”

There is no small, insignificant, or neutral action when children are placed under our care. We are either blessing our students’ souls or we’re cursing them, one action at a time. I wish I could say that I rarely do the latter, that I’ve learned enough about “what matters” and matured enough in my spiritual journey to avoid such a mistake, but that would be a lie. All it takes is just enough exhaustion or frustration and the next thing I know I have forgotten that my students are just like me: weak, sinful, and in desperate need of grace.

Lord, forgive me. Students, forgive me.

The Lullaby of Intellectualism

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“In sum, if we are going to be agents of the coming kingdom, acting in ways that embody God’s desires for creation, then our imaginations need to be conscripted by God. It is not enough to convince our intellects; our imaginations need to be caught by – and caught up into – the Story of God’s restorative, reconciling grace for all of creation. It won’t be enough for us to be convinced; we need to be moved. Otherwise we’ll just be reading Wendell Berry in Costco; we’ll be convinced but not transformed.”

– Jamie Smith, Imagining the Kingdom (emphases original)

Lord, forgive me for all the ways in which I have been convinced but not transformed. Forgive me for all the ways in which I embrace the Truth with my mind but not with my bones.

Capture me, Jesus – all of me. Wake me up. Stir me. Move me.

Buckyball and Other “Useless” Things

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Like most teachers I enjoy a good rabbit trail every now and then – okay, perhaps more often than I should. By 8th grade my students know me well enough and are smart enough to know just which rabbits I will chase, and they throw them out at me with great frequency. Since I teach my 8th graders three different classes – some days for three periods in a row – rabbit trails are not only common but often a welcomed diversion.

One of the classes I teach to 8th graders is Physical Science. In a discussion about molecules and their various levels of complexity the other day, we were exploring the intriguing diversity of carbon molecules. A simple rearrangement of the carbon atoms in a purely carbon molecule results in a substance with completely different properties. Arrange the carbon atoms in layers of two-dimensional hexagonal lattices and you have graphite. Arrange the exact same atoms in a three-dimensional octahedral lattice and you have a diamond.

Of course, the next question was: “What other shapes can carbon atoms make?” In other words, are there other allotropes of carbon that make for interesting shapes and interesting substances?

And I couldn’t resist talking about buckminsterfullerene, or “buckyball,” as it is more colloquially referred to in the scientific community. (Not to be confused with the spherical magnetic toy “buckyball,” which has been discontinued due to safety concerns. Apparently kids were swallowing these really powerful magnets and strange, unhealthy things were happening in their stomachs as a result.) The chemical formula for buckyball is C₆₀, and those 60 carbon atoms are arranged in a polyhedral cage-like pattern identical to that represented by the surface of most soccer balls – that is, a 32-face polyhedron (twenty regular hexagons and twelve regular pentagons), each pentagon surrounded by five hexagons, with a carbon atom located at each shared vertex and each shared side representing a C-C bond. (If this description is unclear, just look at the diagram at the beginning of this post. A picture is worth a thousand poorly arranged words.) Buckminsterfullerene was theorized as far back as the 1960s, but not actually discovered (observed) until 1985.

With excitement I described the beautiful shape of C₆₀, showed the students pictures, and practically shouted at them, “Can you believe it looks just like a soccer ball!! Did we know this when we designed the first soccer ball!?!?” I even showed them a great ten minute video (students love any excuse to watch a video, don’t they?) all about the uniqueness of C₆₀ (for example, it is the first form of carbon discovered that can be dissolved in water). I was on a roll. “I’m really inspiring them,” I thought to myself.

Then, one student raised his hand. “So, how does buckyball contribute to society?”

Now I don’t fault this or any student for asking this question. It was a perfectly good, perfectly honest question. But what he really meant was, “How do we use buckyball?” And in this one innocent question we see how, even in a Christian and classical school, none of us can escape the violence that has been done to education, the lies that have been told since the Industrial Revolution, that voice that lives in our bones and cries out, “IS THIS PRACTICAL?! WILL THIS HELP ME GET A JOB?!”

The fact is, I told him, although there are many theorized applications, there is no current practical application of buckyball that I am aware of.

The look on his face screamed, “So why do we care?”

So I answered the question he didn’t have to verbalize. “So what does buckyball contribute to society? Beauty. Buckminsterfullerene is beautiful. We should look at it. We should contemplate it. This complex molecule reflects back to us God’s order, His beauty, His fingerprint. Buckyball contributes the same thing to society that a colorful sunset does. They both remind us that we are created by and for something much bigger than ourselves.”

In other words, buckyball is worthy of Philippians 4:8.

But we may never do anything with it. And you probably won’t see it come up on an SAT.

So, was this rabbit trail a waste of time?

Pi Alpha

ποίησις καί ἀνακαίνωσις | Cultivation and Renewal

Author Archives: TheshoeboxKitchen

“Knowing is Loving”: Part 1

A Sheep, a Coin, and a Scoundrel

The Tyranny of the Future

Recovering Wonder

Storytelling

On Truth and Freedom (or, Math as a Liberal Art)

What Matters

The Lullaby of Intellectualism

Buckyball and Other “Useless” Things