Tag Archives: transformation

Heavy Loads vs. Flying Horses

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In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ polemic against the Pharisees (my Bible titles the 23rd chapter of Matthew “The Seven Woes”), Jesus says to the crowd and his disciples:

“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.  So you must be careful to do everything they tell you.  But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.  They tie up heavy, cumbersome burdens and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.”

As I imagine most of us (certainly myself) were sitting comfortably in our seats at church this morning, considering just how terrible the Pharisees were, our pastor followed this passage with the question, “Lest we become prideful, we must ask ourselves, ‘On whom am I placing heavy, cumbersome burdens without being a part of the work?'”  Said another way, I am speaking the truth but withholding active love and grace?

Immediately a few of my math students came to mind.  For various reasons each of them is struggling to survive in my class, reasons which can basically be summarized as a lack of willingness to do the hard work that is required to be successful in this class.  After a rough test last week, my plan was to pull each of them aside tomorrow and have “the talk,” which would go something like this: “Suzy, I’m going to be honest with you, this class is only going to get more challenging as the year goes on.  It’s time to buckle up and resolve to do the hard work so that you don’t find yourself drowning a month from now.”

Okay, so I would probably be more gentle with them than that, but regardless of my tone, this is the message they would hear: it’s hard now, soon it will be impossible, and it’s up to you to dig yourself out of this hole.

How Pharisaical of me.  Why do I do this?  Because I get tired.  Because I don’t have time.  Because I have to keep moving and finish the curriculum.  Because I have to prepare these kids for what it’s going to be like in high school.

All of these excuses are at once true as well as invalid.  The real reason I tend to stack burdens on these kids’ shoulders without going the extra mile to help them is because I’ve forgotten about all the people in my life who have not only carried my burdens but have carried me as well. I have forgotten about all the times Jesus has walked with me where either I didn’t want to or didn’t think I could go.

Lord forgive me.

Lest we become like those Pharisees, our instinctive posture toward our students must be one of love and grace. But this need not be a “cheap grace” of which Bonhoeffer speaks. On the contrary, I think it is a good and right thing to invite our students to be a part of their own redemption process.  In his book The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship, Dallas Willard says, “Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.  Earning is an attitude.  Effort is an action.  Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone.”  The “acted faith” is what I believe Jesus calls us to when he says, “Follow me.”  This is discipleship.  It is by God’s grace that we are invited into a life of transformation into his likeness.

God’s grace in my life has looked just like this–it has been an active, transforming grace that is rewriting my story, a revision with which I have been invited to take part. This journey has led me through some seemingly impossible circumstances, but God’s presence has been steadfast, just as it was with Moses, Abraham, Joshua, Gideon, and many others who took an active role in God’s redemption plan.

I am reminded of the moment in The Magician’s Nephew, when Aslan turns to Digory, who by now realizes that it is because of his own actions that evil (in the form of Jadis) has been unleashed in the newly-created Narnia.  Aslan asks Digory if he’s ready to undo the wrong he has done to Narnia, and Digory hems and haws about not knowing what he can do, what with Jadis disappearing and all, to which Aslan simply restates his original question: Are you ready?  Digory answers in the affirmative, but cannot help–despite knowing that the Lion is not someone to be bargained with–but throw in a plea for Aslan’s help in curing his ill mother back home.  The next passage is worth quoting in full:

“Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face.  What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life.  For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes.  They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.”

Do I pause to consider that something else besides my math class might be going on in my students’ lives?  Do I seek to know them, to empathize with them, to grieve with them?

After this moment of real human connection, Digory finds new resolve to take on the mission Aslan has set before him.  Even though “he didn’t know how it was to be done . . . he felt quite sure now that he would be able to do it.”

Do I give my students a reason to believe that they can do what they don’t quite know how to do?

Next Aslan asks Digory to describe what he sees to the West.  “I see terribly big mountains, Aslan,” Digory replies.  And this is only the first of three imposing mountain ranges that Digory describes.  Quite plainly, Aslan tells Digory’s that his journey will take him straight through those mountains.

Am I honest with my students about the challenges that lie ahead?  Do I invite them to assess the journey, or do I simply describe it for them?

Once Digory is informed of just what was going to be required of him on this journey, he says quite honestly to Aslan, “I hope, Aslan, you’re not in a hurry.  I shan’t be able to get there and back very quickly.”

And Aslan replies, “Little son of Adam, you shall have help.”  Turning to the cabby’s horse, Strawberry, Aslan transforms him into the winged Fledge.

Do I offer help to my students on what might seem an impossible journey?  To what lengths am I willing to go?  Sometimes it takes some out-of-the-box thinking, like putting wings on a horse.  In addition to inviting my students on an arduous journey, am I simultaneously embodying Christ’s active love toward them?  Am I walking alongside them?

Am I working as hard for them as I want them to work for my class?  Or, am I stacking heavy burdens on their shoulders and wishing them the best on their journey?

“But I’m not a miracle worker,” I have found myself saying.  I can’t make a horse fly.  What do I do when I feel like I have done everything?

Our pastor ended this morning by asking the question, “Do we petition the Holy Spirit as fervently as we petition those who we want to see change?”

Do I forget that ultimately it’s not up to me?  How often do I pray for my students by name?  How often do I invite the Holy Spirit into my classroom?

After all, there is a lot more at stake here than my students learning math.  Their time in my classroom is but a very short chapter in a very long book. Nevertheless, their journey at this moment includes my math class and, therefore, it includes me. How will I make the coincidence of our paths count?

Somehow Christ is able to say, “Take up your cross and follow me,” but also say, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  This is the scandalous love of the gospel.  I still don’t really get it.  But I know it.  And I want my students to know it.  And I do not want to miss the opportunity to embody this kind of love for them.  I may not be able to make a winged horse, but–like Polly, who sits right behind Digory on Fledge’s back–I can certainly go with them on this leg of their journey.

Fur Coats vs. Fir Trees: Part 1

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NarniaWardrobe

I am currently reading James K.A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom, upon the recommendation of a colleague and friend.  I am about a third of the way through the book and I must say that it is already transforming the way I view education.  Smith’s book is one of those that you don’t even bother picking up a highlighter for, because every other sentence would be yellow.

I am sure that I will be referencing this book in probably multiple future posts, but today I want to throw out a quote from his Introduction:

“What if the primary work of education was the transforming of our imagination rather than the saturation of our intellect?  What if education wasn’t first and foremost about what we know, but about what we love?”

There is so much wrapped up in this quote that it’s hard to know where to start.

So let me pose a couple of questions: To what part of our students’ nature are we making our appeal?  Are we filling their minds or engaging their imaginations?  Are we primarily honing their intellects or is the stewardship of their hearts a priority?

The great early 20th century educator Charlotte Mason said, “The question is not, — how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education — but how much does he care?”

In Desiring the Kingdom, Smith goes on to posit that humans are by nature “desiring” beings first and foremost, rather than “thinking” beings or even “believing” beings.  What all humans desire, Smith maintains, is “the kingdom,” which most generally (i.e., not biblically) translated, means “their particular vision of ‘the good life’ or ‘human flourishing.'”  Much of the balance of the book is then spent dissecting the implications of this common desire on education, specifically Christian education.  There is much more to say about these implications, but that will have to be another post.

What I want to park on at the moment is Smith’s conclusion (informed heavily by St. Augustine and Martin Heidegger) that humans are first and foremost “desiring” beings.  Smith continues:

“It’s not so much that we’re intellectually convinced and then muster the willpower to pursue what we ought; rather, at a precognitive level, we are attracted to a vision of the good life that has been painted for us in stories and myths, images and icons.  It is not primarily our minds that are captivated but rather our imaginations that are captured, and when our imagination is hooked, we’re hooked (and sometimes our imaginations can be hooked by very different visions than what we’re feeding into our minds).” (emphases by Smith)

Again, there’s a lot we could unpack here, but I want to focus on Smith’s statements about our imaginations.  I think he suggests that the type of teaching that truly forms (and transforms) who we are is the type of teaching whose focus is trained on our hearts and imaginations, rather than solely our intellects.  In other words, what truly “sticks” in one’s soul – what truly informs how and what he will love – is what he is taught from the heart up, rather than the other way around.  And one way to get to our hearts is via our imaginations.

C.S. Lewis clearly got this.  His Chronicles of Narnia are so beloved by children and adults alike because the truths embedded in that wonderful series are aimed first at our imaginations.  And I believe that true learning – true “education,” true “drawing out” – happens when the hearts and imaginations as well as the minds of our students are engaged.  Said another way, what we are feeding the hearts and imaginations of our students (whether explicitly or implicitly), must be consistent with, must shore up what we are feeding into their minds.

I must pause here to make something very clear:  This is in no way saying that we should throw the baby out with the bath water and diminish the value of sound thinking and logic; this is certainly a both/and situation rather than an either/or.  After all, much of this blog will hopefully be aimed at “the renewal of our minds,” which I believe comes largely from engaging in intellectual discourse.  As our pastor often says, “We need to have a rigorous faith,” to think about why we believe what we believe, to engage in deep theological study, to read challenging books.

As my students will tell you, I constantly exhort them to think more critically and rigorously.  But why do they take me up on the challenge?  I think it’s because I go after their hearts and imaginations first.

But most modern (progressive) education has redefined our students as merely brain-holding containers, which must be filled, rather than spiritual, loving persons, whose natural desire to love must be stewarded.

In other words, what I think I’m saying here (and I have to believe that Smith would agree with me, or worse, find this blog and post to the comments section: “You’re just stealing my ideas and putting them in your blog!”) is that it might be more important to teach our students how and what to love than to teach them how to think or what to believe.

For those of you who teach, we’ve all had those moments in the classroom when we feel like we are just hitting a wall with our students.  Sure they may be thinking, they may be processing – and I’m going to go out on a limb here and propose that they may even be thinking rigorously –  but they are not wholly engaged.  Formation of their minds might be happening, but transformation of their souls and spirits may not be happening.  In the extreme case, they are simply becoming “more clever devils,” as C.S. Lewis would say.

But then we have those moments when we see the hearts, the true identities (the God-reflections) of our students breaking through to the surface, discussions are charged with life (not just intellectual and rigorous in thought), e ducere is really happening.  Our students are being their most human selves.  Those are the transformative moments, I believe.  And I really don’t believe those moments happen without the hearts and imaginations being involved.

I have a good friend who teaches high school math at another Christian school in the area, and he refers to these moments as “the Narnia moments.”  “But then,” he goes on to say, “we all have those days when we just hit the back of the wardrobe.”

Like all good teachers do with good ideas learned from other good teachers, I’ve since stolen his analogy – hence my desire for my students to grasp at fir trees rather than fur coats.  If I could put an early 20th century London lamppost in my classroom I would.

So what does this mean for our teaching?  Those of you who tire of philosophical discourse and crave practical application, here it comes.

I’m talking to teachers out there now: I don’t know about you, but every teaching methodology/mode that I have read about or been taught remains in the realm of theory until I actually see it work in my classroom in this big “Aha!” moment that I almost always have to giddily share with my students.  That’s right, I share some of my teaching secrets with them – they just love being invited “behind the curtain.”

The other day I had one of those “Aha!” moments, and not because I had never used this technique successfully before, but because – for the first time, perhaps – I took notice of what I was doing and realized what was actually happening and why it was working.

So here’s what happened: every year around this time our students start practicing for an end of year performance.  It has been the tradition that the middle school students have the responsibility of setting up the risers on the stage every week for practices, and the 8th graders have the distinct honor of being the leaders of the crew.  Now why these kids love hauling heavy wooden boxes from the bowels of the sanctuary and setting them up is beyond me, but literally these practice weeks are one of the highlights of the year for them.

But this year our administration decided to get dads to do the setup (maybe the child labor laws were discovered??).  Well I had to break this (bad?) news to the 8th graders one morning, and you would have thought I had taken away P.E. class for the rest of the year.  They were up in arms.  Oh the injustice!  How could anyone dare rob them of this pure enjoyment and esteemed honor??

Well they were going on and on, which I let them do for a few minutes, as I typically like to do anytime they are airing their grievances (I mean, you learn so much about them during those few moments), but our science test was only a week away and I just had to get on with the business of teaching them vector diagrams.  But it was very clear that this type of transition was going to be nearly impossible.

Younger teacher me would have pulled the authority card and said, “Alright, alright, I get it.  You’re upset.  It’s so unfair that manual labor has been taken from you.  But we have to get to work, so take out your notes and let’s go.”  I would have then wrote on the board, in all CAPS and with deliberate and firm pen strokes, “Vector Diagrams,” underlined, of course.  Then I would have started teaching from my notes.  And sure, because my students do respect me and are very well behaved, they would have done just what I asked them to.  They probably would have even engaged their minds.  But oh, the irresolution and angst remaining in their hearts!  At this point I would have most certainly been simply dumping ideas into their brains.

And I have done just that so many times.  Students, please forgive me.

But this particular day I took a different route.  While they were still very much in the midst of their gripe session, I drew on the board a picture of a riser sitting on a stage.  My drawing skills are mediocre on the best day, but I guess they could tell what I had drawn because they quieted down and look intently and with anticipation.  “So here’s one of your risers sitting on the stage, one of the heavier ones, you know.  Now, the way I have this riser drawn, is it going to fall off the stage?”

And despite the fact that I was using rectangles to introduce vector diagrams (could it get more plain than that?), they were captivated.  No, I wasn’t resolving their dilemma of injustice, but I was still talking about those silly risers.  And the doors to their hearts stayed open, and the doors to their imaginations stayed open, and boy did we ever learn about vector diagrams that day!  I think it might have been one of the most enjoyable discussions we’ve had this semester and let’s face it: vector diagrams aren’t that particularly fascinating.

Now maybe this was just a coincidence, you say.  Or perhaps I was just leveraging the energy from their cries of injustice to fuel the discussion of an otherwise dry topic.  Maybe so.  But I can tell you this, when our vector diagrams morphed from a riser sitting on a stage into a dinosaur walking a turtle who was running after a cobra . . . well, I think there was some imagination involved – oh, and some thinking going on too.  And somehow the riser issue fizzled away naturally – well, at least for that day.

Imago Dei and the Holy Act of Diaper Changing (or, Where This All Might Have Started)

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In an earlier post I mentioned that part of the reason for starting this blog was a sudden outpouring of thoughts and reflections on education – and my experience with education, specifically – that I felt the need to write down.  Whether or not these thoughts are truly for a larger audience or not remains to be determined.

But what catalyzed this compulsion for reflection?  Well I think I can answer that question definitively.  What follows below is something I wrote a few weeks ago while my students were taking ERB tests.  In fact it was very fortuitous that the students were in standardized testing for two hours, because this was just enough time for me to completely soak the computer screen with a story that I just had to get down in writing that morning.  Perhaps this story will give better context for where this blog might be headed.

So, without further preface, here is what I wrote that day.

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“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” 

Genesis 2:26-27 (NIV)

This morning I had what can only be described as a conversion experience.  One of my coworkers recently turned me on to the Circe Institute, an organization whose expressed purpose is to support and promote classical Christian education.  The Circe website is loaded with great resources, my discovery of which came at a time of greater than average hunger for better articulation of the classical Christian mission.  Well this morning I was listening to a conference talk by the Circe Institute’s founder, Andrew Kern.  In this talk Kern articulated so well what had, to that point in my teaching career, only lived and occasionally welled up inside of me as a passion for what I called “Kingdom teaching.”  I knew that this teaching gig was serious business – eternally serious.  And I felt like I was doing a decent job.  But my articulation of what this “Kingdom teaching” looked like was lacking.

Kern helped me with fleshing out this idea.  In his talk, Kern stated very poignantly that our whole purpose as teachers is to strive for the blessedness (i.e., “completion,” “perfection”) of our students – to see them fully realized, that is, to see Christ fully realized in them.  Said another way, we are to steward them towards their created purpose: to be the reflection of their Creator.

You have heard it said perhaps many times in church or even educational settings, that if you are having trouble loving someone, think of her as being created in the image of God.  I would like to go further though and say that the only way to truly love someone is to love him as an image-bearer.  And by extension, the only way to educate someone is to love him as an image-bearer.  After all, the word “education” comes from two words in Latin, e ducere, which together mean “to bring out from within.”  What are we trying to bring out?  I would argue that we are trying to bring out – to draw out – that image of God, that Holy reflection, that Kingdom purpose.  And since by teaching we are essentially saying to our students, “Imitate me,” the only way we can draw out that image of God within our students is to be that image ourselves.  Lord have mercy.  Holy Spirit help us.

That moment that we are reflecting God’s image to our students, and we see that reflection when we look out at them – that is the Narnia moment, the moment of passing through the back of the wardrobe.  That is the moment at which we cease to tug at fur coats and begin to grasp at fir trees.  That is the moment that we transcend fabrications and encounter authenticity.  That is the moment at which the lesson plan falls away and the teacher becomes the curriculum.  That is the redemptive moment.  That is why we teach.

But redemption does not come without repentance.  There is a humility that we must embrace as teachers: this high calling spoken about above is not to be undertaken by our own white-knuckled manipulation and toil.  It is only by being in right relationship with God – it is only by being broken, by realizing our utter depravity and God’s infinite goodness, by holding our hands out in total surrender to God – that we are in a position to reflect Christ to our students.  We must be washed clean.  Daily.

And is that not what our students want as well?  The request just looks a little different coming from them.  Their moment of repentance in the classroom is the moment at which they confess: “I don’t know.”  That is the teachable moment.  That is the poverty of spirit that invites redemption.  As Andrew Kern says, “The person who is not brought to repentance cannot see the Truth.”  Our students want to be washed clean – they desire to embody their created purpose, they yearn to reflect their Almighty God.  Will we lead them in this transformative experience?  Will we cultivate the trusted relationships and create a safe environment in which they are willing and able to be drawn out – ah, to be educated!?

Do our students know that we desire above all else for them to be washed clean and made perfect in the eyes of God – to be made into the image of their Savior – to fulfill their created purpose – to return to the Garden?  Do they trust us enough not to be ashamed?

Let me now return to my experience this morning.  Immediately after finishing Kern’s talk, I jumped into the shower, as is my morning routine (it was a school day), but I couldn’t get the talk out of my head.  I kept thinking about the significance of this Imago Dei approach to teaching.  And then it hit me: I was overwhelmed with grief at how much violence I myself have done to this Truth, how I have not taught as if my students were little image bearers.  While washing my hair I was compelled to get down on my knees in the shower and repent.  I sobbed.  I cried out to God with the same phrase over and over: “Wash me clean, wash me clean.”  As I felt the hot water raining down on my head and running across my back my request to God left metaphor.  It was a baptism like I had never experienced before.  I felt as if God himself was pouring water over me.  My only possible response at this point was to worship God, and I did – kneeling right then and there in the shower.  I praised Him for His goodness, thanked Him for His redeeming power.  I felt clean like never before.

Now I should say at this point that rarely do I get overly emotional about my faith.  I will lift my hand in worship at church from time to time, but rarely do I allow my arm to be fully extended.  In fact, perhaps my biggest sin is that too often my faith lives in my head and forgets the path to my heart.  My point in saying this is that I am not a “fall to my knees” kind of Christian – God have mercy on me.  This shower moment was not a normal scene in my faith journey.  God truly got to me that morning.  He drew me out.  He educated me.

So as I continued to do the normal, mundane things of my morning routine, I was still walking on air.  I had just gotten dressed, though, when I heard my 23-month-old crying at her bedroom door (which we lock from the outside these days, as she is quite capable of exiting her “big girl bed” and, thus, her room).  I walked in to see what the problem was (which usually means just putting her back in bed and telling her that it’s not yet time to get up), and she immediately said, quite pitifully and urgently, “Daddy!  Poopoo!  Tee-tee!”

Now I have to pause here and insert a disclaimer.  I am not about to go into unnecessary detail, but for purposes that I hope will soon become readily apparent, this next part is kind of gross.  But I know that for you parents out there, the moment I am about to describe will resonate with you, even if discussion of poopy diapers is typically taboo in any formal social setting, particularly one of higher education.  For those of you who are not parents, I apologize in advance.

My daughter Alice had what we call in our house “an epic diaper,” one for the record books.  This I knew the moment I walked in the room.  It was at this point that I said, “Really, God?  I guess this is your way of taking me off the mountaintop and back down to reality.”  “The end of my enlightened morning,” I thought.

Now for those of you who have or have had toddlers, you know that diaper changing can sometimes be like the calf-roping contest in a rodeo.  Often times Alice will try to outrun or out-climb you in order to avoid a diaper change.  And even once you get her on the changing table, often she will arch her back or kick her legs.  This does not happen every time, but it certainly happens a lot.

This particular morning was not one of those calf-roping experiences, however.  As soon as she announced to me the problem – her filthiness – she walked of her own volition over to the changing table and lifted her arms out for me to pick her up.  I placed her on the changing table, and rather than put up a fight, she just laid there peacefully – in relief, even – while I changed her diaper.  And it was a messy one.  Lots of wipes.  Parents, you know what I’m talking about.

But as I was cleaning her up, still a bit aggravated by this “down to Earth” moment coming at the end of an otherwise “heavenly encounter,” I saw out of the corner of my eye my daughter looking up at me, so I turned to look her in the eyes.  She continued to fix what I can only describe as an adoring gaze on my face and, when our eyes met, she touched my arm gently, smiled, and said, very softly and peacefully, “Daddy.”  I replied, “Hi Alice.  Daddy loves you.”

It was in that moment that it all clicked for me.  I had come to my daughter in a moment in which she was totally helpless to change her state of being.  She was filthy, and she knew it.  And she could do nothing about it.  But rather than run and hide, she called to me, she told me that she was filthy, and she submitted to the process of being cleaned.  And in being cleaned, I think she felt truly loved.  I can’t help but contemplate the significance of her naming me in that moment: “Daddy.”

Fathers, I hope you are all changing poopy diapers out there.  Don’t let your wife steal all the God-moments!  In some gross but very human, very real, very palpable way, I now believe that changing a poopy diaper is one of your first opportunities to reflect the image of Christ to your child in a way that he can truly internalize, long before he will be able to articulate.  In a moment of vulnerability and helplessness and filth – filth that always seems to be more disgusting to a father – you have the opportunity to wipe your child clean.

I think God used this experience of changing a big, messy diaper because it is so visceral.  I mean, there is no avoiding a physical reaction to an “epic diaper.”  Rarely does filth take on a more tangible form.  But how often, as adults now, do we underestimate or totally ignore our own dirtiness?  As infants and then toddlers we are forthcoming with our filth (do we have a choice?), but sometime very quickly thereafter we learn to hide and then we spend our entire lives trying to “clean ourselves up” or at least pretend to be clean.  (Is this not what Adam and Eve did with the fig leaves when they first discovered that they were naked?)  By the time we are in middle school, like the students I teach, we have gotten so good at hiding and covering that we don’t even know anymore what it is like to stand in the clearing fully naked – to be fully known.  Perhaps we don’t even know who we are anymore.  And right about this time adolescence kicks in and we are given even more tangible reasons to run and hide.  We eagerly want to be known – to be washed clean – to find our true purpose, but we have no idea how to articulate this let alone where to start.

Folks, I am not just describing teenagers growing up in secular families and attending public schools.  I am describing so many of the students in our own Christian schools.  Am I not?  Sure, our children know how to parrot the Sunday school answers, but they might as well be saying, “I know that I am made in the image of a peanut,” as their likeness to a salty ballpark snack is probably just as ethereal as their Godly birthright.  And this is because the world – and so often, too, Christian schools – have hijacked (sometimes without realizing it) the true purpose of education.

And so I was reminded this morning – by God speaking through Mr. Kern and then my daughter – that my role as a teacher, as a father, as an adult in authority over children, is to see Christ fully realized in the children who sit under my tutelage.  This necessarily requires that I am in right relationship with God so that I can clearly embody the Truth, this necessarily requires that I am in right relationship with my students so that they trust me enough to adopt a posture of spiritual poverty in my presence.  This necessarily requires that I restore the true purpose of education IN MY CLASSROOM.  Redemption is always a personal experience, so the recovery of education’s good and proper purpose starts when we close our classroom doors, doesn’t it?

The book of Revelation tells us that our students will one day be priests and rulers in God’s kingdom.  Do we believe this?  Do we discern within even the most frustrating student the very image of our Redeemer, the very countenance of a king?  It is there, that much the entire Testament of our Lord tells us.  But are we looking for it?  Are we listening for it?  Do we even hear it within ourselves?

C.S. Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory:

“Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth.”

Do we know what is at stake here?  Do we truly know what it means to teach a “Christ-centered” education?

Will we humbly fall at Christ’s feet and let him wash us clean so they we can see the Truth clearly?  Will we invite our students into the same transformative relationship?

Will we, as Kern says, “arouse, listen to, and train this inner voice” that Lewis speaks of?  Will we regard our students as the very imago dei?  Will we draw them out into the clearing?  Will we educate them?