Lord of the Classroom

Most of what I have learned about teaching over the course of many years in the classroom has nothing to do with professional learning communities, professional development seminars, faculty meetings, or even educational psychology courses. In "the old days," we always began pre-school week with inspirational speakers who reminded us that our students are human beings with eternal souls. Even in public education, the emphasis was placed on an almost Guideposts or Chicken Soup for the Soul series of vignettes giving personal testimony to the power of one teacher's influence. I remember one such speech in particular delivered by a dignified African-American lady with a peppery sense of humor. Every year I would take notes and rally myself into new resolves to reach the most impossible student and to love the most unlovable "imp." In fact, I sometimes told myself that I had to tame the 'imp" in "impossible."

Whatever happened to those human pep talks I do not know. The Internet, then one-to-one computer access, then state testing (yes, there was life--and lots of it--before state testing), and data analyses--and somehow both the literature and the student were lost in the ever-changing game some call "education." For this reason, I force myself to reach back into those now-distant years when I started teaching in the public school system in Springstead High School in Spring Hill, Florida (the school where I found the "big, green button"). I was only two years into my teaching when I began teaching there, and, by God's Providence, I met a master teacher old enough to be my mother (and herself a devout Christian) who taught me almost everything I use in the classroom to this day. Not only did she give me copies of all her handouts and even her annotated textbooks (after she retired), she gave me the guiding principle that would define my classroom for all the years to come: no student walks through my door who is not meant to be there by divine appointment.

In short, she taught me to pray every year that the Lord would place in my classroom the students He wanted me to teach. So I did. As the summer would draw to a close, I would pray this prayer in my heart and attempt to mean it. We were a big public school with 19 English teachers in our department. Our camaraderie was outstanding, and we even played board games at lunch (lunch must have been longer in those days). I taught "regular" junior and senior English and, later, English III Honors and AP English, so I had good students, awful students, and everything in between. Back in those days, we received a hard copy of our class lists, which we painstakingly copied into our green gradebooks after things calmed down during the second week of school. The hope was that schedules wouldn't change too much after this chore, making us add names out of alphabetical order. For a person whose mind works in concrete-sequential fashion, adding names was a nuisance indeed.

Another thing most teachers did, which went against principles of good teaching and which was, quite honestly, the "low road" of ethics, was to compare class lists before school started and point out the troublemakers. "Oh, you got--so and so" and on the saga went, tying your stomach in a knot before you ever met "so and so." I knew this was wrong and tried to guard against it (without much success). But that year when I saw "Matt's" name on my list of seniors, my feet started marching me right down to the guidance counselor's office to request a schedule change. "Oh, no. I've already paid my dues with him. I cannot possibly endure having him again. And as a senior?" Some other senior English teacher could have him this time. More full of myself than I was of the Holy Spirit at that moment, I somehow heard the Lord speak gently and very clearly to my heart. "Did you not pray that I would give you the students you were supposed to have?" Instant peace turned me around immediately, and I headed back to my room, busying myself with all "the things" teachers do before the first day of school.

On the first day of school as I stood smiling by my door, greeting every student with the "ten out of ten" attitude that you are supposed to give them, here came Matthew, grinning from ear to ear. I can still see his expression to this day. "Hi, Miss Warner! I'm going to be a good student this year! I got saved over the summer!" Joy and shame danced together in my heart as I realized the blessing I almost missed. How faithful had the Lord been to both Matt and to me! True to his word, "Matt," was a good student that year. He did not get under my skin or live his life to annoy my every waking moment. In fact, he wrote such a good Macbeth essay that I have kept it to this day--an essay on "false faces."

In a day when almost nothing seems stable, I personally need this reminder that nothing happens without divine appointment, for Jesus is still Lord of my classroom. And I wouldn't have it any other way.