First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ
Member Profiles...
Each month, members of our congregation reflect on a different topic (children, learning, temptation, renewal....) Here are some reflections from our members on the subject of teaching as a spiritual tool:
Handing it Over to the Next Generation: Confessions of a Teacher/Activist
I love teaching, and I feel incredibly fortunate to get paid for what I do. I have the privilege of studying whatever I want to study, and the authority to persuade bright young people (at least some of them) to study the things I consider most worthwhile, and to tell me how they react. It's too good to be a real job.
I do see teaching as a noble profession, and I resent the derisive critique: "Those who can't do, teach." However, I have to confess that I am often guilty of teaching rather than doing. Getting
out there and trying to change the world is daunting. Many of my friends--many of you--are facing daily the wrongs that need righting in the world. That often means living with small successes and big frustrations. I want to count myself among you who are activists, working for peace and justice.
One of the seductive things about teaching for me is that I imagine that my students (at least some of them) will acquire skills and inspiration to join those of you who are doing great things in the world. I tell myself that they will leave my classes attentive to the needs of children, prepared to listen to what children have to say to us, and inclined to make decisions that will improve the lives of the children in their communities. It's a fantasy that inspires my best teaching. But it's also a fantasy that lets me off the hook. I have to be careful not to be satisfied just to hand over to the students I teach the responsibilities I should assume myself for making the world better.
Marsha Walton (who teaches child and adolescent development to college students)
Teaching Philosophy as a Vocation (Brad Stone)
Meeting your soon-to-be-in-laws is always like receiving an FBI interrogation. It was the rehearsal dinner on the eve of our wedding. We were eating with relative and friends when the always poignant question popped up. "Brad, what do you do for a living?"
"I'm a Ph.D. student in philosophy."
"So....you're going to be a philosopher! What are you going to do with that? Teach?"
"Yes. I'll teach and write books."
This was sufficient for some people. Others, however, were concerned about the financial opportunities of being a philosopher.
"Why do you want to be a philosopher? It doesn't pay well."
My response goes back to the prediction made by my late grandfather that I would be the next preacher from my family. (I come from generations of preachers, skipping the last two.)
"I don't know if it's an issue of wanting to be a philosopher. I am called to it, like preachers are called to preach."
This answer, which I thought would shut them up, did nothing but make them erupt with laughter.
"Sure...." my uncle said, "but at least preachers pass the plate after they get done talking!"
My response was perfect: "Actually, until about two hundred years ago, philosophers did, too. For example, Immanuel Kant would teach classes in which students would pay him based on how much they thought they learned from him."
Anyway, the wedding happened and Maggie and I returned to Memphis. I went back to working on my dissertation and teaching classes; and for the most part, I didn't think much more about my calling to philosophy. In the spring semester of this year, I taught a course on the ancient philosophers. I was leading my students through the tricky yet beautiful "Allegory of the Cave" from Plato's Republic.
The philosopher is described there as one who breaks free from her chains and turns around, facing the fire. At first, she is blinded by it but eventually sees the exit of the cave. Upon leaving the cave, she sees the world as it truly is (instead of the shadows she saw on the cave wall). Seeing the real world is difficult, the sun is so blinding to her wide-pupiled "cave" eyes.
She eventually adjusts to the sunlight and learns about the world, the skies, and the stars. However, as any responsible person who has received enlightenment, be they Buddha, Confucius, Jesus or Socrates, the calling to teach others hearkens. She must go back into the cave and help the others break free and see the fire. This is a difficult task and many will not believe her. The sunlight has ruined her capacity to see the shadows, so she is mocked by the others. But she must help them turn around and see the fire, even if it puts her in danger.
The Greek for "turning around" is metanoia, the same word that is used to express conversion (merely the Latinate form). The philosopher's task is similar to the preacher's task: we help people "turn around" and see the "fire". Perhaps my grandfather's prediction really was coming to pass.
I couldn't help myself. I finished the "Allegory of the Cave" by explaining how philosophers had a duty to return to the cave and save the ignorant; that the world needed them to teach. The philosopher has an ethical obligation to help people "turn around". It is her calling. The Baptist in me took over. I grabbed a chair form behind the lectern and placed it before the students.
"Who wants to come out of the cave this morning? The invitation is being extended....."
Like most teachers, my relationship with my career has been a love/hate one. I have felt at times that my students were so mean and hateful that they did not deserve my gifts or my energy. However, after six years of teaching (three of those years listening to Cheryl's sermons), I have learned that when I protect my "smaller self", I live a small life.
I became a teacher because I love my subject. I quickly realized that I would not be teaching the same way my teachers taught me. The Golden Age of teaching has passed. So, as the classroom has changed, I have had to change. I have had to learn to teach and discipline harder and stronger. I have slowly learned to share vividly my heart and my attention, the spark that God has given me. Sharing my light is the only way to kill the fear and guilt and dread of an unproductive dayat work. When I refuse to share my light, I'm refusing to live fully. I'm not healing anyone, even myself. I am not "mending creation".
Teaching provides plenty of opportunities to heal. There is so much to do. There are so many layers to reach. The first thing that must be in place before the bulletin board is put up or the lesson plans written is an open heart to go to work. The old guilt, anger, boredom and degradation must be put in the past in order to change and to hear and to share God. It is necessary to welcome new opportunities, new faces and new minds because this will ultimately lead me closer to the face of God.
(Ginger Wilder)
Is it about teaching--or learning? (Cinda Russell)
H.D. Rist was my role model. Principal of the school and eighth grade teacher. As a class, we never were sure what the lesson(s) for the day might be. If he walked in with a brown bag, you knew it was probably going to be science all day because whatever was in the bag probably belonged to something along the path that led down to the creek (or "crick" as we all said then).If he walked to the blackboard and wrote a serious sentence, you knew it was going to be a long analysis of a sentence that sometimes made almost no sense. The most memorable was, "He said that that that that you used was wrong." Until I studied modern foreign languages, I had no idea that there were more than one kind of "that's".
More importantly than what he taught as that he was always the learner. He could find more ways to as a question and sometimes, we wanted to believe, maybe he really didn't know the answer. But he taught us how to se the answer. And we knew his need for learning was inexhaustible.
By sixth grade, he had determined that I was going to be a teacher. Almost daily, I found myself tutoring some little first or second grader who couldn't read. And by eighth grade, I was in charge of and responsible for the onerous task of completing all the teacher registers and balancing the school's register that ultimately determined the amount of money the school received for operations. I knew the difference between average daily attendance and average daily membership and that a two mill levy was very important if we were to keep the school's doors open. Many times, the levy failed, but the school remained open. That puzzled me then and continued to puzzle me when I became a charter school developer.
For forty-three Septembers as I planned for a new school year as a teacher or principal, I reflected annually on his ability to open a school year with total grace because he respected the learner. I have not always been so graceful, and for much of my professional career I and educators like me have focused on the teaching--the packaging of instruction in such a way that the teacher, the classroom and the school look good. The same cannot always be said for the learner.
Later, I took on responsibility for coaching teachers to focus on the learner. Since 1997, I have served on the National Review Panel for the U.S. Office of Education's Blue Ribbon Schools Program. In these settings, I have become convinced that teaching is only rewarding when the learner is the center of focus.
And so it is with my personal faith. Formal churches make every effort to put forth Jesus' teachings, but if I do not take the personal responsibility for the learning, there's not much the church can do with me or for me. It is easy for educators to become discouraged with the learner--a blame-the-victim mentality that shares no space or permits no allowances for poverty, family violence, divorce, or other demographics of a population already seriously disadvantaged. Fortunately, God does not get discouraged or give up so quickly. He continues to teach through the church, through the Bible, through prayer and through personal reflection with other learners. He doesn't blame the learner. Thank God.
Because each of us is created in God's image, we each have divinity in our core being. How difficult it can be to discover our inner divine light when it is hidden beneath years of fear, rejection, insult, self-doubt. I believe that as children of God, it is our calling to help one another seek out that which is divine within ourselves, to restore faith in ourselves.
I am a high school French teacher. I have found the joy in my profession of helping students gain faith in themselves. With each bit of achievement, students are able to catch a glimpse of the divinity which glows inside them.
Granted, this isn't obvious with every student and on every day. Tiffany, a prize pupil, has become quite proficient in French and is on a steady course to fulfilling her dream of working for the United Nations. Her face beams almost daily with a healthy sense of pride. Ebony, on the other hand, is struggling to pass French I. One day, she surprises herself, her peers, and me when she spontaneously strikes up a conversation in French with a new student from Senegal. A hush falls over the class as everyone's attention is directed to the exchange of information between the two girls. The hush erupts into applause as the students offer their accolade for Ebony's unexpected accomplishment. I am thrilled to observe the same look of pride on Ebony's face I've been accustomed to seeing on Tiffany's. It is incredibly rewarding to have helped bring these young ladies a bit closer to the person their Creator intends them to be. (Barry Flippo)
I am not a certified teacher, but I am in a position to educate many people about the proper care and treatment of many of God's creations: His/Her animals. I am a Veterinary Technician and it is my place to educate pet guardians of the best ways to care for the companion animals: what vaccinations each animal needs, parasite prevention, proper feeding , behavior issues and the need to stem overpopulation by spaying neutering.
As a student I saw firsthand routine mistreatment of animals used for food and can write letters to editors trying to educate the public about the cruelty associated with animal agriculture. I can write letters to congressmen pointing out abuses and encouraging legislation to ban cruel practices. As an animal rights activist I can picket circuses and rodeos urging people not to attend animal exploitation for entertainment and write letters to editors pointing out the cruelty in product testing on animals, animal research that proves nothing and drains federal, state and local dollars, Premarin production.....
I believe it is my mission to minister to the "lesser" of God's Creations and do as much as I can to encourage better, more human treatment of animals. (Cheryl Dare, LVMT)
Teaching as Ministry
Although I always loved school as a child, I never wanted to be a teacher. I had something much more glamorous in mind--an airline stewardess, a detective. Once I got to college, I loved it so much that the only career that interested me was being a college professor, and I went through 3 different majors trying to figure out what I liked best. Religion and sociology won out, but I took a 25-year detour after college, raised three children, volunteered in just about everything, and moved with my clergy husband four times. When I went back to grad school in my 40s, it was with a passion to understand how the past has shaped the present, especially in how we understand gender roles, racial difference and civic responsibility. I took a degree in history.
I now teach early American history, southern women's history, and a core humanities course called "A Search for Values" at a local college. The latter course has particularly enabled me to see my teaching as an extension of a commitment to live authentically. I try to help students question inherited truths, whether those truths come via American "core values", through a religious tradition, or from a materialistic culture.
Participating in the life of First Congregational has enabled me to appreciate the multiple ways in which Christian conviction can be manifest in political, ethical, and community decisions. It has allowed me to listen to students with greater depth, to trust in their own ability to find their way to greater authenticity, and to steer them toward broader understandings of Christianity without rejecting the sometimes fundamentalist orientation they bring to discussions. In my history courses, faith is not directly a topic, of course, but how one understands the world as a person of faith is: the consequences of capitalism, the residual influences of segregation, the manipulation of power by vested interests, discrimination of all sorts and the possibilities of grassroots activism are all valid and critical topics. I love teaching about them. I can't imagine doing anything else. (Gail Murray)
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