Anyone who has been a teacher will testify that at times there have been children who were hard to like. I was one of those children for a number of my teachers. What about you? Can you recall students who were challenging and difficult to like? Perhaps ask yourself why they were hard to like?
Towards the end of my book 'Education and Pedagogy for Life', I suggest that one of the key marks of the good teacher is they are attentive to all their students. Note 'ALL'! What's more, they encourage students to tolerate one another, not simply those in their friendship groups. Community building in school is very important, and the best teachers will shape class and group communities to help students understand in some way, that every other student is a gift to all of us in a classroom.
Life is filled with many relationships, and each contributes to us in some way. We learn and grow in and out of school as we experience life together in varied communities of practice. School should not be seen as a place to which we simply send our children in order to have their heads filled with knowledge, and discipline instilled. Hopefully, we want them to grow in understanding and character. This requires "immersion in a life that is only partly lived at school... our students have complex lives in which they dwell in numerous communities of practice." (Cairney, 2018, p.164).
The Christian school is to be a place where our students' presuppositions are challenged constantly, as they try to grapple with the experiences of life. Ricoeur ('Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination', 1995) reminds us that all of life impacts us, and our presuppositions are challenged daily. This includes the things taught in classes or the school Chapel, as well as ideas expressed by students in community life, playground conversations etc.
Ricoeur suggests that as faith emerges, it will be challenged as we try to make sense of changed priorities and lives. How do we do this? He argues that "metaphorical imagination" is strongly implicated in such efforts to make sense of varied realities. My take on this is that as we encounter conflicts between the things we believe and value, we will need to reconcile such clashes by creating inner 'metaphors' to hold them in balance, rather than in tension.
As a student comes to faith in our schools or begins to reflect more critically on the faith of other students, and also their own, they have the need to reconcile inner conflicts. They observe and listen to others and ask questions of them. But they also ask questions of themselves as they carry many inner conflicts alone.
Ricoeur's take on this is that for such inner conflicts, we can experience redemption by imagining the possibilities if we were to move in new directions in life. He suggests that by "imagining his possibilities, man (sic) can act as a prophet of his own experience." While I agree that at the point of key decisions about our faith and where we stand in a community like a Christian school, I also see the growth or loss of faith in our students as much more deeply interwoven with all of life. Bad life examples and good ones, all play their part.
God reveals himself in many ways within school communities. For the teacher, I suggest "the things we teach, the priorities we set, the activities we plan, the experiences that are structured, the books we share; indeed all of life in and outside the school acts upon us and shapes us" (Cairney, p.166).
For the student, this will often be the examples of teachers and students. This is demonstrated in their lives; the priorities they hold, the things they believe and so on.
Christian schools exist to reveal God in every aspect of life. We are seeking to shape young lives for the good. Buber reminds us that teachers present a "selection of the world" to our students with formation of character as the key purpose. But every member of our school communities is used by God and plays their part.
As I say many times in my writings, the calling to be a teacher is an honorable one. We have the opportunity to help shape hearts and minds; we are vehicles for learning about God and revealing God through his word and our witness. We must continue to meditate on this truth. What a responsibility! But in his strength and power all things are possible.
