This fall, I decided to return to the classroom as a teacher. Teaching was my first job after I left the monastery in 1998. I taught for three years, then switched to finance because I felt the need to earn more money for the family. But I always felt like a fish out of water in the business world.
Now I have flopped back into the waters of teaching, where there are schools of little souls that need to be fed, loved, directed. It’s been two weeks. I feel like I’m home.
I teach Scripture – from Genesis to Revelation – at Purcell Marian High School. I teach the Sophomore class.
Things got interesting for me – fast.
On Day 2, I got into the meat of the class for the first time. The previous day had been intro – an easy kickoff. I chose not to be a disciplinarian. I wanted to win ‘em over with kindness.
They concluded I was soft.
The next day, my largest class strolls into my room, all 27 of ‘em, full of popcorn and vinegar. I had prepared a seating chart and needed to direct the kids, one at a time to their seats. This created a traffic jam, kids with nothing to do, waiting, hamming it up, getting rowdy. It was a hot August afternoon and the room was thick and congested. My window AC unit was fighting a losing battle against the rising heat.
The class gets out of hand fast. I don’t know any of the kids’ names yet, so I can’t address them by name to keep it down. They sense my powerlessness, the slack in the line, and they run with it.
I’m standing in a collapsing pocket like Tom Brady. I’m planning to deliver a Come to Jesus talk once I have ‘em all seated. That’s what I did with my other classes. But a colleague walks in – Chris, the English teacher. He scans the room. Takes in the mayhem, the volume. Asks me: “Is everything OK?”
Argh. It’s day 2 of my return to teaching and I am being called out! My internal temperature shoots up several degrees. I’m embarrassed. Can the teachers down the hall hear the noise? Are people thinking I have no control over my class?
I get pissed – I admit it. These kids are dinging my reputation. I tell Chris, curtly, everything is fine; he leaves; and I zip through the final few seat assignments. Then I shut the door and unload. On purpose I switch to Coach mode. On purpose I drop an “F-ing” as an adjective (not the real word, just “F-ing”), a “damn,” and an “I’m pissed.”
I teach Scripture. I’m new at teaching Scripture to high schoolers. Long years of familiarity with the monastic way has conditioned me to speak in a gentle tone. They think I’m a pushover. I decide to show them my stern Coach persona. I’m not saying I was right to do so. Just saying that I did.
“What would Coach Mobley (our football coach) do if you all acted this way in practice?” I ask a group of football players.
“He’d make us RUN!” one of them answers, with emphasis on the run.
“Why would he do that?” I reply.
No answer.
“Because he’s bloody serious about his sport. And he expects excellence from you.”
“Well I’m no different. I came to this school to teach. I came to teach this subject. I’ve been studying the Bible for 30 years. And some of you in this class, maybe many – perhaps most – came here to learn. That’s what’s going to happen in this classroom. Learning.
“If you don’t like that. If you want to do something else, then we’re gonna have a problem.
“I’m new here. You figured that out. You might be thinking let’s test out the new guy. Well go ahead. Try me.”
At some point in this little monologue, T (I will use letters, not actual names), a good spirited and extremely social young man, keeps veering off the guard rails of classroom decorum. I mean, he’s getting into loud and spirited side conversations with his neighbor. He’s rambunctious, loud, disruptive. He won’t be quiet. I call him out. I warn him clearly.
Then he does it again.
“T, leave the room,” I say. “Go down to Ms. Johnson’s (the Dean of Students) office.” He explodes in protest. I don’t budge. He leaves the room amidst fervent pleas.
And with that, the wave of classroom unrest begins to subside.
I lead us into the task at hand. The book of Genesis. I outline it for them. There are two grand story lines, I say: (1) the Creation of the world and the human race; and (2) the story of Abraham and his early descendants. I tell them I’m going to be teaching them a way to pierce the depths of Scripture. I outline a spiritual and intellectual approach to Scripture which is an adaptation, for high schoolers, of Lectio Divina. I dub it Biblical Exploration. Exploration as in the plumbing of the ocean depths. But these depths are the mind of God.
About this time, T returns from Ms. Johnson’s office. He is penitent. I receive him warmly. Little does he know how soft my heart to him actually is. He is a gifted, earnest, kind-hearted child. I want to see him develop all his considerable gifts. I will hold him to a high standard.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Tew. I was out of line,” he says.
“Welcome back, T,” I reply. “Glad to have you with us again.”
He sits down, quietly this time. We’re finishing up a discussion of the 7 Steps of Biblical Exploration. We take this method and apply it to Genesis 1:1-4. A text that goes like this:
“In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters—Then God said: Let there be light, and there was light.”
“What do you see in this text?” I say to the class. What can you observe?
“God is shaping the earth,” one boy says. A nice way of phrasing it, I think to myself.
“God speaks and light comes to be,” says another.
These are such perceptive responses I am starting to think that these boys have been talking to my other classes. Still, I copy them down on the board.
Then a question comes that stops me in my tracks. It’s from T – freshly back from the Dean of Students office.
“How can the wind be there if it was never created?” he asks.
I find the question astonishing. I did not address this topic in my other classes. T’s questions makes it clear to me that these observations are coming from the boys themselves, from their minds encountering the Scripture directly.
I know the answer to T’s question. “The mighty wind” of Gen 1:2 is a poor translation. In Hebrew, the word is Rhuah, which can mean both wind and Spirit. In Greek, Rhuah is translated as pneuma Theou, the spirit of God. This mighty wind, therefore, is the Holy Spirit, the 3rd person of the Trinity. It is there, without having been created, because it precedes creation; it proceeds from the Father.
I try to elicit, in the kids, marvel at this question, while inwardly I marvel myself. Especially that such an insight should come from a boy whom I had just sent down to see the Dean of Students. In a moment of insight and lucidity, T saw behind the inadequacy of his Bible’s translation and uncovered, at the dawn of Creation, the finger prints of the 3rd Person of the Trinity. In the second day of my new career.
In a way, I am not surprised. But even so: I stand in wonder that this same mighty wind, this Spirit of God, can move in every child, even the most rambunctious in my class.
