This post first appeared here about eight years ago but periodically I like to publish it in honor of us and all the hard work that we do, a kind of work that few who are not teachers can even begin to understand:
Dear Lord:
When I go in to work with my students tomorrow, please remind me, as many times as is necessary, that I am there with them first to honestly praise them, who are your creations and nothing less.
Remind me that my brothers and sisters in teaching this way, this praiseful way of teaching, are out there, experiencing the same difficulties that I am, and that we are all trying to focus on our students Your creations primarily and only on the language that we are teaching them secondarily.
We have decided to teach this way and so now we ask for your help in this our endeavor, because we feel it is the best thing to do for us and for the kids.
Please help us to praise our students, and thus praise You who made them, by putting and keeping the focus of our attention entirely on them. Please give us the strength to do that, which seems so odd at times.
Please help us to laud their greatness, real or imagined, as we talk about them in class, without speaking disingenuously so that our praise doesn’t seem sincere. We know well that they will see if we are merely acting, in their incredible perceptive genius that You have given them. Help us to activate that genius, oh Lord!
And thank you for giving us a way to teach that is not disingenuous! Just please remind us to speak genuinely to our students. This is so important for us if we are to succeed in bringing this wonderful new idea about teaching, this idea that is Your gift to us, and so help us speak much more about our students than we think is necessary. Help us break through the fear on that one.
Only you can do this, dear Lord. Only you can help us change from a way of doing our work that didn’t reach them to a way that does. Give us those precious little insights during class that are Your way, Your trademark, of letting us know that You are there in the classroom with us, those little messages (are they whispered or how do You do that?) from You like:
“…now go over to so-and-so and compare the one you are talking with now to her…!”
“…now bring in a new event…!”
“…now ask where this happened…!”
“…it’s o.k. to laugh now because that really is funny…t’s o.k. to laugh even though you are scared…!”
“…now ask what color his car is!…!”
Those little communications from you show us who the real Teacher is. It’s like your singer Gnarls Barkley sings:
“Come on now, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are? Hah hah hah, bless your soul…..You really think you’re in control?”
There are so many ways that show us vividly how You are there with us during each moment of class, and that remind us how much You Yourself like to play the comprehension game that we play in teaching languages!
Please teach us how to just let it go and just let the language flow by itself, with us being more of a vessel through which the language flows than a teacher. Please help us come to that awareness, a little bit more each day, because nothing happens fast if it’s any good, oh Lord!
Please help us to teach slowly enough so that we think we are going too slowly. Only then will we be going slowly enough. And please help us get the focus of our instruction onto the meaning of what we say and not on the words themselves, like we used to do before, because that didn’t work.
Please help us by sending in those angels, or however it is that You do that stuff, whenever we are faced with darkness in one of our students. Let us say what you would say to them in that situation. And please help us also in those other fearful moments in class or in conversation with people who oppose us, when we are so exposed and don’t know what to do. Show us what to do in those moments, Lord. Only You can do that.
Amen