What To Do with Wandering Sheep?
This year I walked through the valley of the shadow every other day during a certain class; the most difficult class I've ever been assigned. I felt like I needed a shower--or a walk alone on a quiet beach to contemplate the meaning of the universe, or at least the meaning of my job--after every session. Stealing lunches, bursting out in inappropriate rap lyrics, littering the carpet, telling the teacher "you're not going to win this one," fighting, having conversations about things I couldn't publish here--things that would make you blush, and refusing to do most assigned work were just some the superficial problems. They would resist me at every turn, refuse me at every appeal. These sheep were about to wander off a cliff.
I've been confident for a long time that I know exactly what content I need to teach, but most of the time, I have been privileged with teaching great kids who would learn despite my sports-jacketed self. Good sheep do not require much shepherding.
The truth is that it did not matter if I threw intellectual pearls at my wandering sheep, they would still prefer slop. What they needed wasn't the right curriculum alone. They needed what every student needs to be successful: the habit of attention and enough humility to learn to give their attention to the right things. They needed a kind of support I didn't know how to give.
A teacher is a shepherd of souls whether or not he realizes it. He may think that he is a math teacher, but the atmosphere he creates through his clothes, classroom set up, and attitude; the habits he inculcates through his disciplinarian strategies and classroom policies; and the kinds of ideas that he fosters through his discipline--like math as algorithm, or math as code of the universe--will shape a student's body, will, mind, and spirit. A teacher is not a mere distributor of ideas--as if knowledge could be uploaded into student brains like so many widgets of knowledge and skill. The best teachers know how to make students care enough to learn.
I've been attracted to Charlotte Mason methods of education because they offer means to train children in the habits that make learning possible. The right curriculum is only part of the puzzle. If I am to become a better teacher, I need to learn how to shepherd souls.
