There are times I think I’d like to have a snarky Twitter account so I could spit out pithy one-liners. I resist this urge because one, social media has never done me any favors, and two, the anger of man does not bring about the righteousness of God (i.e. the pithiness of Pearl does not make for justice in the world). Rather, it makes for a slow-to-listen, quick-to-speak, know-it-all smart aleck.
The blog forces me to think it out, spell it out, work it out. But I have had some 140 (and 280, thanks Twitter for upping the limit) character-limit thoughts that have been boiled down over the first month of school with hours of car-ride time to junior high basketball games.
Like, interesting how church people get excited about stories of smuggling Bibles into forbidden countries but won’t set foot in a public school.
It’s too pithy, I know, but it must be admitted: it’s easier to stand in a booth at the fall festival handing out free water bottles, or volunteer to bring snacks to VBS and hoping that’s as far as Jesus expects me to “let my light shine before men”.
I recently sent a thank you note to a local church for providing lunch to the district during one of our professional development days. I asked them to also pray the Lord would call more folks of character (Christians, I meant real Christians) to the public school missionary field…not because children need to be better institutionalized but because people are bumping around in the dark just waiting for someone to turn on a flashlight.
Just ask the kid who doesn’t own a pair of matching shoes, the one who accidentally squirts ketchup right onto his cigarette-burned shirt but doesn’t even stop to wipe it off because he’s always dirty anyway. Ask the single parent who doesn’t know why her middle-schooler is suicidal even though she spends every off hour scrolling Tik Tok and comparing herself to other girls.
Ask the teachers who are overwhelmed with IEPs, behavior issues, state standards, curriculum, make-up work, parent concerns and complaints and the constant emails asking them to add more to their plate.
The problems are already too big to be solved, but it’s not too late for the Jesus-following crowd to let their light shine.
I myself never wanted to be a school teacher. It was familiarity with the public school scene and out of a sense of duty I felt compelled to become one. But I can tell you with confidence that whatever short-term “missionary” role I play (as it seems awfully doubtful I can sustain it full-time and long-term)—it has been far and above effective in amplifying this little light of mine.
The love of learning—curiosity—is a substantial component of Christian faith—seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened! Is it too big a stretch to reimagine Christian adults setting healthy examples and boundaries for children and other grownups? Teaching them how to be curious? How to succeed, how to fail, how to treat one another?
If one wanted to initiate change, wouldn’t it benefit them to begin building rapport amongst a circle of educators and pupils? To challenge one another to excellence in academics and civil duty? To engage with some of the 49.9 million public school attending youth in America who make up the next generation?
Here’s another limited-character thought:
What if all middle-age Americans (post-children) or young adults (pre-children) were drafted into a mandatory teaching service for two years? Would it promote a sense of duty? Would it make public education patriotic?
If big government wanted to solve this problem, I believe they’d be on it. But they have never really cared about children, only power. This is why sweeping changes to education these days are agenda-driven, not child-focused. If flaws are revealed in education (and there are many), voters would bail.
Truth is, you wouldn’t be so worried about the “indoctrination” of your kids if you saw the bigger picture—that as a parent, you have the biggest influence. Your kids are actually looking at you to learn how to listen, how to react, how to live.
They are waiting on you to lead them, to teach them.
What if parents who say they truly care showed up as classrooms reinforcement? What if dads came on campus to make sure no one was smoking pot in the bathroom or messing around on lunch break? What if you took a day off every month to volunteer? What if you taught for a year? It’s happening to me, and I’m not sorry about it.
I want to think Christians could see and seize this opportunity to show up in our American schools as light-bearers—taking turns to lessen the burden. But I get the feeling it costs far less to pass out water bottles and listen to the heroic tales of Bible-smugglers.
