A word to Christian teachers

To the Christian teacher: You are in the middle of a war zone. You may have a great group of students this year, but the enemy would love nothing more than to undermine your effectiveness as an educator and godly role model and disrupt your students’ learning and positive growth. I want to share with you some strategies that I used during my 32-year career to deal with the devil’s schemes, both in Christian and public schools. (Notice the emphasis for #s 1-4 is on prayer!)

1. Pray in your classroom before the year begins. First Timothy 2:1 declares, “First of all…PRAY.” For many of you, the school year has already started, but it’s not too late to pray over your year. Take the time to walk around your classroom and pray concerning your students, their parents, and all of your interactions with them this year. Pray over each desk or table in your room. They represent the students who will be sitting there. I always brought oil and placed it inconspicuously on or under each desk—including my own—as I prayed for the school year.
2. Pray outside your building before the school year, on a Saturday, or after school hours—and walk the entire campus and pray for the classes and administrators. If you have a like-minded colleague on staff, have them join you, or perhaps you have a prayer partner outside of school who would be glad to participate.
3. Arrive early enough every morning to pray over the desks in your room representing each student and family. Let the Holy Spirit lead you as you pray for each one.
4. Before or after hours, as the opportunity arises, pray inside the building over each classroom and area. I stayed late at school often on Friday nights to plan for the next week, prepare materials, and grade papers (frequently leaving the building as the custodians locked up at 10:30 or 11 PM!) and used that “unpopulated” time periodically to pray through the halls, especially when the school-day atmosphere was tense or chaotic. It bore the fruit of peace for my building. In fact, after I retired, a reading specialist in the building asked, “Did you used to put your hands on the walls and pray when you stayed late here?” I responded, “Guilty.” To my surprise, she replied, “Well, I sure wish someone would start doing it again! We need it!”
5. Treat your students the way you would want someone else to treat your child. Be firm and keep your expectations high, but also be respectful and honest with your students. If you mess up, apologize with sincerity and then keep on teaching.
6. Ask the Lord to give you honest strategies to streamline all the paperwork that threatens to  bury you, but resist any temptation to cut corners in a dishonest way. God will give you wisdom so that you can effectively manage it all with integrity.
7. Watch out for the malicious gossip-fests that play out with many staff members or parents. You are an “epistle read of men” (see 2 Corinthians 3:2) and your words are powerful, and as James 3:10 says, “From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.”
8. When you are supposed to be teaching, teach! I was amazed during my career that some people, hired to teach, felt comfortable with habitually giving quick instructions, and then, sitting back, just worked on paperwork (and more recently, surfed the net or played with their iPhones) the rest of the time. Don’t let this describe your work ethic! If you have minimal interaction with students, if you provide negligible monitoring of their work, then behavior incidents will escalate. As a result, your students will develop (or master!) an attitude of who cares?. Morale and achievement will deteriorate. But if you want your students to care, act like you care and over time, they will be positively affected by your close involvement. Simply walking the class while you teach or as the students work is an extremely effective tool. And give eye-contact to every kid as you teach. Nothing says I’m afraid of you or I couldn’t care less about you as blatantly as avoiding eye-contact! Yes, you can sit and do paperwork every now and then; just keep interaction with students your top priority. As for surfing the net or using your iPhone—do it on your own time.
9. I’ve had several dream classes; I’ve had the proverbial “class from hell” more than a time or two; and I’ve had every type of class in between. And each year, even with the best of groups, I’ve had the opportunity to get stressed, angry, worried, or wonder what on earth am I doing in the education field?. So will you. And the best strategy at times like that is to cast your cares on the Lord. Even though you’re in charge of a large number of students, He is in charge of you and He cares for you, as the Amplified Bible says, affectionately and watchfully (see 1 Peter 5:7).
10. How do you cast your care on the Lord? Here are some strategies:

• Tell God you are casting your cares on Him and then physically pantomime throwing your burden on Him. Do this as often as necessary.
• Take a quiet praise break during your restroom break.
• Sing and worship God during drive time.
• Recount the good things on your job and in your life and thank God for them.
• On particularly bad days, smile all the way home from school (see blog entry on July 23, 2013).
• Find a Christian on staff and pray about pressing concerns. If there are no believers at work, pray with a trusted friend, being cautious to keep confidential information to yourself.
• If you stay late to get a lot of work done, take a quick brain-break. Walk around the track or go off-campus to get coffee or tea or whatever. Smell the roses (or coffee or fresh air) before you dive back into work.

As simple as these strategies are, they are very powerful. As you implement them in your own way, God will use you to teach and reach the next generation with effectiveness and grace. If you would like me to pray for you as a fellow Christian educator, find my contact form on this website and let me know. It would be an honor to pray for you.

May He use your teaching to His glory this year!

Dorothy