I want to love my students like a novelist loves her characters. That probably needs some explanation. During spring break I enjoyed watching some sessions from this year’s Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin University. Eight years ago I got to attend this biennial gathering of diverse writers in person with my daughter who was on the student planning committee. I got to travel to Michigan, sleep on the couch in my daughter's student apartment for the week, and meet her three roommates. Though the festival was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic, it was held virtually this year, which is how I could participate from Japan.
One of the sessions I watched was with Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko, a novel about four generations of a Korean family in Japan. Ms Lee shared that when she builds a literary world and peoples it, she has to love every character she creates. Even the ones who make bad decisions, who hurt themselves and others. Because she understands their backgrounds, motivations, experiences, and perspectives, she loves them even as she deeply mourns the wrong and damage they do and have done to them. She shared how difficult it was to do this with 200 characters. And then it struck her that God does this with billions of souls. There are many aspects of God that are beyond my comprehension. I just realized that that depth of emotional capacity is one of them.
Still, I want to try. I want to try, to the extent that I am able as I bear God’s image, to understand and love as God does, the students who will enter my room for a new school year on Monday. Or at least as well as Min Jin Lee loves her characters.
This was brought home to me half a decade ago when my first grandchild’s birth coincided with my first day of school. How I hoped that when he walked into his English classroom any given year in the future, his teacher would know how special he was. How I hoped that I could be the teacher that I wished for my grandson, for other people’s grandchildren.
And now it is the beginning of another school year. Another new batch of students will walk into my class on Monday. How can I get off to a good start in loving them and building with each of them the kind of relationship that will model God’s love to them and give them a secure foundation for learning this year? Here are four ways:
- Engage in regular prayer: I’ve made a stack of index cards with their names on, and I’ve prayed through the stack of cards once already.
- Cultivate genuine curiosity: Wondering what makes the individuals I’m praying for tick—like Min Jin Lee does for her characters. What gives them joy? What worries them? What do they want out of school this year, and what do they expect out of life? How can I help them connect what we’ll do in English class to life?
- Ask good questions: Jennifer Gonzales has a great 4-Part System for Getting to Know Your Students (Cult of Pedagogy) that includes ideas for breaking the ice, taking inventory, storing data, and doing regular check-ups. I've used it, and it's really helpful. See this blog post for my results.
- Share my story: One thing I initiated two years ago when I started the school year online at a new school was introductory letters. I wrote one to the students introducing myself, and they wrote one back to me. (It also doubles as an initial reading and writing assessment!)
I'm looking forward to Monday and meeting students--those individuals deeply loved by God and by their family--each with their own gifts, stories, and blind spots. I'm looking forward to learning who they are and how I can love them and help them learn this year.
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