FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: A teacher’s sanctuary (Chapter 2)

“And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them …” (Matthew 18:1)

Welcome to the “Front-Porch.”

I ambled slowly back to my desk in the back corner of the room. I plopped down to reflect once more before the end came, although I knew down deep some things, however long ago, never actually end.

That solitary moment the last day in that honored shrine is one of the greatest among “sanctuaries,” whether it be the first day or the last.  It reminds me of standing at the foot of some of vast waterfall, I thought. Immediately flashing through my mind soared Anna Ruby Falls in Helen, Georgia, then others. Those types of unexpected flashbacks are how, from the very beginning, a thousand classroom “story-times” began – just the germ of a thought, the mention of a word, more often than not just in passing, and – boom! – Storytime Hour breaks out like the measles.

At that moment, a roomful of students, all shifting in their seats to get comfortable for the marathon ahead, listen intently, thinking, “Ah, yes, now we can get a whole class period free of work, and if by chance the stories don’t take the whole class period, we’ll ask fifty questions to expand Coach’s story. We’ve got ‘im where we want ‘im. Man, we’re good!”

I tell you their thoughts because, among a teacher’s greatest talents, is the fine-motor skill of mind-reading. They say a teacher has eyes in the back of her head – which is true – but it’s also true that they can read students’ minds a mile away in the fog. Young people are transparent, as transparent as a mountain spring – no, as transparent as the waves crashing down from roaring Anna Ruby Falls. (“That, students, is called a ‘hook.’ I expect to see one in your next essay.”)

Transparency is one of the things that makes students so amazing. They have childlike wonder, yes, but you never have to wonder what they’re thinking.

Oh, not that they don’t always think they are a step and a half ahead of the fella with the piece of chalk in his hand – or marker, depending on which decade we’re talking about. But they are wrong, as wrong as... as saying “I don’t know” when they know good and well who threw the eraser at the young lady in the front row.” The teacher is always a step ahead of them, even if she misses the perpetrator in that instance. Those storytelling moments that took half the class to tell – well, “show,” not tell – and allowed the boys and girls with a silly grin on their faces to think they had won the battle game, set, and match, but they fail to compute two things:

One, the art of storytelling combines a hundred skills that they needed to learn and put into daily practice, and today’s the day; and, two, the teacher has a surprise as soon as the story wound on down to its climatic end (which the students always knew because of the storyteller’s request, “Hands together” to make sure they show their immense approval). Yes, this Mark-Twain-esque storyteller who has masterfully modeled this long-lost art suddenly transforms into a drill sergeant:

“All right, open up your notebook” – or laptop, again, depending on the decade – "and write me 500 words over your own examples of ‘childlike wonder,’” or whichever one of a thousand topics it is on any given day.

Oh, my what groans and moans follow. What whining and pining, and utter dismay!

Their gleeful childlike wonder suddenly morphs into a Tom-Sawyer lamentation, that unwritten essay looks as daunting as that long, long un-white-washed fence our literary hero has to face.

Even their Tom-Sawyer behavior proves our point yet again: There’s nothing in the whole world like childlike wonder!

Come sit over here by Mark Twain himself and watch if you don’t believe it.

Coach Steven Ray Bowen served as a teacher and basketball coach at Red Oak High from 1998-2012 and recently came out of retirement twice for teaching tours at Ferris and Waxahachie High Schools. He and his wife Marilyn (the “amazin’ blonde”) have slowed down some of their travels and reconvened in their evangelistic work with the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl/Ovilla Roads, in addition to Coach’s work as a writer and author, including the working to publish “Crossing The Georgia Line” that ran in the Ellis County Press. Call or text (972) 824-5197, email coachbowen1984@gmail.com, and see frontporchgospel.com.