by Jason Byassee, May 13, 2014
May is Teacher Appreciation month. It is a good time to reach back out to teachers who influenced and blessed and loved us well. It is also a good time for our church to think about the God-given goodness of the vocation of teaching. Each week in May we’ll interview one of our teachers about their work and the ways they find God in it. I hope we’ll all learn more about the richness of the body of Christ of which we are all a part.
Tracy Smith (Part 2)
How does your faith weigh into your work as a teacher, since obviously it shouldn’t explicitly do so in a public school setting?
Teaching has been my ministry. Sometimes, I have felt guilty that my ministry is not more “religious.” However, for me, teaching is sacred. I have taught middle school, high school, undergraduate and graduate students, and faculty peers. As a middle school teacher, I read aloud often to my students, so that I could convey voices of characters to students and bring those characters to life. I knew eighth grade might be the last chance to bestow on them a love of reading. I wanted them to long to read, to experience literature and stories, as I had. I wanted them to feel the tension in the courtroom as Atticus Finch taught his children, his neighbors, and generations of Harper Lee’s readers what real courage is. Teaching is investing in the lives of others. But I am the one who has received the most. Over and over, my students show me their generosity, compassion, intellect, curiosity – evidence that they are made in the image of God.
Tell me about a time when God surprised you with the goodness of your vocation?
In 1996, I was teaching eighth grade. My students and I wrote in journals and we took some time to share our writings with each other. Students often wanted me to read my entries. I wrote about what a wonderful group they were. I wrote about specific students and their acts of kindness, moments of exciting learning in our classroom, and other moral lessons.
That year, my grandmother became chronically ill. I stayed with her in the hospital for thirteen weeks. Sometimes, I was called away to go to her house and reinsert her feeding tube. During that time, instead of writing about my students, I wrote about my grandmother. Each Monday, my students wanted to hear about how she had done over the weekend. They extended care to me. My grandmother died in March, just before my students and I were to leave for a spring break trip to Washington, DC. We had worked so hard together raising the funds for this trip. The funeral was scheduled for the day of our departure. The bus with my students and the volunteer chaperones would have to leave without me. It was spring break so I couldn’t get a flight. Through a blessed series of events, the father of one of my students arranged my flight with a friend of his on a private plane – for only the cost of the fuel. At my grandmother’s service, I had four blue hydrangeas waiting for me – all from my students, who knew hydrangeas were my favorite. [I have moved those hydrangeas to three different houses]. I left after the funeral for my flight to DC. When I arrived in DC, I turned to pay the pilot. He said, “No, don’t worry. Someone already paid me.” I met my students at the Lincoln Memorial. They showered me with questions and condolences. What a wonderful group of human beings. I will never forget the compassion and care they extended to me. I witnessed the power of human kindness budding and blooming. It’s almost funny to me that I was trying to use my journal writing to teach them moral lessons. Today, nearly two decades later, I am Facebook friends with most of those students.
We are connected forever–because I was their teacher.
Tracy Smith is a professor in the College of Education and faculty development consultant at Appalachian State University. She and her family attend the 8:45 am Sunday services at BUMC.