Growing a Healthy
Garden
by Kathy Becker
W
hen you reach the end of this year, will you look back with a sense of satisfaction, knowing you did ev erything you could and should to pour all that is true and g ood and beautiful into the hearts and souls of your students? It is a g rand and g lorious priv ileg e you hav e been g iv en. As educators we realiz e the importance of our job (as opposed to the importance of ourselv es). S ev eral years ag o, while taking a prospectiv e parent on a tour of the school where I was administrator, she remarked, " It' s like they' re your flowers and this is a g arden." Ev ery farmer desires to g row a healthy g arden. Just as the preparation of the g round is necessary for g rowing healthy plants, preparation is important when we deal with education. As we minister to our students we wish to instill wisdom and v irtue. We hope to find the best ways to nourish them so that they may g row into healthy plants and bring fruit. As teachers we are inv olv ed in preparing the soil and softening the g round, making it ready for planting . We carefully water each little heart and mind, tending to each and g uiding them as they g row. The role of the teacher is larg e enoug h to be frig htening , but there are a couple of thing s we can do to ensure we hav e prepared our classrooms for success. After enjoying thirty years of administering home education to six children, Kathy then administered a classical Christian school before joining Memoria Press as the school representative in the West.
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Growing a Healthy Garden
A Prepared Teacher
Y ou hav e a hug e responsibility and tremendous power. Y ou must be ev er reading , ev er g rowing , ev er taking in—for as we know, you cannot g iv e what you do not hav e. Y our teaching must come from the ov erflow. Adhere to the words of uintilian: "We must form our minds by reading deep rather than wide." In order to prepare the g round for your students, you hav e to be prepared yourself. Thus will you be equipped to teach your students how to think so that they will know what to do. Y ou should feel excitement at the opportunity to share all that is true and g ood and beautiful in a world that is often dark and bad and ugly. As Plutarch once said: As farmers put stakes beside their plants, so the rig ht kind of teacher provides firm support for the young in the shape of lessons and admonitions carefully chosen so as to produce an uprig ht g rowth of character.
An Ordered Classroom
If we are to hav e healthy g ardens, we must plant them with purpose and order. I want to share some thoug hts from C hesterton, which will help us to think about the job of teaching: A child kicks his leg s rhythmically throug h excess, not absence, of life. B ecause children hav e abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want thing s repeated and unchang ed. They always say, " Do it ag ain" ; and the g rown- up person does it ag ain until he is nearly dead. F or
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