Like everyone in every classroom everywhere, I love teaching students who naturally lean toward learning, who love the environment of the classroom, and who thrive in my attention as their teacher. I love students who want to know more about what I’m covering in class and who pursue ideas on their own and surprise me with their impressive depth of understanding. Or lacking great intellectual victories, I just love to be loved. But several years ago, Parker Palmer gave a presentation at Lee that challenged me to my core. He told about what he called, “The student from hell,” and explained how he inadvertently got behind that student’s mask and found a lonely soul longing for knowledge. Since my vocabulary is not quite as colorful as his, I went into my classroom the next day, focused on “the student least likely to succeed.”
That semester, it was an overly large young man with a turquoise Mohawk and black leather jacket who skulked in the back of the room, expressing total disdain for the craft of writing. He had multiple piercings, before such things were commonplace, and he was surrounded by empty desks as classmates clustered in more sociable groups as far away from him as the congested classroom would allow. Unsure of myself and without any set tactics, I struck up an awkward conversation with him. Neither of us was good at small talk, and it was a stressful conversational gambit. My cheeriness was too cheery and his dourness too dour. It was, frankly, a bit embarrassing, and I was ready to withdraw and leave him with his attitudes.
But something had been stirred deep in my teacher’s conscience, and for the first time, I was starting to realize what was at stake. It might not have been of the greatest consequence whether he mastered the five- paragraph essay, but hospitality is the at the heart of the Christian community, and I owed him a welcome into my space that fit his needs for inclusion, whether or not he recognized them or welcomed my attempts to satisfy them. Even if he never learned the content of my class, he had to learn that he was loved. Of course, I wanted to change him into a smiling, extraverted, grateful learner who dressed a bit more conventionally and treated me with a joyous respect, but I understood that my job was to love him unconditionally, blue Mohawk, bad attitude and all. Before I could convince him of this love, I had to convince myself, and that took more than chipper conversation.
I prayed for him every day that his life would be flooded with the love of God and that I would be a conduit of that love. I wrote earnest comments on his papers and encouraged all his efforts. I tried to reach past his intentionally barbed exterior to where he kept his authentic, gentle self. I validated him to his classmates and tried by my own hearty acceptance to lessen the figurative and literal distance between them. Since I am neither a saint nor a psychologist, my efforts were imperfect, often awkward, and were met with varying degrees of acceptance. The semester ended. He passed, but it seemed that nothing great had shifted in him or in his classmates. After I turned in my grades, I headed back to my office and found an envelope taped to my door. In it was a flowery note card which I assumed on first glance was from one of the enthusiastic young women in my class, but inside was a note from the student least likely. In his not-so-great handwriting, he said, “Thank you for this semester. No one has ever been kind to me, and I almost didn’t recognize it, but your kindness made a much bigger difference than you know.”
That was it—a note on the door, but it was more than enough. We didn’t become great friends. He isn’t one of the many students who as lived with us or traveled with us, or even shared our Thanksgiving dinner. But he graduated, and when I saw him on that day, he was surrounded by a mismatched band of friends who were as cheerful about his success as they were about their own. His hair was black now, like his fingernails, and he was still himself but more welcoming and less guarded, and if I am allowed a guess, happier and more easily loved.
I obviously don’t take credit for his success. As we all know, it takes a hospitable village—a community of grace– to bring students through to a healthy adulthood. This story happened decades ago, but our students come to us today with ever deeper scars, ever greater alienation, and ever more poignant longing for acceptance. There is always a “student least likely,” even if the signs aren’t as clear as they were for me that first time. There is always someone on the margins socially, or intellectually, or culturally, and it is in the teacher’s great power to make the classroom a hospitable community of grace which imperfectly but intentionally mirrors the kingdom of God. Too much is at stake for us not to try.
Author
Dr. Carolyn Dirksen is the Director of Faculty Development at the Center for Teaching Excellence at Lee University.