More Than a Number

Like the National Cemetery, we often see loss after loss. There will be casualties, but they don’t have to happen on our watch. Let us pray for open hearts. Open eyes. Open hands. And open arms. Let us diligently seek the ones that might be lost to these cruelties of this dark world. And let’s protect these kids while we can; and stop the casualties of war.

None of the Jews were a mere statistic. And none of our students are either. Each life matters and even if assigned a number, that number will always have a face and name attached. Our students matter. They matter to their classmates. And our future. The way we teach could impact and change a kid for the rest of their life.

Back to my year of teaching, I vowed to help my students learn that life wasn’t about right and wrong choices; just choices with different consequences or rewards. On decisions of morality, we learned right and wrong, but answers in the classroom, I had to teach these students they were not defined by their answer choices. They each had a unique personality that could never be measured by a test. As teachers, we must be aware of this differentiation and teach our students to

In a politically correct world, teachers must be cautious, but we must also be creative. My students learned how to research, but they also learned that just because a teacher teaches something doesn’t mean they have to believe it. Every person has a right to believe as they choose.

While I am a huge fan of compulsory education, I’m not fond of the turn education has taken since this pioneering generation of settlers first began. Education is not a one-size fits all. Back then, it was a treasure and a privilege to learn how to read. Parents were thrilled when they had someone in their home who could read, write, and do math computations. We’ve somehow lost the wonder and excitement of literacy.

As teachers, sometimes our standard that measures success is off. In my book, Lenny made it. He achieved a huge goal by starting a business and offering mechanic services to people in our town. But as teachers, we often snub our noses at “menial” jobs like this. If our students don’t become doctors, lawyers, nurses, or scholars of some kind, they haven’t arrived. But that standard isn’t how we should measure the success of our students. Our students are more than numbers.