"What's the Story Behind My Story?" -- And Other Essential Questions

"'Are you a teacher?'"
"'What is a teacher?  I'll tell you:  It isn't someone who teaches something, but someone who inspires the student to give of her best in order to discover what she already knows....'"
"The teacher never tells the disciple what he or she should do.  They are merely traveling companions, sharing the same uncomfortable feeling of estrangement when confronted by ever-changing perceptions, broadening horizons, closing doors, rivers that sometimes seem to block their path and which, in fact, should never be crossed, but followed.'"
"'There is only one difference between teacher and disciple:  The former is slightly less afraid than the latter.'"
                            (Paolo Coelho, The Witch of Portobello)

--- --- ---

One of the great gifts of this fourth year in the life at the same school is to find -- miraculously -- that the treadmill of lesson preparation, grading, and coaching has....  Slackened?  

No.  

Well, maybe.

(Or, has the incline setting ramped back to sea-level?)

Anyhow, my teaching life has found a more sustainable rhythm this year.  I'm sleeping a bit more, vacuuming the house a bit more, running a bit more, and even mustering something resembling a devotional life on a daily basis.  (Imagine that -- praying instead of thinking about or talking about praying!  God save us.)  Through it all, I'm finding that I'm still improving my curriculum.  My units seem more coherent, and more of our daily work finds its way back or towards the essential questions that adorn the walls of Parks Hall, Room 102.  

"Is geography our destiny or our decision?"

"What in the world are we coming to?"

"Can history teach me to be more...?"

"What's the story behind my story?"

Here's my unfolding answer to that last one.

I should admit that I find blogging... a bit self-indulgent.  (Am I really so important that I expect a waiting world to not only read my evening musings, but comment upon them from time to time as well?  Am I above conversations with real people, in real time -- with my real voice?  And is my acknowledging all of this not a backhanded attempt at coming off as more grounded than I really am?)

But, to borrow a phrase from my recent application to a prestigious continuing education program (from which I was politely invited to re-apply at a future date), I find myself in danger of not having the expertise or the courage to live and teach from my own essential questions.  

I readily acknowledge that such tension could be creative in the best possible ways.  Of course I should be teaching middle and high school history students (and coaching cross country and middle distance/distance runners in track) from an urgency born of joy, longing, and whatever else propels us to discover whom we are meant to become.  Shouldn't an authentic classroom be one in which the teacher invites his or her students, in the words of Parker Palmer, to "dwell together in the presence of a great thing...."  Shouldn't coaches risk toeing the line -- albeit emotionally -- as their varsity seven crouch before the crack of the starter's gun at the State meet, and risk sharing some responsibility for their faltering courage over the middle mile? 

I have mostly convinced myself that to learn and coach like a pastor is to be caught up in God's own life -- to avail ourselves to others, to questions, and the journey towards an answer (and an Answer) that would transform us.  

I read this sentence again.  

It sounds vaguely progressive, vaguely Trinitarian, sort of Reformed....

And I was vaguely pleased with this non-committal answer until I met John Philip Newell last Thursday night.