Building Cathedrals

This blog is dedicated to all the teachers I know and have known in my thirty years of teaching. It will feature a variety of thoughts (as below) or perhaps even suggestions for classroom activities. Respond in the comment section or send me an email at jorja.davis@gmail.com.  Watch for The Teacher's Friend on Wednesdays.

Once upon a time a traveler came across three men on a mountain. All three were using heavy sledge hammers and wedges to break large blocks of stone free from the mountainside. The traveler could see no nearby structure, studio, or obvious reason for their hard and focused work. Curious, the traveler approached the first laborer and asked, “What are you doing?” 

 The stone worker stopped, wiped his brow, threw down his hammer and said, “ Isn't it obvious, I am breaking rocks.” He reached for his flask, took a deep drink, took up his hammer and returned to his hot and relentless task. 

Pondering the drudgery and apparent purposelessness of the laborer’s toil, the traveler moved to the second man who appeared to be even more focused and motivated than the first. The traveler asked this laborer, “What are you doing?” 

 Stretching to his full height, he answered, “I’m earning a living so I can take care of myself and my family.” The laborer returned with obvious single-mindedness to his work. 

The traveler moved slowly toward the third laborer. This man seemed to examine the side of the mountain before the placement of his wedge. He took great care to have his hammer strike with measured force. The traveler looked around once more and still saw no apparent result for the back-breaking exertion of the three men. More intrigued than ever, the traveler asked the third laborer, “What are you doing?” 

The craftsman paused and gaped with probing intrigue at the questioner. The worker’s eyes rose above the horizon with such intensity the traveler turned to follow his gaze. The laborer took a deep and controlled breath. “I am building a cathedral.” 

As teachers reach the end of the school year, approaching the last weeks and days after spring break, it becomes easier and easier to “just break rocks” in the classroom. All the concepts that will be retained over the summer have been taught. The joy of learning gives way to the anticipation of freedom that summer brings. 

Unfortunately, in some classrooms breaking rocks is all that has happened all year. As statewide testing has become the curriculum, encouraging teachers to teach to the test, and the economy has brought stress to teacher households, at best children are often taught by teachers who are working for a living, feeding their families. The challenge for every teacher is to maintain and sustain the idealism and commitment to perfectionism that brought them to the career and this classroom. 

Children cannot have too much of anything. Children should have more of everything: more glue, more glitter, more love, more creative energy. All children should be taught by teachers with vision. We really cannot teach curriculum, we can only teach children. They deserve our very best. Even, perhaps especially,in the last weeks and days of each school year. Just think. All students are cathedrals in process. 

My teacher friend, Addie, was awake at 4:15 this morning. She was thinking of her students with failing grades wondering if she had "done enough for them." Addie knows she's helping build the cathedral within each child.