The Master’s Education Trends
What you’ll find in this post is an entry in our teacher lectionary, a guide for prayer.
Over the last six weeks here on Master Teaching, you read about trends in education including benchmarks, essential questions, equity, growth mindset, grit, and learner ownership. Notice these themes in the passages, prayers, and poem that follow.
A note on the texts:
Today commemorates the holy innocents that were lost when Herod attempted to remove the threat the Infant Child posed to his reign. Consider how these passages can illuminate the work you do as a teacher and the pilgrimage you make as you follow the Master Teacher.
The four sections of our lectionary include:
- Entering the Throne Room: a call to worship
- Advocating: mediating between Yahweh and our students (and their families), colleagues, and schools
- Seeking Mercy: confession, repentance, and forgiveness
- Going Forth: leaving the throne room blessed to be a blessing
Entering the Throne Room
Psalm 124: A Song of David for those journeying to worship
- Yahweh, we stand or sit, we walk or wait, we sing or hold silence, whatever it takes, because if you do not accompany us, if you do not deliver, we are overcome.
- Our souls have escaped before, like a bird from the snare, not by our own strength or wit, but because you snapped the trap.
- Our help is your name, Eternal Maker of Heaven and Earth.
Advocating
Our students and colleagues and their families, our institutions, and we ourselves
- suffer when our mindsets are fixed rather than flexible.
- suffer when we lose our grip on grit and yield to hardship and temptation.
- suffer when we fail to enact equity.
Please
- restore the joy of seeking answers to better questions.
- return to us the love and ownership of our own learning.
- satisfy the hope that we will reach the benchmarks laid out for us.
Seeking Mercy
Forgive us when
- for lack of vision, we set ill-fitting benchmarks for our students and ourselves.
- blame, shame, or hide in the face of failure or inequity.
- our questions are trivial and neglect what is essential.
We dream of a day when
- threats from within and without cease, and each one may flourish.
- individuated instruction wins over sweeping pragmatism.
- all barriers to knowledge are removed, and Light shines into each heart.
Going Forth
We can hardly believe that
- what appears to be wearing out is actually being made new.
- there will be no more tears, death, or pain.
We work because these words are faithful and true:
- the thirsty will drink freely of the waters of life.
- Yahweh is with us; we are daughters and sons. Amen.
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
by Henry W. Longfellow
Further exploration
- You can find a printable version of this lectionary here: The Master’s Education Trends.
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