Twice Blest

My daddy has long said, “Behavior has consequences.” Sometimes the consequences delight us; sometimes they irk us. Always, they should teach us something.

We talk a lot about consequences in my classroom. I don’t really have classroom rules because, on the first day of school, I have a conversation with students that goes like this: 

“You know how you are supposed to behave, don’t you?”

“Yes!”

“Then do that. And you know what you aren’t supposed to do, don’t you?”

“Yes!”

“Good. So don’t do that. I’ll tell you what:  I’ll trust you to behave the way you should, and if you start to get out of line, I’ll let you know. How’s that?”

They look at me like I’ve lost my mind. But I don’t generally have discipline problems in my room in the face of this kind of trust. Undoubtedly, my students aren’t perfect, and that’s when grace takes over – grace that says, “Nope, you’re pushing the envelope, but I’m not canceling your postage just yet”; grace that says, “That wasn’t a very nice thing to say, but perhaps some kind follow-up words will soften the hurt”; grace that says, “Wow, you guys sure didn’t prepare for this test, so let’s try again.”

That was today’s picture of how grace serves up a powerful reaction.

My sophomores had taken a killer grammar test, full of the kinds of nitpicky errors English teachers and ACT test makers love to trip kids up with – sorry – “with which we love to trip them.” I sat at my kitchen table Tuesday night, laboring over their errors. What to do? What to do? The Fs outnumbered the Bs, and the As disappeared into a black hole somewhere. I just could not find any contentment in those unbellcurve results, nor in their natural consequences.  It was time for grace.

“So,” I began, standing in front of them, clutching the tests in my hands. “These were not wonderful.”

No. They nodded in full awareness, waiting for the boom to fall.

“You are a group of overthinkers, and I believe you have simply overanalyzed these sentences to the point that you confused yourselves.  I want to give you a chance to redeem yourself – at least partially. Get a different colored utensil and take another shot at these, correcting your incorrect corrections.”

Their faces brightened. Their posture straightened. They dug for green and orange and turquoise pens. They accepted with a smile papers marked with some of the year’s lowest grades. And they attacked.

And they succeeded. Mistakes became lessons on Thursday that didn’t count against them nearly as heavily as they had on Tuesday.

And my prayer was this: “Dear Lord, giver of all blessings, we know that you are the author of goodness and that, when we fail you, you have every right to condemn us. But that is not your desire. No, your desire is to teach us and to make us more like you. So you chastise us and then forgive us and then give us another chance. Make us always grateful for second chances – and third and fourth and twenty-eighth chances. And, because we cherish your mercy so, teach us to give it to those around us. In the name of our Author of Grace, Amen.”

“The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” 

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n  Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act 4, sc 1