For Those of You…

…who keep forgetting how to operate your IWU email account, I thank you. This blog has gotten 500 hits on that topic alone.

Always happy to be of service, even in the most mundane of activities.

Always Take the High Road

It is difficult for me to play the following three roles at once: a former student who had a great and life-changing experience with Indiana Wesleyan, an adjunct faculty member who can share that excitement and passion for this school and God’s ministry with other adult learners who are coming along, and husband to another Indiana Wesleyan student whose classroom experience has been the exact opposite of mine.

So often, I hear all the horror stories of classroom behavior from my wife’s core group: classmates bickering at each other through email, students demeaning instructors and each other with no thought of grace or mercy, and instructors demeaning students with no thought of modelling a Christ-like attitude. I often use my wife’s history with her core groups and project teams as cautionary tales of how not to treat your team and how not to act in class. If there’s any good that can come from her experience, it’s from me being able to assist teams with their interpersonal issues and break the cycles of groupthink, stubbornness, and unhealthy rivalries.

My wife’s experience is nothing that’s the school’s fault. Their studies have shown that the majority of students have a more positive view of Christianity after leaving Indiana Wesleyan than before. Still, it really makes me wonder what people think of me after I leave a class. Do I make a more positive impact for God through what He has provided me to deliver? Do students become more like Christ after seeing and hearing me? Do I model Christ in an appropriate and real way to them? The times that I have had poor classroom experiences, I generally chalk it up to the hand that was dealt to me, and I hope that they will see God’s plan for them and their class as a whole in the end.

I have really struggled in dealing with my wife’s class, though. Last night, they argued for an hour about a particular classroom protocol, and the instructor actually had to make them all hold hands in a circle and pray to get their hearts and minds back into focus. They are three (now two) workshops away from not having to see each other again until graduation this winter. When my core group ended, it was bittersweet not being able to see people again that you shared all these wonderful experiences with for more than a year.

I have a feeling that when my wife’s core group ends, there will likely be battered and bruised egos walking out the door. It will be less of a celebration and more like the end of a prison sentence.

I’m not perfect. I honestly want to go in there and ask these people what they’re thinking. I want to be the “heavy” that lays the hammer down on all these people and try to get them to see reason. I want to use what little authority I have as an instructor to try and get a favorable resolution for my wife, because I see how hard she is working and how her sanity is being tested by all of these classroom distractions and her courseload. At times, I even want to blow my cool and just tell all the miscreants exactly what I think of them.

And yet, I can’t. I’m not a representative of the school, and if I tried to be, the actions I want to take would not be dictated by the school. All I can do is continue to pray for her to make it through the next 7 days with her sanity intact. The best option is to take the high road: “Bless what you can bless. Thank everyone you can thank. Cheer on what is appropriate to cheer on. And be done with it.”