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Today's Christian, July/August 2001
How Could I Disarm My First Grade Warriors?
Everything I tried to this point had failed
by Beth Rupprecht
As I stood at the blackboard with my back to my class explaining geometric shapes, a roar of angry little voices in a language I couldn't understand grew louder.
Turning to face my room of 15 first graders, a pencil was hurled through the air, nearly hitting its intended victim's eye. Before I could do anything, I saw another student stand up, walk over, and kick the child across the aisle. The child kicked back. Soon a human soccer match began as other children screeched loudly.
While I tried to control the kickers and before turning my attention to the pencil-thrower, a third student shoved his neighbor's crayon box to the floor. The lesson on geometric shapes would have to wait; I needed to referee the civil wars that were breaking out all over the room.
From the moment I arrived at my teaching assignment in a mission school in the remote highlands of Papua New Guinea, the violent behavior of my students had shocked me. Not only did they torment each other, but they openly disrespected me.
I tried whispering, pantomiming, and singing in order to get any lesson across. I had tried every disciplinary tactic from my previous 11 years of teaching. Nothing worked.
As the weeks went by, I learned the tribes living in the area around the school frequently engaged in bloody clan fights. We occasionally heard gunfire not far from the school. On the only road by our school, roadblocks were often set up to capture and murder victims from opposing clans.
My first graders live with violence every day, I thought sadly. It's not surprising they keep hurting each other.
Dread and desperation
Try as I might, I couldn't help but be depressed after two months of teaching. My first concern wasn't completing my lesson plan. I realized that I needed to stop the fighting by teaching my kids the love of Jesus. But they pushed and hit each other right through Bible story time. There were times when all I wanted to do was walk out of the classroom and let the kids fight to their heart's content.
Discipline problems had come close to burning me out during my years teaching in the United States. When I was told that discipline problems were not going to be a problem with mission schools, I was encouraged. Maybe this is where I can use my skills for God.
But here I was, lying in bed at night far away from my family, crying over my helplessness. In the mornings I dreaded going back into the classroom.
"Why am I here?" I cried to God. "Have you been trying to tell me to get out of teaching and I didn't listen?"
One Saturday, I found myself in my classroom. With no students, it was so peaceful! Before I realized it, I was walking around the room, laying my hands on each and every desk, praying by name for each diminutive warrior.
"I need wisdom, Lord," I said. "You know each and every one of these children because you created them. You know what is in each angry heart and how to take it away. I really need things to change—either in me or in the kids!"
A crocodile story
God began with me. It had taken so long for me to get to the point where I put myself in God's hands. But when I did, I couldn't believe what happened. Almost immediately, during my devotions, God brought creative solutions to my classroom problems.
Vincent was the first to come to mind. He was notorious for starting fights. For no apparent reason, he'd yell at one of his classmates. Then fists and feet would fly.
In the classroom the day after my prayer, Vincent began screaming. Before he could find someone to hit, I got his attention.
"What has made you yell today, Vincent? Is there a small crocodile in your shoes that is pinching your toes? Maybe you should take off your shoes and check!"
Vincent stopped and stared at me quizzically, caught off guard.
"It worked, God." I breathed a prayer of thanks. That day and in the days ahead, I realized that countering Vincent's outbursts with a string of ridiculous questions subdued him. In a matter of weeks, Vincent had stopped yelling all together. I praised God!
It was time to turn my attention to a boy named Bonny. Bonny started many fights by insulting other students in his native language. When I asked a colleague what to do in this situation, the advice was simply, "Make students use only English in the classroom." As much as I appreciated the suggestion, it seemed impossible. Trying to make these students stop using their native language was like trying to stop an avalanche, I thought.
God had a better idea. Every time Bonny said anything in his native tongue that angered anyone else, I whipped out a little notebook and wrote down that word. During recess I took my notebook to one of the national teachers and asked her what the words actually meant. When Bonny realized what I was doing, he became flustered. Eventually Bonny stopped using profanity since I knew exactly what he was saying!
Hugging little Rambo
My biggest challenge was Stylone, who adopted that name after watching Sylvester Stallone's Rambo movies. Imitating his film hero, my first grade Rambo didn't instigate fights with words, he started his fights with his fists!
It was a clear case of "like father, like son." Stylone's father was the mastermind behind clan killings in our area. At the beginning of the school year, I had been cautioned by my superiors to "walk on eggshells with Stylone. You don't want to offend the wrong people." Yet I was confident God could help me even with this.
It occurred to me that something most people take for granted was a rarity in Stylone's life: a loving touch. I decided to implement this radical solution. Whenever Stylone swung a fist or a foot, I told him he had to immediately hug and kiss the victim.
Thankfully, being the child that he still was, Stylone complied. He squirmed and blushed, but he did it.
On days Stylone was particularly mean, I found I could smother his anger by holding him in a long bear hug on the playground. Hugs and kisses were melting Stylone's hard little heart. He never swung a fist again.
The transformation in my students did not happen overnight. One by one God gave me ideas to instill peace in my classroom. By the end of the school year last December, my first graders were still rambunctious, but their maliciousness had all but disappeared. I could hardly tell they were the same group I had begun teaching in February!
A Christian Reader original article.
Language Exchange
I've enjoyed learning the trade language of Papua New Guinea called Tok Pisin (Talk Pidgin). One Sunday last year a fellow worker Jim Mosely and I were waiting to ride the Public Mobile Vehicle to church. Down the road I saw a man swaggering arrogantly. He walked right up to us and started talking in broken English.
"Are you on your way to church?" I asked him in Tok Pisin.
"No. I don't go to church. I'm not a Christian. I don't do worship!" he said, proudly proclaiming his atheism. "But I am learning English. I like books in English."
"I've got something you might like to read," Jim said. "This is a book written in very easy to read English, by an author named John. I'm giving this to you to read."
The man took the book tenderly in his hands, stroking each page as he turned them. "This book is for me?"
"Yes," Jim said, saying that if the man had any questions, Jim would be glad to explain. And if the man finished the booklet, Jim had a bigger book to give him. (A complete Bible.)
As it turned out, the man named Tuya (too-yuh), not only has read the entire Bible, but he has become a regular visitor to our house, my Bible study, and the English worship services on the school compound.
—from an email sent by Beth Rupprecht on April 11, 2001
Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
Click here for reprint information.
July/August 2001, Vol. 39, No. 4, Page 64
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