Having taught grades kindergarten through university, I often pray briefly before I enter a classroom. This simple mental act has helped me recognize the Christ, the true manifestation of the one Mind, God, to be the basis of the teaching in each classroom. When I add prayer as a silent component to my teaching, I feel energized and less depleted at the end of a class session, and the students are more productively engaged.
I read that Mary Baker Eddy prayed before she spoke. Annie Robertson, a pupil of Mrs. Eddy’s, wrote that before Mrs. Eddy spoke in the Original Edifice of The Mother Church, she “. . . stood there a moment or two as if in prayer; and then, lifting her head quickly, she walked down the aisle . . .” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, p. 105).
One university class I teach is a graduate education course on classroom climate and discipline. The mental atmosphere in every classroom is vital. I see it as the atmosphere of all-inclusive divine Love. It coordinates that important connection between the pupils’ individual learning styles and the instructors’ teaching methods, leaving no one out. Both pupil and teacher are there to bless each other. This higher level of thinking includes altruism and unselfishness; learning then becomes intrinsic, and an orderly discipline prevails without exhaustion.
