Teachers and Kids and Crisis

Laura Mae Gardner, DMin, has served with Wycliffe Bible Translators, having been a translator, a trainer, a counselor, an administrator, a leader, and the international vice president for personnel. She now serves as an international personnel consultant and trainer and has written more than 200 articles on missions and missionary care.

Today I stood in front of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and looked at Hope Memorial Library, the windows through which kids jumped or were pulled, and the parking lot where parents, police, and emergency vehicles waited for the dead and wounded during the terrible shooting tragedy (some called it a massacre) of April 20, 1999. On that day I was on my way from Pennsylvania to Dallas, and I had a stopover in Chicago. I heard the TV giving the news in the background, and when Littleton was mentioned, my ears perked up and I began to listen closely. What a horrifying story! I went to the phone immediately and called dear friends in Littleton to see if they were OK and if their children and friends were OK. While I gave thanks that they were safe, my heart went out to the many affected families. And that’s where most people’s thoughts go—to children, parents, families, neighborhoods, and so on. Yet seldom do we think of teachers as those who are affected deeply or as those who serve as first-line resource people.

Violence happens to Christians too. In this article I’d like to focus on the kind and variety of crises that arise both internationally and locally in Christian schools, the stages of impact on students, the impact on teachers, and some things to think about that might be of practical help. I have personally experienced, provided assistance in, or consulted on all of the following kinds of crises. It should be obvious that what constitutes a crisis for one student may not do the same for another. Some situations may not be viewed by authorities as crises at all. In the following list, most of these situations can occur anywhere, not necessarily in a Christian school overseas where the students are primarily missionary children. As I write, I am assuming that the school is a Christian one and that most of the students attending the school and their parents are Christians. The kinds of crises that children may experience include the following:

The student feels the weight and pain of multiple traumas—more than one thing happening at once.

• Trauma, possibly divorce or violence, occurs within the student’s family.
• The student lives in a single-parent home, or one of her parents is ill or incapacitated.
• The student undergoes vicarious or secondhand trauma, those events the student hears about but which are close at hand, not just distant news items.
• The student experiences evacuation from his parents’ place of service, suffering sudden extraction from his home and leaving behind friends, pets, and everything known and familiar.
• Civil unrest occurs in the host country, whether from unstable governments, economic crises, or terrorist activity. Many of us will remember the events of 9/11 when terrorists attacked the Twin Towers in New York; the equilibrium of the world suddenly changed.
• The student suffers culture shock, that disorientation a person may feel when arriving in a strange country and simply not knowing what to do. Everything is different—language, services, people, and customs—and there are no cues about right behavior or how to make things happen. And usually there are no friends to help and bring comfort.
• The student suffers reverse culture shock, those shocking experiences a person may go through when returning to a known and formerly familiar country only to find that it too has changed drastically.
• The student learns of the moral failure of a staff person, a leader, or another authority figure. The student wonders how to know whom to trust, especially because the adult is known as a Christian. The student wonders what the point is in being honorable.
• The student is suffering from parental absence or neglect. The student believes that work is what is most important to her parents. The student thinks that the mission organization asks too much of her parents and especially of her father because he always seems to be gone.
• The student suffers a loss of relationships because of either frequent moving or the rotation of furlough in a field setting.
• The student feels the impact of being surrounded by great need and being unable to meet that need because it is so great. The student thinks that his family does what it can but that the effort is never enough.
• The student returns from the country of service—a country of severe poverty, illness, and neediness—and returns to the sending country, which looks affluent beyond belief. Yet the student is encountering people who complain about their needs, lacks, and poverty.
• The student lives under constant tension, uncertainty, unpredictability, or surveillance.
• The student lives in a hostile environment characterized by ideologies that are diametrically opposed to those his family stands for. The student wonders how he can be courageous and speak up for his faith since doing so would get his parents and family evicted from the country, so he feels he is living as if he were ashamed of Jesus even though he isn’t.
• The student knows someone who dies prematurely, whether by accident, murder, or suicide. The student thinks that the death by heart attack of a 15-year-old student is out of sequence. She learns of the murder of a friend or the suicide of a fellow teenager and friend—these events are so final, so unexpected, and so inexplicable—she wonders if they could happen to her or her family.
• The student continually feels like a stranger and an alien, as if she fits nowhere and is a citizen of nowhere. Even though she has heard some say that she is a world citizen, she wishes she belonged somewhere.
• The student encounters educational stressors, such as having to participate in a school system that does not equip students for higher education in their sending country. The student’s school system may use a language the student is unfamiliar with, so all day long the student has to think and react and study in a second or third language.
• The student comes from a face-saving culture, which causes the student great stress or anxiety. But she is unable to ask for help or even express the feelings she is having.
• The student is always a minority, having very few if any friends who speak his language, sing his national song, celebrate the wins of his national soccer team.
• The organization the student’s family serves with doesn’t seem to value kids; it certainly has not thought much about children’s education or needs.
• The student feels the weight and pain of multiple traumas—more than one thing happening at once. The student’s best friend goes home on furlough, and another good friend runs away from home. Or the student returns home to the sending country and then hears her parents announce that they won’t be returning to the field because they are getting a divorce.

The teacher feels a sense of inadequacy: “My college courses didn't teach me how to handle this!”

The questions that arise in a student’s mind at such a time will vary according to the age of the student, the kind of crisis, and the availability, presence, and stability of the significant people in that student’s life. But in general, a student is likely to have some of the following thoughts, even though the student may not be aware of them:

• Will I be OK?
• What will happen to us? Could this sad thing happen in my family?
• How could God let this happen? Where is God now?
• Was this my fault? (especially if the crisis consists of internal matters, such as divorce, violence between the parents, or the suicide of a friend or a parent)
• Will it ever stop? Will it ever be any different?
• How could they do that to us? (living with the results of a governmental or organizational decision that doesn’t make sense)
• Doesn’t anyone care?

These questions will probably not be expressed in words but will manifest in symptoms such as anger, regressive or acting-out behavior, tears, fear, anxiety, and withdrawal from parents, friends, or both.

Crises affect teachers too. Consider the following list and add your own items to it:

• The teacher feels an increase in stress because of having a troubled or wounded student in the classroom, often not knowing what at the student’s home may be going on and causing the change in behavior.
• The teacher must expend extra energy when a student’s behavior changes because the teacher must try to figure out a new way to relate to the student.
• The trauma also affects the teacher, who may be experiencing the same danger, upheaval, unpredictability, and pending loss.
• The teacher has a sense of helplessness about changing anything and making the situation better.
• The teacher feels a greatly increased weight of responsibility for the welfare of the students.
• The teacher feels a sense of inadequacy: “My college courses didn’t teach me how to handle this!”
• The load on the teacher increases when dealing with a crisis of a student whose parents are unhealthy—perhaps angry, depressed, blame-oriented, or unduly fearful. The teacher may feel that both the children and the parents need care.
• The teacher has feelings of defenselessness when angry parents blame her for not understanding their child, for not being more helpful or responsive, or for whatever.
• The load on teachers increases when parents are physically or emotionally absent.
• The teacher may feel very alone. Whereas parents have each other, and children usually have families, the teacher may have no one.

Suggestions for the Christian Teacher, Parent, and Family

Your best resources are spiritual ones. It is generally ineffective to tell children to trust God, but if they see their parents or their teacher trusting God, remaining calm, and demonstrating faith that God is with us and will care for us, then they too can trust God because their parents and teachers are showing them how.

Those spiritual resources include prayer, promises from God’s Word, and music. We all know that the words to a song often remain with us for hours, and we can sing or listen to songs of courage and confidence, faith and hope. Prayer for the situation and for one another also has a calming, quieting effect.

Getting together with friends is also helpful. If we are in a group living situation, we can take advantage of it. Because such get-togethers can result in bad-mouthing God, the organization, the school, the country, the police, or other authorities, let the prevailing tone be one of faith, of seeking solutions and ministering hope and encouragement to one another in a way that pleases God.

Another wonderful resource is the person you are. One would hope that you have had sufficient life experiences to know that life can be messy and unpredictable, often seemingly unfair, many times painful and sad. But we endure. These things do not kill us; they can mold and refine us, and they can do that for students as well. I remember the story of a Turkish mother who took her two-year-old twins to the doctor. While waiting for the doctor, she thumped the feet of one child repeatedly and made the child cry, then turned to the other child and did the same. When asked why she did so, she said that the children had to learn not only that life hurts but also that those hurts often come from people close to them. She had brought her children in for shots, so she knew the doctor would “hurt” them, and she was preparing them the best way she knew how for that hurt. I don’t believe that it is right to intentionally hurt anyone for this reason, but the reality is that life does hurt and that those hurts often do come from people who are close to us or from situations we are in because of our obedience to God.

As teachers or parents, we should be aware of what is going on in our own lives at these times.

Your faith, care, touches, prayer, availability, calmness, attentiveness—all of these are nonverbal ways to minister, calm, and help. We as parents or teachers should always be listening to the meta-messages that students are displaying; behavior speaks. Our interactions with students should be frequent enough to know when their behavior is different, to have some ideas of why that might be, and to extend practical care at such times.

As teachers or parents, we should be aware of what is going on in our own lives at these times. As our stress increases during various situations, we may have shorter tempers, underlying anger, and more difficulty being reasonable.

I believe that children are resilient and that they are more likely to be so if they see resilience in the adults surrounding them. We have a great and caring God as well as all the resources and promises in His Word. We also have the resource of combined thinking, which often results in creative solutions that would not have occurred to any one of us alone. And we need to behave as responsible adults who can make things different wherever we are—and need to be sure that the difference is for good.

A few years ago civil and religious unrest in Indonesia resulted in a sudden evacuation of workers in a city in Asia. All of one organization’s workers and families were evacuated to northern Australia, where they were welcomed and hosted by a very small center, already understaffed and unprepared for the sudden influx of nearly 100 adults and children. I was called to this situation as a debriefer, and I found an extremely resilient group of people who had already looked for and found creative ways to help themselves. I saw the children whizzing around on bicycles. I learned that several of the missionary men had gone to the town dump and rescued broken bicycles, rebuilding them enough that each child had one.

I suggested that the displaced people organize in ways to help themselves, since they were inevitably bringing a heavy load on the resident workers in that country. I proposed that they form an executive committee of at least four people: one to deal with matters of children and children’s education, one to address matters of worship, one to deal with communication, and one to handle logistical matters such as procuring food, laundry, and bathing facilities. I believe that we can often help ourselves and that we should be trying to think of ways to do so. When we help ourselves, we help all those around us.

God cares for children: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them” (Matthew 19:14, NIV). He cares for families: “God sets the solitary in families” (Psalm 68:6, NKJV). And he cares for teachers, staff people, and caregivers too. So many commands in Scripture flow out of the Great Commandment—that we love one another (John 13:34, 35). Christian teachers are living out in a practical, daily way a lifestyle of love. They are not there for the great salary, or the perks, or the glamour, or the honor. They are there because they love God and want to live lovingly, practically. This way of living is never more needed than when things are hard, uncertain, or dangerous. I thank God for the teachers I have observed and known. May we have more of them!

Teachers and Kids and Crisis 9.3