"Share Scars, not Wounds" - How and Why to Avoid Crying in Front of Your Students

Some bandages might not be ready to come off.

As a teacher, and especially as a Christian teacher, I want to be more than just a dispenser of knowledge to my students. I want to mentor them, to build trust with them, and to share the love of God with them. And doing all that requires being a little vulnerable sometimes. If I never drop my professional schoolmaster persona, kids will sense that I'm being guarded (and maybe even fake).

Luckily, there are plenty of opportunities to be real with my class, if only because students are usually pretty shameless when it comes to inquiring about the personal lives of their teachers. My students have asked me all sorts of weird questions. "Have you ever been fired?" "Did your parents spank you?" "What's your address?" "Have you ever cheated on a test?" And my goodness, if I had a dollar for every time I was asked if I had a girlfriend, well, I might actually have a girlfriend. Getting personal with students and actually answering their questions is a difficult balancing act, and not just because of the potential embarrassment. As a teacher, I believe I have a duty to be emotionally stable in front of my students. I am literally the adult in the room, and it's my job to model self-control and wise speech. It's simply not appropriate to discuss a topic that might cause me to fail in those respects. But as stated earlier, it's important to be real and even vulnerable with students. Where do you draw the line? How do you share in a way that will benefit the students, without the risk of crushing them with all your emotional baggage?

Share Scars, not Wounds

Last year I volunteered at a summer camp for kids who had suffered abuse or neglect in foster care. Naturally, many of those kids wanted to open up to the volunteers, and equally naturally, some of us wanted to share our own stories with the kids. However, our team leader gave us this warning: before sharing anything about ourselves, stop and consider if we were sharing a scar or a wound. Scars were painful things we had experienced which had changed us - things which had left a mark, but which we could, in all honesty, thank God for bringing us through. But wounds were things which were still ongoing - areas of pain, anger or confusion in our lives in which we were still (at least in our best moments) trusting God for help and healing. Our team leader encouraged us to share scars, but not wounds.

I think this is advice is apt for anyone working with youth, and especially for Christian teachers. If we share a scar, it could be a great encouragement and testimony. Your story of growing up in a broken home, or of overcoming addiction, or of losing all your money in a pyramid scheme might be just the thing your students need to hear. It could teach them that God still has a plan and purpose through every conceivable failure and disaster, and they will respect you more for having experienced that truth. And hey, look at you now! You're a teacher! Clearly God has brought some good out of your scar.

At the same time, we could positively harm our students if we share a personal wound with them. If we share something we are struggling with and don't have the answer for, we are putting an unfair burden on our students. Fellow adults may be able to comfort and advise us, or at least direct our attention back to the God who can do so, but we must not expect that of children. It is we who should be listening to their wounds, not the other way around. Moreover, when we share a wound, we risk losing our cool and appearing emotionally damaged in front of our students.

Now lest I be misunderstood, I am not advocating dishonesty. If you've just had a death in the family or some equally terrible tragedy, you don't need to act like a prefect stoic at work. It may be completely appropriate to let your students know that you are experiencing something painful. But for your students' sake, and out of your responsibility as their teacher, you should save the intimate details of your wound for your trusted friends. Perhaps you can share it with your class later, when God has healed that wound into a scar.