Don’t Smile Until Christmas

To heed or not to heed the old adage, “Don’t Smile Until Christmas!” That is the question.

Likely, you’ve heard this familiar advice sometime in your teaching career and wondered if it was sound or even possible. You may be asking yourself, Should I really hide my human side and keep things “all business” until the first semester is over? Or, Could I even be that kind of teacher?

The principle behind this advice for teachers has to do with letting down your hair with students too soon and creating a learning environment that is too casual and relaxed early in the year. To do so before the Christmas break would mean things would only become more casual after Christmas break and all your authority and influence as a teacher would devolve into classroom chaos and an unproductive learning environment.

I would suggest the advice is mostly sound when applied properly; unfortunately, more often than we should, teachers tend to apply the advice excessively, deficiently, or in some limited and unfortunate cases, pervertedly.

To apply the advice excessively would mean the teacher is too strict, treating the classroom rules legalistically and the students without grace or mercy. Such a rigid approach is unloving, unkind.((Ephesians 4:32)) It is further uncharacteristic of a teacher who is a “teacher of students” and more characteristic of one who is a “teacher of curriculum.”((As E. D. Hirsch, Jr. appropriately noted, “The basic goal of education in a human community is acculturation, the transmission to children of the specific information shared by the adults of the group or polis” (Cultural Literacy,xvi.) ))

To apply the advice deficiently would mean the teacher is too casual, and too lax for the students’ good. Teachers who feel the need to be liked by or to gain the approval of their students tend to fall into this trap. Also, teachers who fail to recognize the immense value of organization, structure, and boundaries in a learning environment can be deficiently authoritative—so can teachers who are lazy or fear being perceived as authoritarian.((It is important we understand the difference between authoritarian and authoritative styles of teaching. Both recognize authority has a role or function in teaching. The former is defined by a cold and detached rigid application of the rules for the sake of the rules. The latter is defined by personal warmth and a nurturing application of the rules for the sake of the student and his or her development.))

This permissive approach is also unloving, but in a different way than the teacher who applies the advice excessively. Proverbs 13:24 exhorts parents (in our case it applies to teachers acting in loco parentis), “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” The key to this verse is its use of “rod” (a symbol of authority) and “discipline” (meaning to restrain—or in modern parlance: to set boundaries). In other words, setting proper boundaries with consequences for breaking stated boundaries is an act of love toward the children we are responsible for teaching and shaping (See Ephesians 6:4).

Finally, to apply the advice pervertedly would mean the teacher is not failing to show mercy and grace because he or she is too strict; or failing to set and keep boundaries because he or she is too lazy or too passive. Rather, the teacher who applies the advice pervertedly is conscientiously using his or her authority for some reason other than the students’ good. This could include a teacher’s need to satisfy his or her own vainglory. Or, it could include some other more nefarious motive like exacting revenge or taking out one’s anger and frustration on the students as Erasmus satirizes in his work, The Praise of Folly. God forbid such a teacher finds him or herself amongst classical Christian educators.

Nevertheless, let us teachers be mindful to maintain a structured and deliberate learning environment as a matter of course, but also one that is seasoned with grace as we keep in mind our work as teachers is to assist the students’ parents in lovingly acculturating their children in the paideia of the Lord (See also Deuteronomy 6:4-9 cf. Ephesians 6:4).