Ranks

3 Nephi 6: 12 And the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches.

I came across this verse of scripture a month or two ago, and found it to be pretty meaningful. It was a good reminder to me to be humble. I thought of the ways that I assume and construct ranks. And I realized that quite often those stratifications, be they real or imagined, have a lot of basis in education. That made me want to be more careful to not judge. I don't want to create unnecessary divisions based on educational opportunities, achievement or anything else.

As a student, at the beginning of each semester I read an old 1997 BYU Devotional by A. LeGrand Richards entitled, What I Now Know About A BYU Education That I Wish I Had Known When I Was a Student. I assigned this as a reading to my 240 students. As I read through it this semester, I noticed that it referenced 3 Nephi 6:12. It was in the context of referring to the teacher-student relationship. It asserted that such a relationship should not be a hierarchal king-to-subject relationship as much as it should be a brother and sister relationship, reflecting our relationship in the gospel. I like that in theory. I think I even like it in practice, and I set it as my goal, but with guards. There are boundaries and differences reflected in class structure and responsibilities. But I try to be very approachable and to be able to work cooperatively with my students in a hopefully joint pursuit of their learning.

Today I saw one of my students out of the classroom context. Apparently we are in the same stake, because we attended the same stake institute class. We entered the room about a minute apart, and made eye contact, so I smiled and waved. After the class we talked for a little bit. She mentioned how weird it was to see me outside of the classroom because I was still "the teacher". But then she alluded to the reading and how the relationship should be like "brothers and sisters". And we talked for a few minutes. And I felt as though I was in a bit of a mentor/big sister role. But it was neat. I love being a teacher.