All Teachers' Sanctuary

*Notes: Names are changed but the spirit of students is not, for sure!

(CHAPTER 1 is below Chapter 2.)

A Teacher’s Sanctuary (Chapter 2):

Childlike Wonder

“And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them …” (Matthew 18:1)

I ambled slowly back to my desk in the back corner of the room. I plopped down to reflect once more before the end came, although I knew down deep some things, however long ago, never actually end.

That solitary moment the last day in that honored shrine is one of the greatest among “sanctuaries,” whether it be the first day or the last.  It reminds me of standing at the foot of some of vast waterfall, I thought. Immediately flashing through my mind soared Anna Ruby Falls in Helen, Georgia, then others. Those types of unexpected flashbacks are how, from the very beginning, a thousand classroom “story-times” began—just the germ of a thought, the mention of a word, more often than not just in passing, and—boom!—Storytime Hour breaks out like the measles.

At that moment, a roomful of students, all shifting in their seats to get comfortable for the marathon ahead, listen intently, thinking, “Ah, yes, now we can get a whole class period free of work, and if by chance the stories don’t take the whole class period, we’ll ask fifty questions to expand Coach’s story. We’ve got ‘im where we want ‘im. Man, we’re good!”

I tell you their thoughts because, among a teacher’s greatest talents, is the fine-motor skill of mind-reading. They say a teacher has eyes in the back of her head—which is true—but it’s also true that they can read students’ minds a mile away in the fog. Young people are transparent, as transparent as a mountain spring—no, as transparent as the waves crashing down from roaring Anna Ruby Falls. (“That, students, is called a ‘hook.’ I expect to see one in your next essay.”)

Transparency is one of the things that makes students so amazing. They have childlike wonder, yes, but you never have to wonder what they’re thinking.

Oh, not that they don’t always think they are a step and a half ahead of the fella with the piece of chalk in his hand—or marker, depending on which decade we’re talking about. But they are wrong, as wrong as … as saying “I don’t know” when they know good and well who threw the eraser at the young lady in the front row.” The teacher is always a step ahead of them, even if she misses the perpetrator in that instance. Those storytelling moments that took half the class to tell—well, “show,” not tell—and allowed the boys and girls with a silly grin on their faces to think they had won the battle game, set, and match, but they fail to compute two things:

One, the art of storytelling combines a hundred skills that they needed to learn and put into daily practice, and today’s the day; and, two, the teacher has a surprise as soon as the story wound on down to its climatic end (which the students always knew because of the storyteller’s request, “Hands together” to make sure they show their immense approval). Yes, this Mark-Twain-esque storyteller who has masterfully modeled this long-lost art suddenly transforms into a drill sergeant:

“All right, open up your notebook”—or laptop, again, depending on the decade—"and write me five-hundred words over your own examples of ‘childlike wonder,’” or whichever one of a thousand topics it is on any given day.

Oh, my what groans and moans follow. What whining and pining, and utter dismay!

Their gleeful childlike wonder suddenly morphs into a Tom-Sawyer lamentation, that unwritten essay looks as daunting as that long, long un-white-washed fence our literary hero has to face.

Even their Tom-Sawyer behavior proves our point yet again: There’s nothing in the whole world like childlike wonder!

Come sit over here by Mark Twain himself and watch if you don’t believe it. ~ February 23, 2026

The gym, the magical classroom, waterfalls, old friends, watching movies and westerns with the amazin’ blonde—my wife of 50 years and—let’s see--three-and-a-half months—listening to the singing in church, especially to my favorite song of all, “How Great Thou Art”)—all of these, and more, belong to a sacred list of things I call my sanctuaries.

A sanctuary is more than a church, although church surely needs to one, but it goes into every single corner of our lives. I shared this discussion with my senior English students in my semester-long return to that special sanctuary, and the students shared their own with me as well. Theirs were inspiring. That semester project as an adjunct professor of sorts, lamentably, came to an end, something I was having a hard time accepting as I made my way to the door that led into my empty classroom—although it wasn’t empty at all.

I paused at the door when I ended my journey from the L-shaped east end of the hall. That hallway might be called a gauntlet, I thought. “Gauntlet” was the title of a recent episode of one of my favorite television shows, “The Virginian,” and it occurred to me that the literary hero and I both understood the concept well.

Five months in a classroom could’ve been five years, too. I knew as I paused at the doorway that this would be one of the last times I would walk that gauntlet, although it was far more good than bad. There I was again: Room 2213, I stood at the door gazing inside, like staring into the deep, deep space, for a long time. All the other teachers were downstairs at conferences all day. At the end of the hall from where I had just made my way, the cleaning lady was busy getting all the rooms ready for the next day.

But for me, today was it, although, to be poetic, nothing ever ends as long as you remember.

I will always remember.

Perhaps there’s more poetry in that than I thought. Teachers look at things differently than the run-of-the-meal lawyer or doctor. I chuckled as I thought of that. Who in the world would put a teacher at the head of the class of those types of scholars?

Ridiculous. Except it isn’t. Truth is, there’s no scholar like a teacher. A teacher is a teacher, yes, but they are also a psychologist, a nurse, a custodian, a comedian—oh, yeah, especially a comedian—a staple, a friend, a disciplinarian, a buffer, a minister, a coach, and, maybe above all else, students’ worst nightmare.

I laughed again. I always laughed at my own jokes. That’s how I kept my sanity. Well, I didn’t keep it, exactly, but I kept enough of it to keep the students guessing. That’s the main thing. Only a teacher would understand that.

“I owned the hallway for a day,” I thought. “No, I owned it for five months.” At least some of my colleagues must’ve looked at it as if I thought I owned it, what with the 10, 127 journeys I sprinted down the west end of the hallway to the copying machine. I’m sure I was the reason I found a clean note hanging over the machine one day: “Please be judicious with the use of paper. Thank you.” I chuckled, still standing at the door looking in. 

I wanted to write back, “I’m old school, I use a lot of paper,” but I refrained, although the thought was fun.

I stood looking into the door, still.

A hand went up.

“No, Sam, you don’t need to go to the bathroom again.” Sam, a senior athlete, put his hand down, telling me I was right.

Another hand. On his desk was his spiral notebook, but there was no pencil. I read his mind.

“Okay, Ray, I got cha. Here’s a pencil,” I said, walking over to my desk in the back corner of the room, taking a sharpened pencil out of a tray on the front of my desk, and handing it to him. “But try holdin’ it right. It’s a pencil, not an ice pick.”

“That was pretty good,” I laughed, looking over at Sam to see if he appreciated the humor even though I had refused to let him escape. “That’s my best one of the day.”

Corey grinned, too, and shook his head. He was one of my quietest students. I wouldn’t know for a long time that his mind wasn’t quiet, though. It takes time to know a student.

The bell rang, and I almost jumped as I stood in the door. Twenty-five seniors were up in a jiffy, heading for the door like they were heading to a fire drill.

“Why can’t ya’ll move that fast when you go to the bathroom?” I said over the noise.

Karenona smiled as she passed me. Her name was Karen, but Rule Number One for teaching: Never call students by their real name if you don’t have to. Kareona sounded better. She always smiled when I said her name.

She sat voluntarily on the front row and always paid attention. “Good job today, Coach,” Karenona said, surprising me.

“Good job?” I thought. How many times does a teacher hear that from a student? I thanked her and held onto that.

“Oh,” I said as the kids hit the door, “I will be sure to have a good day, thanks for askin’. Ya’ll are the best.

Sarcasm is a teacher’s best friend.

Except the “Ya’ll are the best” part wasn’t sarcasm.

“Have a good day, Coach,” said Peggy Sue, her arms full of books. (The "Sue" is my own contribution to her name.)

Peggy Sue was always the last to leave. I felt a little sorry for her as I stood there looking into my empty, spacious classroom, as spacious as the night sky, but with all the stars missing.

Except for Peggy Sue. Leaving class slowly was that star’s chance to get three seconds with Coach.

She made her way to the door, then stopped and looked back.

“Oh, Coach, I have a choir concert Thursday night. Will you come?”

“Absolutely,” I said, “I’ll see you there.”

Her face lit up, and, as quickly as that, she was off to her next class.

But her step seemed lighter somehow.

Mine did, too.

(coachbowen1984@gmail.com)