Thursday, April 16, 2009

Teacher or Educator?

Some people use a lot of words but don't really say anything. Other preacher/teachers are just enamored with the sound of their own voice. Remember: our job as communicators of the gospel is transformation not just information. We teach for life change not just to prove to the listeners how much we know.
Pat Miller sent me a cute little e-mail that illustrates this principle:

According to a news report, a certain private school in Washington was recently faced with a unique problem.
A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick, they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. Every night the maintenance man would remove them, and the next day the girls would put them back.
Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night (you can just imagine the yawns from the little princesses). To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required.
He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

There are teachers .. and then there are educators.

Which are you?

2 comments:

Beth Brawley Taylor said...

Love this! And I love you...

TD said...

That is great!