A Pillar in the Heart of Our School: Saint Anne- Mother Matters

We need more mothers in education for one simple reason:

Education is for people and not programs.

In the next few weeks, millions of students will go to college and school in the United States of America. The very best schools will center on people serving people.  Education only needs a great teacher and a willing student . . . everything else is support.

That’s why no school should be centered on administrators, empire building, the multiplication of degrees and debt, or tomorrow. The job of educating students today is hard enough. As a parent my temptation was to look for an elementary program that would get my children ready for junior high and a junior high program that would get them ready for high school and a high school that would get them ready for college and a college. . .

This is madness.

Worse is to be the president of an institution and start building a kingdom.

This is sin.

This week I am blessed to teach these college students Iliad at The Saint Constantine School. That must be my focus and my calling. As for my (now adult) children as school (college for three of them!) begins again . . . my job is to love and affirm them and not to shove them on to tomorrow. God help me, but sometimes I like to pretend my children are still kiddies in terms of their time and affection while demanding they behave like adults.

Good education is about people . . . and stands like a parent to a child, even in college. It is guidance, mentoring, and must be based in godly love. Job skills will come on the job, but character must be taught and fathers and mothers of the church are the best teachers of character.

How do I know?

Saint Anne shows me so.

When your daughter is going to grow up to be the Mother of God, there is a degree of pressure on your parenting. Education must prepare her to be “blessed among women.” This is much more daunting than Common Core.

Blessed Anne was given the challenge, because she was up to it. She nurtured, loved, and taught. When she died, tradition tells us that she left her daughter fit for service in the Temple. She prepared her daughter for life in eternity and not for a job and when she died, Mary was ready.

Anne begat Mary and Mary begat God.

That is a higher education!

And so when I think about teaching this year, I don’t start with “content” or grand plans for the school. I start with my class, the students that will grow with me by means of discussion. The life of Saint Anne teaches me that character counts. It is not just important, it is the most important thing I can teach.  Anne was a mother, a true mother: full of grace, motivated by love, and eager to see her daughter be good. 

Beauty is less important than goodness.

Brilliance is less important than goodness.

Success is unimportant compared to goodness.

All Christians are “god bearers.” So as I teach may I be like Anne and educate to character. God help me. One column that holds up our school is the example of Saint Anne, the mother of the Mother of God. Thank God for that example.