Life Lines
the teacher in all of us
The annual Charter Day celebration in Bryn Athyn each October honors the
birth of the Academy of the New Church with the granting of its official charter
in 1877. It is a time to recognize where the Academy is today – between dream
and destiny. And we honor New Church teachers whose mission is unique in
the world.
The late, great southern novelist Pat Conroy once paid tribute to a high
school English teacher who fanned the flame in this budding writer by making
him first a reader. He gave Conroy a list of 100 books he should read in the
summer before going to college. Conroy met the challenge and it changed his
life.
He wrote: “The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a
thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life. I wanted to follow him around
for the rest of my life, learning everything he wished to share or impart, but I
didn’t know how to ask. All I knew was, I was not the same boy who walked
into that high school the previous fall.”
Isn’t that what great teaching is all about? Isn’t that what being an eager
student is all about? Isn’t that what real education is all about?
We all have favorite teachers – men and women who sparked an interest,
inspired a passion, and left an indelible mark, perhaps without even realizing
it. A lesson that lasts a lifetime may occur in a moment that has nothing to do
with a lesson plan but has everything to do with life. And one thing many a
graduate of the Academy knows: we leave as different people – better people –
than when we first walked into Benade Hall.
When the great historian David McCullough spoke at Glencairn Museum
in 2003, he said something important about education – that we cannot love
something we do not know. And that what we love, we cannot help but teach.
So, in a sense, we are all teachers – to our children, to our friends, even to
strangers.
There are good and loving teachers all over the world. But there are no
teachers who do what our teachers do in the Academy and throughout our
New Church schools. They are as unique as our mission, as special as our
vision, as vital as our cause.
Our primary mission, from the Academy Charter, is the education of
our own children in the light of the Heavenly Doctrines. For our Church and
Academy to grow, every generation must embrace and love the doctrines –
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