DOWN HOME:
A teacher's life shapes the coming generations
___Mother didn't intend to spend 40 years in the classroom. But God had other plans.
___She graduated from Higgins High School, went off to Wayland Baptist College, married Daddy and planned to be a full-time pastor's wife and mother.
___Then "real life" intervened. Family circumstances dictated that Mother work to help pay the bills. And so she found her other life calling amidst chalk and erasers, textbooks and
No. 2 pencils, lesson plans and children. Hundreds and hundreds of children.
___Not that Margaret Knox stopped being a terrific pastor's wife and mother when she started teaching school.
___She raised three kids in an era before TV dinners and fast food, microwave ovens and no-iron clothes. Even then, I admired her stamina as she poured tremendous energy into the three pillars of our family--home, church and school. It seemed she always was where we needed her to be: In the stands at ballgames, at home with a wonderful hot meal, on the second pew at church during worship, at the front of a Sunday School classroom, by the kitchen table when it was time for homework.
___When I was a student at Central Elementary School in Perryton, other kids shrank from the horror that must have been mine, to attend school where my own mother taught. I never saw it that way. What could be better than going to school a few doors down from where your mom worked and knowing all the same people?
___Mother taught second grade for many years, and then in the longest stretch of her career, she taught first grade. Many times, she talked about how blessed she felt to teach children at that age, for the progress young children can make in a year always stunned her with gratitude and delight. And she counted as joy the privilege of opening the world to young minds as she taught them to read.
___More than that, Mother taught children that they were loved. She always knew her students, knew their families, kept up with them years after they promoted to other grades. She always had a special place for the youngsters others didn't or wouldn't love. In her class, they got a healthy dose of mothering as well as teaching.
___Most importantly, Mother presented a compassionate face of Christ to her students. Of course, the appropriate relationship of church and state proscribed the professional limits of her actions. But Mother has been a pastor's wife in small-town schools, and people who have known her have known and seen her faith.
___On many occasions, her role as teacher enabled her to minister to children and families who would not have crossed through our church door. But generations of children have learned to read and felt godly love as they sat in my mother's classroom.
___She retires this week. I thank God I was blessed to share her with hundreds of children.
__
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