family teaching: #3 stewardship
 
 true parenting
  
 GOD has given some a partial vision for teaching children: Ruth Bowdoin + Head Start
for preschool are examples, but many parents ignore their responsibilities to their children.
 
 GOD holds parents accountable for their children's actions, development, teaching, but many
parents are negligent, ignorant, lazy, and seek their own selfish desires, lusts instead.
 
 GOD's full vision is to His chosen, elect, servants 1Cor2, for the teaching of parents and
children, that His family attain all possible opportunities for education, career, salvation.
 
 as
 
 GOD made us and He knows best how we develop, learn all of life's lessons/skills.
  

1Cor1..30 But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from GOD - and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
 
 1Cor2..5 That your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of GOD.
6 However, we speak wisdom among those who are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.
7 But we speak the wisdom of GOD in a mystery, the hidden which GOD ordained before the ages for our glory,
8 Which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the LORD of glory.

9 But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which GOD his prepared for those who love Him."
10 But GOD has revealed to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of GOD.
11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of GOD except the Spirit of GOD.
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from GOD, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by GOD.

13 These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of GOD, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know, because they are spiritually discerned.
15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one.
16 For "who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

 
A Bus
for
Bubba
  
 by Ruth Bowdoin
Murfreesbore, Tennessee
 

   Come back 60 years with me. Come back to my daddy's little peanut and cotton farm in southern Alabama, where I am about to discover what I want to do with my life.
   It is a Saturday morning and I am

nine years old. I am standing in the shade of our backyard chinaberry tree while before me, perched on a wash bench, are five little children, the sons and daughters of field workers.   Now    I,    as    their self-appointed "teacher," rap on an

apple-box "desk" for attention.
   "Boys and girls," I say, "today we are going to learn about India."
   A little boy, hand to mouth, shouts, "Whoop! Whoop!"
   "No, Bubba," I correct, "not Indians, but India, a country across

 
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the ocean."
   "What's a country?" asks his sister Mattie.
   I'm annoyed. "It's a country like America is a country, only it's far away. It has wild animals like tigers."
   "Tigers?" The children look at one another.
   "Tigers - like they have in a circus."
   The little group stares at me silently. Not one of them knows what a circus is.
   I stand in helpless dismay. Then, stamping    my    foot    in   a nine-year-old's burst of frustration, "Oh, I give up! How can I teach you anything if you don't even know what I'm talking about?" The class is over - before it even begins.
   Now it's Monday morning. I'm in the bus on the way to school. Looking out the window at the rain, I see Rufus, the older brother of Bubba and Mattie, trudging along the rain-filled ruts. He's not going to school; he dropped out a long time ago. That makes me feel sad. It makes me wonder if Bubba and Mattie will drop out of school too.
   A feeling of guilt comes over me. I'm suddenly ashamed for having given up on my pupils under the chinaberry tree. For the first time I sense that just possibly Mattie and Bubba and Rufus haven't had the advantages I've had, like parents who read to them about tigers in India, maybe even parents who can read.
   That morning on the school bus, staring into the rain, I know that when I grow up I want to be a teacher.
   But it wasn't all that easy. After Papa lost our farm to creditors, I had to earn enough money for teachers' college tuition. For a year I bent over a wooden bench sewing cuffs in a local shirt factory, but eventually I made it to Troy State University in Troy, Alabama.
   In the meantime I had become very  close  with  a high school classmate, Will Bowdoin, who was

 

also at Troy State. He too wanted to be a teacher. We married, taught in rural schools, then moved to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where Will taught and ultimately became dean of the School of Education at Middle Tennessee State University. In  time  I  became  director  of instruction in Murfreesboro's elementary schools.
   We were happy working with young people, perhaps all the more because we were never able to have children of our own. Our lives moved along smoothly until the March day in 1951 that I discovered a small growth on my neck. It was cancer,  a rare,  incurable  type, spreading rapidly throughout my lymph glands. Will was told by our doctor, Bernard Davison, that I had three to six months to live. Once more, as under the chinaberry tree years before, class was over almost before it began.
   In  desperation   Will   and   I borrowed travel money and headed to New York City's Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute for a series of radiation treatments. Before they began,  Dr.  Lloyd  Craver,  an eminent cancer specialist, sat down by my bed. "Ruth," he said, "we'll do all we can, but we can make no promises."
   Each morning I would slip into the bathroom, where I'd kneel to pray. My parents had taught me about Jesus, an ever since my baptism in Coffee Spring back home, I'd been close to Him. Now I begged Him to let me live. But somehow I didn't feel I was reaching Him.
   One afternoon I lay staring at the wall. Out in the hall, life went on. Footsteps hurried briskly by, pans clattered, gurneys hummed past. A cart bumped through the door, and I glanced  up  to  see  a  volunteer distributing books.
   "Some good reading here," she said.
   I shook my head. But then, as I idly scanned the titles, one seemed to  speak  to  me:  The  Power  of Positive Thinking.

  

   "Oh, that's just been published," the volunteer said. "It's by Norman Vincent Peale. He pastors Marble Collegiate Church right here in the city."
   After she left, I listlessly opened the book and was soon caught up in it. Using Scripture with practical applications, the author encouraged me to stand on GOD's promises, to cast away the negative thoughts and build on the positive.
   "Are  you  finding  that book helpful?" came a voice from the door. I looked up to see Alma Schwamb, a lovely hospital volunteer who had visited with me often. She smiled. "The author is my neighbor. Would you like to meet him?"
   "Could I?" I exclaimed.
   The next Sunday afternoon a ruddy-complexioned, genial man strode  into  my  room. I knew immediately it was Dr. Peale. We talked about the power of GOD, then he said, "I've brought you something." He handed me a small container. Inside, imbedded in clear plastic on a chain, was a tiny seed. "A mustard seed," Dr. Peale said. With it was a verse from Matthew (17:20): "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed...nothing will be impossible to you" (RSV).
   "You've told me of your faith in Jesus, Ruth," he said, "and we both know He is watching over you. Let's leave the things you have no control over - the impossible - to Him, and let's get on with living." He held my hand as we prayed,
   "So now, Ruth," he said, "what are you going to do with your life?" I stared at him for a moment.
   "I mean when your treatments are over," he added, "what are your plans?"
   "Well," I replied, "my dream is to go back to teaching."
   "Is that what you think GOD wants you to do?"
   "Oh, yes," I said.
   After Dr. Peale left I went into the little bathroom and again knelt. This time my prayer was different. I did

 
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not ask to be healed. Instead, I asked GOD to sustain me in some special work that would glorify Him. "Oh, Father." I asked, "let me know Your perfect will for my life."
   Something happened to me as I knelt there; a new strength seemed to  flow  through  me, an all but tangible reassurance that Jesus would take care of me. And most unexpectedly, I had the distinct impression that I would live.
   A few days later, an orderly brought a dinner tray to me. Later I learned he'd brought me the wrong tray.  For  weeks  I'd  had  little appetite, but now I hungrily dove into the roast beef, potatoes and peas. Then Dr. Craver appeared.
   "Ruth, are you forcing food?"
   When I told him I believed I was being healed, he smiled indulgently. "I hope the next examination proves you right."
   It did.
   The  clusters  appeared  to  be diminishing, and over the next few weeks  I  began  to gain weight. Further examination supported the trend, and I began to feel my normal self again. Soon Dr. Craver released me on the condition I return every three months for examinations. Like a bird set free I sped home.
   In time I advanced to supervisor of instruction for the city schools in Murfreesboro. Yet all the while I had the nagging feeling I wasn't accomplishing that "special work" I'd asked Jesus to guide me to on that bathroom floor.
   One day it came. I was observing a master teacher working with 11 disadvantaged first-grade children. She was conducting a reading lesson entitled "A Surprise for Sally" in which the father had brought home a red wagon as a birthday present. Leaning toward her six year-olds, the teacher asked, "How many of you have had a surprise like that?"
   The children did not respond; their faces were blank.
   Finally  one  raised  his  hand: "What's a supwise teacha?"
   Not one of those 11 children knew

what a surprise was; none had ever had a birthday present, books, pictures, toys!
   Suddenly I was standing again in our backyard under the chinaberry tree, staring helplessly at Mattie and Bubba.
   "What's a country? ...What's a tiger?"
   Then I knew even more acutely how deprived these children were. Obviously their parents did not understand what their children needed to know before they came to school. It was a terrible blight, since I knew that a child has acquired half of his intelligence by age four, and that by age five his personality, self-concept    and    emotional development are almost complete.
   "What a tragedy," I cried to Will that night. "These poor kids enter school with three strikes against them.  No  wonder  they  have trouble keeping up. No wonder they have no self-esteem."
   "I know," agreed Will, "it's awful. But what can be done about it?"
   "I don't know," I said mournfully.
   But I did know. Somehow, in some  way,  this  was  to  be  my "special work."
   But how?
   The question was still puzzling me the next morning as I sat down with Baxter E. Hobgood, our superintendent.  How  could  we  reach parents and their preschool children before it was too late?
   As we talked, a big yellow school bus groaned past the window. We looked at each other. The perfect tool!
   With the help of Mr. Hobgood and Rupert Klaus, our school psychologist, we received a small federal grant of $25,000. Then I resigned my supervisor's post to direct   the   newly   created   "Classroom  on Wheels" project. Mr. Hobgood was dismayed that the budget allowed a salary only half that of my other job. I would have worked for free.
   On a late summer's day in 1969 he and I walked through our parking lot   with   our    maintenance supervisor,

Walter Loyd. He stopped by a yellow bus with a white top. "She's eighteen years old," Walter said, "but she still purrs like a kitten."
   Tommy Lytle of the maintenance crew pulled out the seats, repainted the gray interior bright yellow and
trimmed it with warm-looking wood
paneling. He built cabinets to store books, installed a screen for filmstrips,    and    created    a housekeeping center with a table and chairs for kiddie snacks. While this was being done  I  canvassed  low-income neighborhoods, telling mothers of preschool children that soon a classroom on wheels would be coming their way. Some stared suspiciously;    some    were noncommittal. Meanwhile some seemed to like the idea.
   At last, on a September morning, with two young teachers, Margaret Willis and Mary Jane Sailor, beside me, I double-clutched our rolling classroom down into a hollow and braked  it  to  a  stop  among ramshackle houses. I climbed out and     began     swinging     an old-fashioned brass school bell. Slowly, up and down the lane, doors creaked open, and  out  came  mothers, grandmothers and big sisters leading wide-eyed children.
   That day a dozen youngsters worked with puzzles, toys and educational  games  to  develop visual, sensory and cognitive skills. They were astonished to hear that their birthdays would be celebrated. We wanted to make each child feel he was important, that he could
achieve, so that when he entered school he'd have self-esteem and pride.
   Some children did not share our vision. Little Ricky cried and hid under the table. Nicole lay on the floor and kicked. Rodney stayed in his mother's lap, his head buried in her bosom.
   Some of the parents were shy at first as we tried to help them realize they were their child's most important teacher. At twice-monthly group meetings we gave them kits

 

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with booklets, crayons and papers, and explained how they too could teach, even in simple household tasks.
   "Today I brought a potato," I told them. "When you peel yours at home, your child can learn simple arithmetic." Demonstrating, I explained: "You cut one into halves, then into quarters..."
   Parents also took part in fun-filled teaching  skits  and  games we created, such as Child-O. Much like bingo, the card squares bore such tips as "The child who wets the bed should not be shamed," "A child learns more easily if he feels good about himself" and "It is not good to call my child a crybaby."
   "I never knowed I was 'sposed to learn my child," one mother said that first day. "I thought the teachers done that."
   Twice  a  week  our  old bus
Story time in the "Classroom on Wheels."

lumbered into low-income areas for two-hour periods. Soon we began to see results. Ricky no longer cried and hid, but was enthusiastically solving educational games. Nicole was smiling and rocking her baby doll. Rodney, who had long since abandoned his mother's lap, was creating block buildings with the aplomb of a construction superin-

tendent.
   All of that began 20 years ago. Today, at 70, I'm retired from full-time teaching, but I'm still active in the Classroom on Wheels program and am promoting its curriculum throughout the country.
   For me, the effectiveness of my "special work" is summed up in Mary Wade, whose four children went through the "Classroom on Wheels."  Encouraged  by  their progress, Mary went on to Middle Tennessee State University to finish her own education. Recently she wrote me a letter in which she said, "Your garden is full of beautiful flowers...and Christ will bless you for them."
   Whenever I read that letter, I touch the tiny mustard seed I wear around my neck, and give thanks again.

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