The Skilled Workers

It’s the end of the semester. The students are writing essays, taking exams, and finishing projects. The professors are evaluating all of this, and everyone is wondering whether we’ve accomplished anything over the last few months. It’s a strange time, because we’re excited to be this close to the holiday break. But we’re also facing a pile of work that says a lot about all of us.

During times like this, I’m willing to talk to anyone about anything, as long as it doesn’t have to do with school. So, my friend across the hall and I interrupt one another throughout the day to discuss the Detroit Lions impressive season, pocket lint I just found, Jesus’ parables, bebop and hard bop jazz, least favorite desserts, the number of people in Manhattan at any one time, Danny DeVito’s career, and the merciful ubiquity of spandex in contemporary men’s clothing.

I’m also willing to do anything. I have dusted many things in my office. I unfold and refold the wolf and cat blankets my wife bought for the cold months in my corner of the building. I alphabetize. But I stay off the internet. I know I’d never come back.

For my part, some of this behavior is just coping with stress. Binge grading is mentally taxing. It’s important to take breaks, if only to make sure you’re evaluating fairly instead of rushing through to the end. But some of this behavior — for me at least — is avoidance. That is, I don’t want to see the evidence that I am not yet the teacher I may become someday.

So, it’s an ideal time to think about Benedict’s advice regarding skilled work in a monastery. Here at the end of the semester, in my dust-free office, among the tidy blankets and alphabetized items, it’s useful for me to read this: “If there are skilled workers in the monastery, let them practice their crafts with all humility if the abbot permits it. But if anyone of these workers is so proud of his expertise that he thinks he is a great gift to the monastery, he should be removed from his work” (57:1-3).

Why can’t I just sit in a room full of undergraduates and share my wisdom with them? And why can’t they all just pay attention to my golden words? And why can’t that be enough for a college education?

But here I am, under a pile of student writing, smothered by evidence that my golden words don’t seem like anything for some of my students. Right now, this pile of work is mostly teaching me: I am a skilled worker in this community. I have a good education, and I’ve been teaching for over a decade now. But I am a beginner in this craft. I’m lucky to have anything to do with it at all. So, my great gift to this community may not be my skill. It may simply be remaining teachable.