What does it mean to keep God in public schools?

Public schools are such a hot-button issue these days. Entire organizations have sprung up to fight against the so-called wokeness of public schools. We see it on social media posts and at school board meetings, in evangelical churches and in state government halls – people insisting that we must put God back in public schools.

For some, this means hanging the Ten Commandments or having coaches or teachers leading school prayer. It means including Bible classes taught by evangelicals as an elective opportunity. It means creating rules or laws which restrict the acceptance and inclusion of queer students, families, or faculty.

My educational background is what we might call all-encompassing. OK, maybe not all-encompassing, but a whole-lot-encompassing.

I grew up in public school, then spent four years at a pretty conservative, small, Christian, liberal arts college, where I did student teaching in public schools. Throughout my adult life, I have taught in private Christian schools and public schools. My own children have, at various times, attended Christian schools, been homeschooled, and attended public schools.

Throughout my career, I have taught just about every age imaginable in one setting or another – from toddlers through people in their seventies and eighties. I’ve taught people in church and people in jail and people at just about every stop in between.

During every bit of it, I’ve learned that – whether I’m teaching The Sermon on the Mount or The Necklace, whether I’m retelling of the Battle of Jericho or delving into Animal Farm or Romeo and Juliet – the very best way I can experience God’s presence wherever I am teaching is to believe that every single one of my students is beloved by God and equally worthy recipients of grace and goodness as I myself am. 

And then to behave as if it’s true. Every single day.

This is the best way for me to live out my commitment to be both an educator and a follower of Jesus.

What does this mean practically? What does it look like in a public school? 

In my classroom, it means that every day is a fresh start. We don’t hold grudges.

A student’s behavior may require consequences – a phone call home, removal from the classroom, a visit with an administrator, whatever is appropriate – but the next day, I am standing at the door to greet that student with a smile. Offering the opportunity to start fresh with a clean slate. Grace upon grace.

It also means that my students are worthy of respect. And when I mess up, they are worthy of an apology. So when I recently raised my voice in frustration to a student, I apologized privately to that student and asked for forgiveness. Then I apologized publicly in front of the class – because I had committed the offense to him publicly in front of the class. They are valuable and deserving of respect. And when I mess up, I model owning it and apologizing – which gives them an opportunity to give me grace and a fresh start. 

Call me crazy – but experiencing the beauty and goodness of grace says more to my students about God’s presence than some posters of the Ten Commandments on the walls.

God’s presence fills my classroom when I remember that my students are whole humans, image-bearers of God, who walk into my classroom carrying their entire life experiences with them. My classroom is not a vacuum. And for many students, my assignments are not their highest priority – which has nothing at all to do with me. 

When I proceed with this understanding and expectation, I can give grace and meet them where they are. By the way, I’ve also found this to be the best way to help get them where we need them to be academically.

I can’t help but think about all of this when I hear conservative Christians bemoan the removal of God from public schools. I suppose if we equate the direct teaching of Bible stories and the enforcing of a particular brand of so-called Christian morals with keeping God in school, then that is correct. If keeping God in schools means we create rules against those we disagree with, then sure. If keeping God in schools is only hanging the Ten Commandments in each classroom, then yeah, many of us push back against that.

However, I don’t think that exclusionary rules and posters of commandments and prayers over intercoms are the real presence of God.

I’ve come to understand that God’s heart is much more about our being beloved and forgiven than about our rituals and outward show. In other words, the Gospel is a message of belovedness and forgiveness, not a list of rules and regulations. The Gospel isn’t a behavior modification system. The Gospel is a message of bringing the dead to life, of bringing all that’s dead within us to abundant life.

Or to put it the way Nadia Bolz-Weber puts it, “a reward and punishment system may be effective for behavior management, but Christianity isn’t supposed to be about controlling the masses, Christianity is supposed to be about raising the dead.”

God’s presence in schools isn’t about the political and social power of a certain group of people. God’s presence in schools isn’t performative. God’s presence in schools isn’t about controlling the masses and creating Stepford-students who lack free will and believe and behave the exact same as all the other cookie-cutter students.

The presence of our living God in schools is so much more than that. When we let yesterday’s mistakes lie dead and offer fresh, full life each day, we are living the Gospel message. In our schools, in our homes, in every area of our life, when we see others as beloved and offer grace and life, we are living the Gospel.

As long as teachers are seeing students as image-bearers of God and loving them as such, God is in public schools.

As long as teachers see students as God’s beloved and offer them grace as such, God is in public schools.

As long as our faces light up when we see our students and we treat them as if they are of value – because they each are of value to their Creator – God is in public schools.

And as long as I offer grace and compassion to my students, I am living out the Gospel for them and with them.

The Spirit within me that flows grace into my life is in my public school classroom every day.

As long as all we image-bearers of God fill the classrooms and walk the hallways, God is in public schools.

And if you think God can only be in public schools if your exact brand of faith is praying publicly or hanging in posters on the walls or creating the rules that force everyone to adhere to your doctrine, then your view of God is frighteningly small.