The thing I love most about teaching is that it requires me to develop two seemingly contradictory truths. 

On the one hand, I must accept that, to a large degree, I am powerless as an educator. As a finite, non-omnipotent creature, I can’t change my students’ backstories. I can’t rescue them from difficult home lives, years of lost learning, heartbreaks, or traumas. I can’t force them to believe that school is worth it, that effort pays off, or that success is possible. I can’t even force them to learn because learning takes work and care from the learner. And because work and care are things one must decide to give, not things that one can be forced to give, there is a real sense in which I am, indeed, powerless.

On the other hand, I must accept that out of all the people in my classroom, none holds a more powerful influence on my students’ learning than me. As the teacher, I’m the chief weathermaker in the room; I’m the jet stream. The things I say and don’t say, the learning activities I choose and don’t choose, the ways I do and don’t respond to what I see—all of these have consequences to the atmosphere of the learning environment that cutting-edge classroom research has hardly begun to measure.

I am powerless, and yet I have power. My students’ hearts come to me already shaped, and yet I shape them.

If there’s a more important duality for a disciple of Jesus to come to terms with, I’m not sure what it is. Accepting these things and learning to live and move within them are so much, to me, of what it means to apprentice to Jesus in the classroom.

And Jesus, of course, was and is well aware of this. In His wisdom, He decided to create creatures with free will; thus, even when He taught, His listeners were in control of how they responded.

But in one of His most famous lessons, there’s a line in which He reveals His strategy.

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt 5:14–16, NIV).

What’s a powerless-yet-empowered teacher to do, when faced with the daunting challenges of today’s classrooms? 

Good work—that’s the strategy!

As we do the good work of teaching—managing a classroom, planning a lesson, responding to student needs, and providing feedback—it shines forth light. No eye can see it, but every heart can. And this, to me, is the great evangelism I can do even as a teacher in public school. I can do good work, confident that my light shines before others so that they might see my good deeds and praise my good Father.

You, colleague, are the light of your classroom. Even on the hardest days, take heart, for your good work cannot be hidden.

Dave Stuart Jr. is a husband and dad who teaches high school students in a small town. He writes about teaching students toward long-term flourishing at DaveStuartJr.com.