“…under your new Master you’re going to experience a marvelous

freedom you would never have dreamed of.” (I Corinthians 7:21 MSG)

Experiencing God in Education_________

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Brianna McCarn, a third grade teacher at Mill Valley Elementary, is an experiential

multi-sensory learner. It is the way God made her. She has to experience things to believe
them, not just learn facts about them. She is like doubting Thomas, the apostle who didn’t
believe Jesus was raised from the dead until he saw it for himself and touched Jesus’ scarred hands. Even though Brianna was raised
in a church, she was an agnostic for years. In her youth, as she was being taught stories and facts about God and the Bible in church,
she always wondered, “How can I believe in something or someone I know facts and information about but have never personally
experienced?” In college, after attending a Christian concert, Brianna experienced God for the first time. She had a waking vision of the
Lord that filled her with supernatural peace along with a deep desire to follow Him and draw closer to Him within a personal genuine
love relationship.
After graduation, Brianna became a third grade teacher at Mill Valley Elementary. Brianna teaches the same way she learns –
experientially and multi-sensory. Her classroom is truly amazing and the most creative and dynamic in her school. The children are
constantly learning new information about life by experiencing it. Student- made picture dictionaries, real concrete objects, photos
projected on her smart board, and drama are always used to teach vocabulary and concepts in all subjects. Her science class is full of
experiments. Constant large group entertaining unison choral drills, songs, and cheers are used so students are always verbalizing and
hearing the concepts being taught. In all subjects Brianna shares with her students how the concepts are practical and useful in the
real world. There is recipe reading and simple cooking in the classroom. She uses environmental print to teach reading using business
names, common grocery items, TV and cartoon characters, texting, and common internet words and terminology. Stories are often
dramatized while being read. Students constantly write about and journal their real life experiences at home, in the community, and at
school. They share this writing with one another and make many cumulative class books throughout the school year.
Brianna’s personal love relationship with Jesus is the source of her professional inspiration and deep abiding love and genuine
care for students, their parents, and staff members. Brianna regularly inquires of God. At home and at school she spends quiet time
alone with Him in prayer, studying, and journaling almost every day. Brianna is an active member of the faculty prayer group that meets
weekly at her school. The theme scripture she prays for her students is, “I have come that you may have life and life more abundantly.”
(John 10:10 NKJV) Each day the students start class by chorally chanting, “We have life and life more abundantly day after day!”
Abundant is the first vocabulary word she teaches each year.
While recently in prayer, the Lord spoke to her saying, “Keep my word on your heart and desk each day at school. Come eat
at my table while at work.” She believed God was calling her to keep an open Bible on her desk at all times while at school as a
needed visual reminder for her to keep her heart and mind open to God all day while at work in education. She was to put her lesson
plans on top of the Bible and commit her plans and work to Him each day. (Proverbs 16:3) Up until this time, Brianna had never kept a
Bible at school. She wondered about the legality of doing this. Her college and school district had never taught her the specifics of the
law regarding separation of church and state in public education.
Brianna consulted the faculty prayer group facilitator, Julia Anders, who was a member of the Christian Educators Association
International. She gave Brianna a book *Teachers & Religion In Public Schools. Brianna’s research indicated there was no federal law
or district policy prohibiting her from having a Bible on her desk in her classroom. She learned that different court cases across the
United States reached different decisions in regard to educators’ personal Bibles in schools. In Roberts v. Madigan (1990) one court
up-held the decision a principal made ordering a teacher to remove her Bible from her desk. In another court decision, Warnoch v.
Archer (2004), a court ruled that a principal could have a Bible and framed psalm on the wall of his office as long as they did not
convey the impression of government endorsement.
From that day forward, Brianna has, without fear, kept her Bible open on her desk at school and puts her daily lesson plans on
it to remind her to commit her plans to the Lord and be open to the word of the Lord all day as she teaches. She refuses to live in fear
of the law of man because that fear is a snare. She knows if she trusts in the Lord she will be kept safe. (Proverbs 29:25)
Prayer: Lord, help us experience you and to bring the experience of life and life more abundantly into your classrooms.
Reflection: Have I ever experienced God? Explain. Am I imparting to my students knowledge through multi-sensory life experiences or
by the dull presentation and recitation of factual knowledge?
Getting Real: Teach knowledge through real life experiences in practical multi-sensory ways.

*Teachers & Religion in Public Schools is available for purchase at Shop Our Store on the www.ceai.org website.

CLASSROOM LIGHTHOUSE SERIES: THE GREAT RACE (For info or prayer contact ceaihouston@sbcglobal.net.) WEEK 8

Image ”Open Bible Isolated on White Background” at freedigitalphotos.net.