Article May 23, 1977 Issue

In the Classroom: Who Needs Discipline?

BARBARA SMITH BERNHEIMER

A teacher in the active classrooms of today's schools needs a strong sense of spiritual discipline. He or she needs to learn to love as Christ Jesus loved and to stand firm in the conviction that this love is a power that brings order and control to even the most rebellious group of students.

Christian Science shows us that love for other people has healing results when we identify man as spiritual, as the likeness of God, the one Mind. Negative traits such as disrespect, dishonesty, and hate do not belong to man. They have their source in the illusory carnal mind, which counterfeits the one pure divine Mind but has no real existence of its own.

Some may remember their own school days and say, "Kids today show no respect for authority, and what's more, they are not as obedient as they used to be." This observation may be true. Many parents do not impart the healthy sense of obedience that will aid their children in establishing self-discipline throughout their adult lives. Yet I have found that whenever I have a discipline problem in my classroom, the need is always to discipline my own thought. No classroom is too rowdy or too "far gone" to be brought under the loving control of divine Principle, God, where both teacher and students humbly reflect obedience to divine authority.

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