Article March 10, 1997 Issue

Transforming chaos into calm

Dolores Cook

Pieces of broken desks on the classroom floor. Students entering the class and walking on the desktops instead of on the floor. Others running around the classroom out of control, seemingly beyond the ability of adults to contain them.

These situations—and mild to severe variations of them—have been routine for me during the past several years while serving as a behavior management consultant in the public schools. My job is to resolve and neutralize these conditions on the spot while also presenting teachers with skills to enable them to "keep the lid on" their classrooms, thus helping ensure student learning.

I have found it essential to pray each morning before work, and a quotation from Science and Health has been very helpful to me. It reads, "'Let there be light,' is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into order and discord into the music of the spheres" (p. 255). What else but the calmness and compassion we learn from Christ Jesus and the wisdom that God, divine Mind, imparts could resolve such situations? This wisdom tells us that man is spiritual and always in the care of divine Love. As we accept this truth into our lives, it enables us to hear God even in the midst of chaos. We are able to reflect His qualities rather than react to the human situations around us.

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