How many Lights do you see?

Every morning, I arrive within five minutes of a quarter to 7 (6:45-6:50) unless the day is a non-routine day. There have not been many of those.

I appear at the back door to my school and peer into the inky blackness of the main hallway artery of the building, my own classroom door immediately inside to the right. There is a light switch on the inside immediately beside my room entrance. I turn the key and walk into the dark and reach for the first switch by the light of the streetlamps shining through the barred windows.

At the beginning of the year when I first did this, I didn't know what light swith controlled which set of lights. I have them all memorized now, yes, but the point is, I was always caught off guard, (mesmerized may be too strong a word) startled by which set of lights came on first. The thing is, with one switch, only two of the nine flourescent lights hum to life after I flip the switch (light #2 and light #7). The other seven activate with the other switch. There were times that I flipped the switch controlling the set of seven and thought I did not need to flip the switch controlling the other two because it's not necessarily easy to notice they're not on. Then again, what a surprise to flip the other switch first and have only random parts of the hallway light up.

I'm certain there is an engineering/electrical reason for this discrepancy in the hallway lights. It happens on the administrative hall as well. But whatever the reason, it made for interesting mornings way back when and it makes for good analogy now.

With one lesson - the correct one, mind you - I can turn on the minds of 78% of my students, give or take. But there remains that 22% that just don't come on with the first switch. Or, then again, sometimes I have that lesson where only roughly 22% get it. The other 78% of my students remain in the dark. A minimum two-pronged approach has been necessary for sometime and I suppose is always necessary seeing as how no student learns the same as another.

I wish teaching were as simple as the two-switch conundrum I face every morning to illumine my school's hallways. I like to read the little green sign that says simply "Christ the King Prep" on the glass door before I go into the morning darkness. I've taken to saying a little prayer, "Bring light to those in darkness, O Lord," as I flip the first switch. It's one of those fun moments where I get an immediate response to my prayer because light always floods the hall immediately afterward - though sometimes more light than other times. I used to never know whether I would get two lights or seven. Now I do, but I still have trouble guessing whether my 22% of my students will get it or 78% (or however many) when I teach a lesson. I come pretty close, but I'm always, somehow, surprised by somebody.

Teachers, by profession, bring light to darkness. This is why the abstract concept "scholarship" is normally represented by the "torch of knowledge" which itself is an abstract come to life. We cast away the darkness of ignorance, the darkness of evil, the darkness that creeps in and chokes good ideas and frightens those who have no defense against the bitter cold of inepitude. Teachers must do this daily, make the abstract concrete, make the untenable reachable... they must flip the switch and bring light to those in darkness.

I flipped my switch this morning and seven lights came on. I flipped it off because at that moment this post occured to me. I flipped on the second and stared at the two lights burning in the near darkness. I turned them off and then back on a couple times before finally turning them all on and then basking in the glow of the old, dirty flourescence.

I watch the lights come on... and I'm watching some lights go out. And unlike with real lights connected to real switches, I don't know what to do with some of my little lights that are flickering out on me. My poor little lights... my poor lights. How many... how many lights have to go out? How many Lights do I see?