Devotion - Monday, April 26

I spend most of my days with students, but there are some spent primarily in the company of faculty.

Friday, it was students. We gathered at Abernathy Park for an end-of-the-year cookout. As opportunity presented itself, I would ask the standard questions for this time of year: “How many exams do you have? Which days? When do you get to head home?” Such questions inevitably lead to comments about the persons administering the exams. “If so-in-so had given me credit for this or that I would have the grade I need and not have to face the final.” Or “I would really have to bomb the final to affect my grade, so I don’t know why he/she is making me take it.”

On Saturday, I got the other side of the coin. Operation In As Much provided me with the opportunity to work with Sundeep Samson. Math instructor, he and I talked of the final exams he had to prepare and administer. “The students sometimes forget that while they may have done well on each of the sectional test, the final is cumulative. Sometimes it is only the final which illustrates whether they can integrate all the information.” Saturday evening, Laura and I joined Peter Cohen and Wilene for a celebration of Peter’s birthday. Dr. Cohen took a quick look at his email, before we left their home, and commented, “These are from all the students begging for a better grade.”

This is not a battlefield, but sometimes it seems that way. The faculty are not pitted against the students, though some comments would imply they are seen this way.

This morning I read from Colossians 3: “Let your speech always be gracious.” And I thought of the temptation to speech in an ungracious way about those on the other side of the exam week phenomena. None of the comments I heard the past couple of days were overly critical, but they might move further in that direction as the week progresses. Let us, as a community of faith involving students, faculty, administrators, and TA’s remember that everyone is about the same goal – the building up of the children of God for the purpose of service in the world. Let our comments be gracious; and may we encourage others to “let (their) speech always be gracious.”