“I can show them how to see, but Jesus has to open their eyes.” I chatted with a friend about my plans to teach art through my photography portfolio this school year.
A lesson we learned about Van Gogh’s famous Almond Blossom painting and my “Dogwood Blossom, Quarentine” Photograph. The Bibilcal integration was a reminder about Aaron’s staff that blossomed like an almond branch and how the dogwood looks like a cross with blood at the four corners reminding us of Good Friday.
As a fourth year art teacher, I longed for meaningful lessons that could not only teach my students to see the beauty of God’s creation, but to be convinced without a shaddow of a doubt that He was for them.
Our students have been no strangers to grief this year. Young parents have died tragically on the heels of a tornado that ripped through the center of our town.
My fear has been that they will harden their heart towards Him, but my faith has spurred me on to enter this school year pointing to the goodness of God through the simplicity of my photographs.
One of our first lessons was a photo of a sunflower field. I thought of how Jesus taught through stories often pointing to fields and flowers. I decided to follow His lead.
Before having them draw the field along with me, I shared why I took the photo in the first place. I learned that sunflowers turn their faces to the sun. When they are staked to the ground and hindered from rotating towards the sun, they acutally shrink.
I told the students that fear does the same thing to us, makes us shrink back, where as faith makes us grow strong in the Lord.
When I was growing up, the benediction at my church included these words from Numbers 6, “The Lord make His face shine upon you.”
I reminded them that God’s face was turned toward them, just as the sun was in the sky every day, but they had to choose faith over fear, turn their face towards Him and flourish.
My goal as a teacher is to help them recognize true beauty, with the hope that they will respond by creating beauty in their corner of the world, but most importantly, glorify God through creativity.
It’s an act of faith for any teacher to diligently show up each day, over the course of years, planting seeds of truth and knowledge with the desire that the next generation will make this world a more beautiful place than we could imagine.
We are to help them discover their gifts and to help them learn how to use them. So, if you are a teacher today, be encouraged, the Lord sees your work and will reward it.
I was inspired by “God made a Farmer” by Paul Harvey, so I asked ChatGPT to help me adapt it for teachers, then I added my inside knowledge and writing pizazz from observing amazing Pre-K through 12th grade teachers all day, everyday, for 5 years. Here’s what we came up with.
Create Everyday 
