John 13:14 “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.”
What is our culture’s equivalent of washing someone’s feet? What is the educational version of that act of service?
Christ speaks to me as a teacher in this verse. He has just demonstrated his willingness to make himself vulnerable in caring for them, and now he calls on them to do the same.
Today in class, we read a sample essay that responded to the prompt my students are currently working on. It was one of those drafts that appeared solid on the surface, and for a rough draft, it really was promising. It featured motivated research, a clear thesis, decent organization, and some really compelling information about dormitory visitation policies.
The more closely we looked at it though, the more flaws appeared. The research didn’t really bear on the project, and so many citations were missing that the author’s authority was shot by the end of the second paragraph. The essay is supposed to be a report, but it turned into an argument at its end, and by the time I was done discussing it, it seemed like the paper was awful.
So what do we do with that?
Well, in class, I left them to start their own research, and it seemed to me the sample essay now felt like a cautionary tale.
But was it?
Well, I would thank God if my students came up with that draft by the end of next week. They would have two weeks to work on the revision, and they might up come up with something really special.
And as I sit here writing this, I know that what I need to do for this particular sample is write the revision. I need to do the work and offer it to my students on Monday as an example of what they can do. Our discussion will come out of those improvements.
I can’t write a revision for everyone, just as Christ could not wash the feet of everyone in Jerusalem.
But I can wash the feet of this particular essay, and from that attitude of service I can call my students to begin the process of washing one another’s feet and helping each other become better readers and writers.