The LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the LORD God made grow every tree that was delightful to look at and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil… The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.

Genesis 2: 8-9, 15

“Organize your desk” was a command I frequently used in the past, only to find the room in utter disarray by the end of the day. Even now, there is the demoralizing moment after the children leave when a teacher, and I know parents will similarly relate, must confront her less agile self and do the repetitive “down-up” and “bend-and-pick-up” around the room, collecting the strewn and abandoned items on the floor: sad, chewed pencils, a potato chip, the cap of a glue stick, a hair tie, and a broken crayon stripped of its wrapper. But after all these years of teaching, I only blame myself for this familiar mess, knowing that there is a solution, a better way, and a more humanizing option for the children that taps into their innate design and call as image-bearers of God.

We want children to be ordered; there is a deep sense of rightness in the task of bringing order out of the wildness of young children. But the how often eludes us, and we don’t consider the why; why we even try to tame the joyful and uninhibited chaos of a young mess. So the questions are raised: How do we teach children to be ordered, organized, and responsible for their materials? How do we train children in a way that is appropriate for their age and abilities? How do we get them to want to be ordered, giving them the motivation necessary to be so when it requires effort to begin and sustain the ideal? And why even exert ourselves in this task that often feels at odds with the wildness of young childhood?

It was on a typical morning teaching first grade at St. Benedict Classical Academy when I was spontaneously given the grace to understand and communicate the why in the midst of my efforts to reinforce the how of desk organization. After many years of reflection and refinement, I had already achieved the little victory of coming up with a method for the task that seemed to be working with six-year-olds. Taking all their folders and notebooks from their desks, the children would arrange them in a stack, narrow to wide, like a little pyramid. I taught them to notice how pleasing this made their desks look when they returned the pyramid to the interior and slid it into position on the right side, leaving a wide space for their pencil case and other miscellaneous items. I drew their attention to all the crumbs and dust that had accumulated in the little pencil ridge at the front, and gave each child a baby wipe to clean it out. The method was already in place and working well, and we all looked with satisfaction at the neat and clean desks after a periodic, five-minute cleaning session.

But this day in particular was different; my typical demonstration also became a moment of grace in which I was given the insight and ability to communicate the why to the children, a truth that spoke to their human design and inspired a deepening desire for the goodness of order that they were already experiencing in seeing their neat and clean desks. I say it was a grace because there are so many things that we overlook as teachers and parents due to tiredness or time constraints. We have a blindness to change until an inspiration awakens us and energy propels us to change and address the problem.

It was in the midst of this typical moment that my mind remembered the Garden and Adam’s task. “Do you remember what God asked Adam to do for the Garden, children?” I began. I spoke of the great gift that God gave Adam—the gift of dominion over creation and the privilege of using his body and soul, with intellect and will, to care for it. That this dominion and ability to cultivate and order reflected the nature of God Himself, who had brought order to an “earth that was without form or shape” (Genesis 1:2). I spoke to them of my garden—the classroom, and theirs—a desk, smaller, but no less important, and how God had designed us in His image to cultivate them with care. The small garden of a desk would be their first big opportunity as six-year-olds to be co-creators with God, bringing order and beauty to creation.

Afterward, I watched them stack their folders from narrow to wide and wipe every nook and cranny of their desks with an eagerness and energy that told me they got it. Connected to the Truth, they committed their wills to the Good. Their satisfaction was complete when they ran smiling to me and said, “Look at mine, Miss Mercede!” They were filled with an interior happiness that was so much bigger than that little completed task; their happiness, an echo of the happiness of that original man in a Garden of his own, giving glory to his Creator.

AUTHOR: Maryanne Mercede, First Grade Teacher