“The most skillful physicians are those who, from their youth upwards, have combined with the knowledge of their art the greatest experience of disease; . . . and should have had all manner of diseases in their own person.”
Plato, Republic 3.4081
One day a student of mine came to me sobbing. His face drenched with tears and mud. He told me that his classmates beat him up and say that he is stupid and can’t read. It broke my heart. Such a scene is not limited to my classroom. I know that all the teachers around the globe experienced that in one way or another. Am I speaking about bullying? No, there are a lot of platforms for that issue. What I would like to bring to the light is the inner woundedness we see in our students and how we manage to heal them despite our own woundedness.
Wounded healer according to Stanley W. Jackson, refers to the inner “woundedness” of a healer—the healer’s own suffering and vulnerability, which have been said to contribute crucially to the capacity to heal. In other words, healers’ own experiences as sufferers may have an enhancing or useful effect on their healing capacities.
Allow me to be bold enough to say that teachers are wounded healers found inside the classroom. Our day-to-day encounter with students allows us to see the many facets of wound life brought us. From dysfunctional families to poverties, you name it we know them. We have seen students struggling to get higher grades just to please their parents and we have seen students struggling just to live for the day. These experiences enrich us in a way that no other professions can ever provide. The process of guiding young people to deal and cope with their woundedness in a meaningful way requires wisdom and understanding, as well as emotional energy from the teacher. Mind you this is just a portion of our work as teachers. But I see it as the most essential role of our teachers.
Teachers also have bad days or even worst days, yet we face our students with a warm smile and bright eyes covering our tears and sadness. We also have our own wounds, feeling, and emotions to attend to. But we put them aside as we listen to another story of abuse, neglect, or rejection. Joe Colletti said that “wounded healers do not just look after their own wounds, and the wounds of family members and friends. They also are prepared to heal the wounds of strangers. They become prepared by realizing two primary insights about their own wounds: 1) their wounds are not a source of shame; and 2) their wounds are a source of healing”. Teachers are healers whose personal experiences of illness have left lingering effects on them—in the form of lessons learned that later serve constructive purposes, in the form of attitudes and sensitivities that recurrently serve them in ministering to those whom they treat, or in the form of symptoms or characteristics that stay with them and usefully influence their therapeutic endeavors.
But how do we become a good wounded healer? Henri Nouwen said in his book The Wounded Healer, “a wounded healer’s primary task is not to take away the pain, but to deepen it to a level where it can be shared. This deepening process begins a shared journey that is further initiated by acknowledging that we share one another’s wounds. We feel wounded when others are wounded. I feel with, and for, others because my shared journey prevents me from distancing myself from others”. We teachers can journey with our students. We don’t need to send them right away to the principal’s office or to shout at them and report them to their parents. Sometimes we can just be there for them and listen to them despite their rebellions. I had a student that keeps on misbehaving during my class. I grew tired of reprimanding her. One day I got an inspiration and asked her to go out of the classroom and there away from her classmates, I asked her what bothers her. The child looked at me and with teary eyes, she said that her mom is having a baby from another man and she feels so unloved. It broke my heart and I cannot say a word. I just hugged her tightly and said that I understand her, and I am with her. But I also made her realized that misbehaving in the class won’t give her the love she needs. From a day one she participates in our class and started to be more cheerful than before.
The Spiritual Canticle by St. John of the Cross captures the power of one’s healing presence towards another’s woundedness. It is a poem that tells a story of love between two lovers—the bridegroom and the bride. It is a loving exchange filled with the images found in the Song of Songs between Christ the bridegroom and a bride who is us. Such images are used to express the pains, longings, and desires between the two.
In Stanza VIII, Verse 11, the Bridegroom compares himself to a stag. It is characteristic of the stag to climb to high places, and if wounded, race in search of refreshment and cool waters. If he hears the cry of his mate and senses that she is wounded, he “immediately runs to her to comfort and caress her.” Among lovers, the wound of one is a wound for both, and the two have but one feeling. Thus, in other words, he says: “Return to me, my bride, because if you go about wounded . . . “I too, like the stag, will come to you wounded by your wound.”
To be wounded by another’s wound is to wait for, and listen to, the other’s thoughts and feelings. It is also to pause in our caregiving to feel the intensity of the other’s woundedness. And when we do so, we come to experience a mutual process of healing, because each person is the wounded and the wounded healer. Nouwen’s last chapter is entitled the same as his book—“The Wounded Healer” as his book and one of his concluding remarks is one of his most insightful. He wrote:
“A Christian community is, therefore, a healing community not because wounds are cured and pains are alleviated, but because wounds and pains become openings or occasions for a new vision.”
Teachers, our classroom is not only a venue for knowledge, it can also be a place where our students can feel safe and heard. A place where learning and healing can take place simultaneously.
By: Camille Rose M. Tacazon, MASE | Teacher I | Olongapo City National High School | Olongapo City
