Pastor answers his calling to serve as special ed teacher at Columbus school

Today we should try to be the person we needed when we were younger.

I read that on Facebook recently, and I thought about my needs when I was an awkward middle schooler or an out-of-place elementary kid or even a soul-searching high school student. My needs were plentiful, indeed, and to imagine what kind of heroic, hulk of a person would be necessary to help me find my way seems overwhelming. It would take divine intervention, for sure.

All of us have been through the doors of a classroom. We can take a stroll down memory lane and remember the faces of teachers who heroically and masterfully assumed the challenge and invested in our journey toward self-discovery. In hind-sight, we would admit that there was something ordained about their calling to be a classroom teacher.

Never has such a call to ministry been pertinent than with the story of Benjamin Hale. Mr. Hale’s lifework has always been to demonstrate patience with the unruly, discipline with the strayed, and assistance with needy. Early in his career, he fulfilled this work by serving as a youth pastor at a small church in Manchester, Ga.

Then he recognized an additional way to meet the desperate needs of a desperate population of young people – become a special education teacher. So, this pastor did what it took to get himself into the classroom.

Ironically, his first day at Hannan Magnet Academy was on Halloween, and he has met the scary fiends of public education with a boldness that can only come from the same power source David drew from when he faced Goliath. According to Mr. Hale, his confidence and capability in the challenging special education classroom stems from a foundational philosophy he has spent years cultivating. Care for young people like they are your own. Teach students as if they belong to you. Guide kids as if they are your kids. Then, when a child looks at him and says, “I want to grow up to be just like you, Mr. Hale,” both he and Providence smile.

Ask Mr. Hale why he became a teacher, and he will answer, “I met some amazing kids who simply needed me to be someone who I needed 15 years before.” He accepted the challenge, made a change, and is now making a huge difference in the lives of his students. His grade school teachers might have looked at a kid named Benjamin as a day dreaming, chatty, apathetic lost cause, but today he turns the tables on the perceptions of some kids. Mr. Hale sees potential, hope and lives to save.

Divinity certainly directed Benjamin Hale toward molding young minds. There’s no doubt, especially in the hearts and minds of the staff and students at Hannan. But what can we (you and I) take from the message so clearly presented from Facebook and an introduction to Mr. Hale? Today we should try to be the person we needed when we were younger. Besides the obvious directive, maybe we can model our pursuits after the pursuit of Benjamin Hale. We discover our true calling and then we go after it with a relentless fervor that can only come from one place. And then, when we’re finally there, we cause someone to look at us and say, “When I grow up, I want to be just like you.”

This story was originally published March 28, 2017 at 6:15 PM with the headline "Pastor answers his calling to serve as special ed teacher at Columbus school."