Teachers as Shepherds

The image of shepherds and sheep is usually linked to pastoral work rather than education. The Bible often describes God, kings, prophets, and spiritual leaders as shepherds who guide, protect, and care for God’s people. Yet this metaphor can also be a helpful way to think about our role as educators, especially when it relates to discipline.

Sheep and shepherds appear nearly 500 times in the Bible, reflecting Israel’s agricultural context and the practice of shepherding as an image of human formation – probably because sheep are known for not being very smart and getting lost easily. While students are certainly more intelligent and capable than sheep, they too become distracted, impulsive, discouraged, and prone to losing their way. They need guidance and patient direction toward maturity.

Seeing teachers as shepherds reshapes the meaning of discipline. It becomes more than controlling the classroom and keeping it in order because it’s part of the educational work of guiding learners toward wisdom and flourishing. Several biblical passages help illuminate what this kind of shepherding can look like in the classroom.

1. Shepherding begins with knowing students
The prophet Ezekiel described the religious leaders of his day as bad shepherds who ate their sheep instead of feeding them (Ezekiel 34:1–10). Against this backdrop, Jesus is portrayed as the Good Shepherd who knows each of his sheep, leads them, and protects them (John 10:1–5). Consequently, the sheep have learned to recognize his voice and trust him.

Being a shepherd-teacher begins with cultivating relationship, being attentive, and developing trust. This has a huge impact on classroom management and discipline. Learners are more likely to accept correction when they believe the teacher cares for them. Discipline without a relationship often produces fear, resentment, performance-based behavior, or lack of interest in learning.

A shepherding teacher doesn’t see students as problems to fix or manage, but as people to understand. Kids don’t just randomly misbehave; their actions are trying to say something even if they themselves don’t fully know what it is. Behavior is just the tip of the iceberg, so we have to look “under the water,” as it were, to understand why they are doing what they do.

So, besides learning students’ names and what interests them, try paying attention to patterns behind their behavior, not only to the behavior itself. For example, try to figure out why a student misses class, what motivates them, why certain things set them off, what deeper needs they have, and so on.

2. Shepherding promotes character formation
Shepherding is also a biblical metaphor for leadership and guidance. In Psalm 23, the shepherd is described as leading his sheep “along the right paths.”[1] The word “path” is a common biblical metaphor for the way we live our lives, just like we follow a well-worn path. Shepherding isn’t just about reacting to bad behavior; it’s about intentionally forming healthy habits and character traits.

Therefore, classroom management should also be seen as an opportunity to guide students toward good patterns of life. Classroom routines help shape what learners pay attention to, when they can speak, how they should treat others, and which virtues are seen as important. So, model the habits you want to cultivate, create rhythms that reinforce the patterns you wish to promote, and treat mistakes as opportunities for learning and growth.

3. Shepherding aims at flourishing and maturity
Hebrews 12:5–11 expands this vision of discipline as formation to include flourishing. Although the passage doesn’t mention shepherding explicitly, it does describe discipline as an expression of love and care. It sees discipline as a long process of formation that produces “a harvest of righteousness and peace.”

As educators, it’s easy to focus more on our learners’ shortcomings and failures and to confuse “kids being kids” with deliberate rebellion. Though sometimes short-term compliance is necessary (after all, we have a class to teach, right?), we can forget that the goal of discipline is not a quiet classroom, but leading learners toward age-appropriate maturity. So instead of only asking “Did the learner obey?”, a better question is “what kind of person is this student becoming?” This involves providing feedback on how our students are growing and improving, even if it’s just small steps in the right direction.

4. Shepherding requires patience and gentleness
In 2 Timothy 2:24–25, Paul talks about how the Lord’s servant is kind, patient, and gentle when correcting others. Though he’s giving advice to a young pastor and not a teacher per se, this passage is almost a lesson in classroom management, because the same qualities are required of educators seeking to shepherd their learners.

Students don’t only learn by being corrected, but also from the spirit in which correction is delivered. It’s like the old saying that people might forget what we say, but they’ll never forget how we made them feel. Being harsh might get students to do what we want right away, but in the long run it can hurt their trust in us and their sense of dignity. For correction to be formative, our classrooms need to be a place where students feel safe while they are being challenged.

I’m not proposing that we don’t establish boundaries or maintain expectations, but that we do it in a way that shows we understand that true growth takes time. Patience and gentleness are not signs of weakness or permissiveness, but signs that we believe God is working in students’ hearts even when that’s difficult to see.

Conclusion
Seeing teachers as shepherds reshapes the meaning of discipline. The classroom is no longer simply a place where behavior is controlled, but a community where lives are formed. Shepherding teachers know their students, lead them along good paths, patiently correct them, and pursue their long-term flourishing.

This kind of discipline can only be carried out by educators whose own hearts are being shaped by the Good Shepherd Himself. As we learn to reflect aspects of His character, we can become instruments of formation in the lives of our students.

In the end, learners may forget many lessons we teach, but they will remember what kind of person we were and type of authority we embodied – and whether our classroom was a place of fear, control, and shame, or a place of grace, love, and guidance.

Raphael Haeuser
Raphael has worked in church ministry, ESL teaching, teacher training and theological education. He especially loves seeing learners having those transformative “aha” moments. He’s been with TeachBeyond since 2008 and currently servies as Director of Global Education Services. Raphael is the author of Holiness in Everyday Life, reflecting his passion for connecting faith with all of life. In his free time Raphael likes to read fiction and make music. He lives with his family in Brazil.