The Ten Commandments, ranked by how applicable they are to the average public school classroom

A very special White Pages sponsored by your good friends at the (newly merged!) departments of church and state

Did you hear the breaking news? Louisiana’s governor just signed a law decreeing that the Ten Commandments must be displayed in every public school classroom. Every classroom in the state! Required by law! All Ten Commandments! I know, right? So many commandments, so little wall space. Bad news for Maria’s poster about her extended family. No room for all your uncles, Maria. You should have thought of that before you chose the big construction paper.

I’m sure there will be all sorts of smarty pants arguments about how this new law is “bad” and “unconstitutional” and “disrespectful to students and staff who aren’t Christian.” I’ll agree with those takes, because of course I would. I’m a noodle-fingered liberal arts college graduate who worships all sorts of false idols (editors of publications I wish would accept my freelance pitches, the cast and crew of the television program The Bear, various guys who played for the Milwaukee Bucks between 2009-2016, etc.). There might also be a bunch of “hahahah those rednecks in Louisiana are soooo dumb, screw ‘em!” takes, but I hope not. Those takes are garbage.

Here at The White Pages, though, we believe in adapting to the world as it is, even as we build a better world. And since this is a publication that sometimes touches on matters of faith (mine is weird and oatmeal-adjacent) and public education (I like it, quite a bit), and since I am a former educator, I thought I’d offer the greatest gift of all to my educator friends in Louisiana.

A listicle. But in the form of a letter. An epistolary listicle. I know, I know… you’re welcome.

Hey Louisiana teacher friends,

It sounds like you have to post the Ten Commandments in your classrooms now. Regardless of your faith backgrounds, that’s a real bummer. It also feels like big government in your classrooms, which, you know, if the Louisiana legislature is into that now, perhaps they could have started with “massive increase in funding for education” rather than whatever this is, but regardless. You or I don’t have a choice in the matter. So, let’s make lemonade out of lemons. Yes, the lemonade we’re about to make is still going to taste like creeping Christian nationalism, but what else are we going to do with all these lemons? No, seriously, I’m open to other ideas.

To help you out, I did something that may be helpful but that I’m sure is blasphemous. I ranked the Ten Commandments, just as God intended them, , except this time with a focus on helping you identify which ones will be more or less useful to the daily operations of your classroom.

10. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me…”

Sorry God, I know this one is important to you, but here’s the problem. In a classroom, there’s kind of a need for the primary authority figure to be, you know, physically present. Like, you are the omnipotent creator of the world and all, but your response time can be really slow. Let’s say a student asks to go to the bathroom. If we are appealing to your authority, that’s your call, but imagine if you’re busy dealing with heavenly intercessions in another classroom and you don’t get back to us in time. That’s how accidents happen! And that’s not even getting into what happens if you do answer, but it’s not a clear yes or no but one of those famous wacky symbols of yours. God, why did you send our classroom a burning bush? That doesn’t help the bathroom situation!

9. “Thou shalt not commit adultery”

Listen, teachers. This message is for you, not God. If you have an active “committing adultery” problem IN YOUR CLASSROOM, I think that you might need more help than can even be provided by stone tablets from heaven [And I should know. I just wrote a whole essay about the film Cruel Intentions, so I’m basically an expert on school-aged adultery].

Oh, one more thing. I just searched for “classroom Ten Commandments” images and I love that their kid-friendly interpretation of this one is “keep wedding promises” which to me is less about adultery and more about when table seven is like “we’re gonna stay in touch forever because this was the best night of our lives” and then they don’t. God hates that.

8. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” 

There are readers of this newsletter, including educators, who don’t take the Lord’s name in vain. You all are much better non-vain-name-takers than I. You want to know what I did, that one Halloween where I told my fifth graders they could build a “haunted house” and didn’t realize until it was too late that their chosen design was basically a “carboard box death trap tunnel” that they encouraged kindergarterners to climb through, thus filling my room with the cries of a dozen understandable scared and sad kindergarteners? I TOOK THE LORD’S NAME IN VAIN, IS WHAT I DID.

7. “Honour thy father and thy mother”

Any educator reading this who teaches in a wealthier, Whiter suburban district and has stories about dealing with overzealous/over-demanding parents might add “... but, you know, not too much!”

6. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image…”

Another story from teaching fifth grade. Did you know that mechanical pencils can be rejiggered into missile launching systems? I didn’t! Is that kind of like making a graven image? Well, if it is, I’m against graven images, unto thee or not unto thee.

5. “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy…”

If the Louisiana legislature were to commit to additional staffing, thus enabling teachers to have more prep time during the day and not have to do grading/lesson planning/etc. on the sabbath, this rule would immediately jump to number one (sorry, “thou shalt not kill!”… You’re great and all, but have you ever had a full restful weekend?).

4. “Thou shalt not covet…”

Oh jeez, I just realized that, to go along with the new Ten Commandments posters, there will also likely be a new genre of slightly sarcastic companion wall art. You know, for the social studies teachers who put up “Time passes… but do you?” posters around their clocks. I can already picture all the posters saying things like “Want to covet something? How about your neighbor’s A+ on the last quiz!”

I proactively hate those posters.

In general, though: Coveting, sure. We should do less of it. I just saw Inside Out 2, so I know that coveting makes you (spoiler) a less good friend and a selfish hockey player.

3. “Thou shalt not kill”

You’d think this would be number one, and for sure. I, Garrett Bucks, am very much in favor of not killing, either in or out of the classroom. And yes, it’s impossible to not add in a snide liberal aside here about what a state legislature could do to prevent children being killed, but that’s obvious. As a commandment, it’s one of the good ones! Very fine commandment. Many people are saying.

I will say, though… kinda weird that we put a lot of asterisks on it, as a society. Like, I think there should be more asterisks on the coveting one. You know, “ok, it’s ok to covet your neighbor’s lunch, like, a bit, if their parents packed lunchables and yours didn’t.” I feel like we can have a little more of that and a little less of “well… it’s ok to kill, as long as the state does it or as an outgrowth of racialized capitalism and toxic masculinity.”

2. “Thou shalt not steal”

Oh my God (he says, already violating one of the commandments and thus revealing that he was educated in K-12 classrooms without the correct decorations), do you know who is good at stealing things? Children in classrooms! And I get it. You come to the same space together every day, and you’re presented with so much stuff to potentially steal. Some times you steal things just because they’re there. I remember a teacher friend telling me about the time, at a low point in her classroom, when a kid stole their copy of “Letter From the Birmingham Jail” and she (the teacher) got up in front of the class and just pleaded “whoever stole this I hope you read it, because it’s really good!”

1. “Thou shalt not bear false witness”

This single commandment would, if followed dutifully, reduce 80% of classroom drama. Do you know what kids do, like a ton? Bear false witness! It’s their favorite thing to bear! I do think this one could use a little asterisk, though. I’m ok when kids bear false witness about themselves, specifically when that false witness is about how their rich uncle in California invented the Nintendo Switch or how they have a really hot girlfriend, from camp, but she lives in Canada and so they don’t have a picture of her, since they don’t take pictures in Canada. It’s a cultural thing. Or maybe meteorological. Super cold up there. 

Actually scratch that. Adults shouldn’t bear false witness but kids can, as long as it’s funny. Get that on the tablet and we have a deal.

More seriously, I’m sorry, teacher friends in Louisiana. You deserve more from your legislature. I’m sure so many of you will organize and raise a good fuss. If there’s anything the rest of us can do to support, let us know.

With love,

Garrett Bucks

Internationally Renowned Expert on Extra-Constitutional Interior Design