FROM A STUDENT

Grading memoirs today and ran across this 14 year old girl's piece.  Here is part of it:

We had listened to them fighting.  I was in my room, hiding, scared.  My brother came and got me.  We ran into his bed room, and closed the door noiselessly.  We turned on his TV with the volume up loud, but that only muffled the sound of our parents fighting.  I sat down on the wooden ladder, staring at the door knob, waiting for something to happen that would make this all disappear.  The noise finally stopped, the door knob turned.  I ran to my dad and hugged him.  He said we needed to talk.  We took a ride in his truck with its blackish purplish color that I so much adored. 

The divorce all happened at once.  The word we didn't understand had the power to tare a family apart.  The tears ran down my face like rain.  This memory haunts me.  It is truly the one thing I can remember from my childhood.

A reminder to me today.  This is part of my calling- to do whatever I can to bring the healing power of Jesus to hurting marriages.

ANOTHER ONE-  She writes:

...This went on and finally my dad told me about my mom cheating on him.  She did it when I wasn't around for her to look after.  I knew that if I didn't leave the house, she would have to stop so that's what I did.  My dad had told me that he was going to leave if she didn't stop.  I made this my new goal, not to let him leave again.  To do this I first had to stop her from going out which meant I couldn't go out and that's exactly what I did for five years.  I stayed inside every single day and night so she had no chance of leaving.  It worked.  She didn't leave the house.  Instead my mom decided she was leaving this time and she was taking me with her.  This made me sadder than ever.  I had to leave my house and all of my friends and go somewhere I hated.  All for some stupid reason. 

Today, I am with my mom still unfortunately.  I hardly ever see my dad anymore, but that's okay because I would rather have nothing to do with either of them than something to do with both of them.

On Teaching

Love this whole article from Rob Bell, but especially this part. From my experience teaching, I can definitely say AMEN to this.

Things Taste Better When They've Been Marinated

I work on teachings for as long as four to six months, a year. You'd think I was obnoxious because if we go out to lunch I'll be diagramming on a napkin.

If you're married and I said, "Tell me about your wedding day," you could tell it to me. You wouldn't say, "I forgot my notes." No, you just tell me.

Those of you who have kids, if I asked, "How old are your kids, and what are their names?" You won't say, "I have my notes some place. I don't have my PowerPoint with me." No. Boom, boom, boom, these are the ages. Why? Because it's a part of you.

What if your teaching was such a part of you it was like telling about your wedding day or like telling about your first job? What would it be like if you could tell it like it was a story you told 200 times?

That's my passion. I have found the harder I work and the farther out I've been working on it, the more freedom I have.

The people who are listening to you, they know when it's become a part of you. They can feel when the speaker is just giving some information and observation, and they know when it is coming right through your soul.

We don't need people who sing the notes off a chart. We need soul singers. We need prophets. We need poets. Our generation needs people who have had an experience. They've got their hair set on fire. They're wild-eyed, and they can't wait. I got to say this, or I'm going to explode.

You can read the whole article here:

34 Excuses

I have a student who begs, BEGS to leave class over and over and over.
He does it in every class, all day long (his other teachers and I have talked). We've tried all strategies. I thought it might be fun to record a list of the ones I can remember from the recent past. Keep in mind that every request is met with begging, arguing and complete disrupting of class until he gets his way or you give him a discipline consequence for being argumentative.
1) I have a nose bleed (holding his hand over his nose, head tipped back. He didn't really have a nose bleed.)
2) I bumped my knee on the desk. I need to go get some ice.
3) I have a splinter in my finger and it really hurts. I need to see the nurse.
4) I really have to pee. Please can I go. (After having just come back from the bathroom 10 minutes earlier.)Please please please please please
5) I have a scrape on my knuckle. I need a Band-Aid. See it?? Right Here... for real Mrs. Crisp. Look. (I look, there is nothing that I can see without a microscope).
6) I need to turn in a form to the guidance office. Me: And where is this form? Oh it's in my locker, but I have to go get it and turn it in right now. It has to be in today. I promise. Its in my locker. Just right outside the door. They said...
7) _______ took my shoes in gym class and I have his on and they're too tight. Can I go find him and trade back with him? If I take these off they're really going to stick cause ___ has smelly feet and they'll be smelling up this whole room.
8) Can I go get a drink of water? I'm so thirsty that I can't even pick up a pencil or listen so I'm not going to do anything anyway until I get a drink.
9) I twisted my ankle in gym and it really hurts. Can I go get some ice?
10) My mom said that I needed to call her at 2:00 to remind her to come and pick me up. I need to go to the office to call home. I'm for real. She'll forget me.
11) I need to go call home to have my dad bring me some Advil. I've got a headache. I'm not going to get anything done until my headache goes away so you might as well let me go.
12) I have the wrong binder. Can I go to my locker to get my LA binder?
13) ______ has my binder and I need to go get it from him. It has my homework in it.
14) I don't have a pencil. Can I go buy one from the machine?
15) I don't have any paper. Can I go buy some from the machine?
16) I can't see from my seat. Can I go get my glasses out of my locker? I didn't wear my contacts today. (Comes back with no glasses) I must have left them at home.
17) _________ took my glasses between classes. Can I go get them back?
18) I need to go to the office to call home. Its an emergency. Its personal.
19) Can I go wash my hands? I've got ink all over them and its going to get all over the desk.
20) Can I go wash my hands? I think ____ has the swine flu and she sneezed on me with her germs. Hand sanitizer just isn't going to cut that crud.
21) Can I go wash my hands? I've got white-out all over them and I can't do my work because my pencil keeps slipping right out of my fingers. (He had painted every finger completely white)
22) My chair keeps tipping. Its broken. I need a new chair. I can't learn like this. Can I go ask Mr. Wayne for a new chair? (custodian)
23) (15 minutes late for class) My locker was stuck. You can call Mr. Wayne. Call him. He'll tell you. It was stuck I swear.
24) Can I go to the bathroom? I have a note now. From my doctor saying I have a medical problem. I need to go when I need to go.
25) Can I go talk to the counselor? I have an issue. Its too personal to talk about here right now.
26-30) Can I go talk to ___(insert and one of his 5 other teachers names here)_____ because she wrote me up. I got called to the office last hour because she wrote me up for no reason. I need to go talk to her.
And on and on and on.....
Oh oh oh, I forgot all of the braces related requests
31) My bracket broke
32) I need a rubber band from my locker
33) There's something stuck in my bracket and it really hurts. (totally in my personal space opening his mouth) SEEE!!
34) I just got my braces tightened and they really hurt. I need some ice.

There are so many more if you can believe it- all from one child, Every. Single. Day. By the time I get home, I don't want to answer a question ever again. Can't something be done, you ask? Where is the justice? Where is the system? Where is the principal? Haven't you told someone, you ask?
My answer: all of the someones have been told and there's nothing left to do but blog about it. :)

Blogging Break

Eric reminded me tonight that it's been a long time since I've blogged. Well, you know the old, "when you don't have anything good to say..."
Yeah, that's been me lately.
It's not that life isn't great. It really is. We are so blessed. Healthy kids. Amazing kids. Jobs that provide what we need. Loving family and friends. A beautiful thriving marriage and a peaceful home. Meaningful ministry experiences etc. So why the blogging drought?

Usually, when I write, it has to be about what is occupying my head, heart and hands at the core. When I try to write about the periphery of my being, it ends up sounding fake and contrived- write, read, press delete, go to bed.
Such has been the routine for the past month.
So what is at the core these days? Just my own impatience. That's all. Its God working on me during our early morning jogs together. It sounds something like this, plodding along in the chilly, fall darkness.

"Less of me God, more of You. Less of me God, more of You. Teach me to love God, let them see You. Less of me God, more of You." Over and over and over. I've tried other words, and they don't seem right.
The rhythm of my feet, my breath, these thoughts, my heart, the fading stars, the growing dawn, it all seems to fit.

Then throughout my day... when I've tried to give the same set of 5 minute directions to a group of 30, 13 year olds 5 times in a row and they can't seem to close their mouths long enough to listen to one simple set of directions, when the multitude of their voices drowns out any hope of us getting through the carefully planned and prepared lesson, when the 15th person asks me 'what page?' and it's written on the board behind me. "Less of me God, more of You."

When yet another teeny girl looks at me with her naive brown eyes and snaps, "I'm not doin this. Its dumb" and she's the 4th one that day... "Less of me God, more of You."

When a gangsta-wanna-be who had been doing so well suddenly stops coming to school then returns and has as much interest in school work as I have in earthworms and I just want to cry for him... "Less of me God, more of You."

That's it. For a whole month, that's all I've had to say that wouldn't be pride, impatience, whining, groaning, or fake.
Prayers are always appreciated. :)

School's not cool

We have made a new friend, Paul, from Kenya. He eats with us frequently and shares many stories of his country and home. He has already become such a blessing to our family- enlarging our hearts and opening our eyes to a world beyond our own trivial worries.

Last night he was sharing about school in Kenya. Students have to pay for uniforms, books and school fees to attend school. It is a great privilege to attend school. Children cry if they have to stay home from school for any reason and walk many miles sometimes to get an education.

I shared that overall, the perspective of US school children is disappointingly different. Most don't want to go to school. Teenagers work hard to skip school and many drop out as soon as they are old enough in favor of going their own way.

He was not surprised, just shook his head and said wisely, as he often seems to do, "They do not understand that 'I am because we are, and we are because I am. (from Desmund Tutu I think he said)'" He went on to explain that in Kenya, children know and understand that their entire existence is dependant on the "we" and the fate of the "we" is dependant on the responsibility (or lack thereof) of the individual. So if I am successful in school, I can help my whole family and whole community. If I squander my chances, I may indirectly or directly cause the death of my family members, friends and community because I become a burden to them, a mouth to feed that can not contribute as effectively as one who pursues his opportunities- whatever they may be- farming, education, etc.

So, short of exposing our children to the travesites of poverty and death, how do our children learn a sense of "we." How do they come to the important realization that their actions, even as young adolescents, will have far reaching effects for their children, their husbands and wives and even their grandchildren? From teaching this age for a few years, I would assert that they have little to NO understanding of cause and effect that transcends their own lives. Psychologists say this is a normal phase of their development- that adolescents are trapped in a "me" world that is healthy and normal until they move onto the next phase of their development. But is that entirely true? It may help us understand them but should we let them languish there? What can we do to broaden their perspectives? And in so doing broaden our own as adults.

I am because we are, and we are because I am.

Being a Teacher

"This is the fundamental message of the teacher:
You can change your life. Wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, the teacher invites you to build on all that you are, and to begin again. There is always something more to do, more to learn and know, more to experience and accomplish. You must change your life, and if you will, you can change your world.

This sense of opportunity and renewal—for individuals, for whole communities and societies—is at the heart of all teaching; it constitutes the ineffable magic drawing us back to the classroom and into the school again and again. Education, no matter where or when it takes place, enables people to become more powerfully and self-consciously alive; it embraces as principle and overarching purpose the aspiration of people to become more fully human; it impels us toward further knowledge, enlightenment, and human community, toward liberation. Education, at its best, is an enterprise that helps human beings reach the full measure of their humanity."

-William Ayers

So how and when is education at its best? And is reaching the full measure of our humanity really the ultimate goal?

The Great Puzzler

Isaiah has proved himself and the most distinguished puzzler of the household lately. His patience and determination far surpass that of his brothers at his age (and even now) and today, as he was putting this puzzle together beside me, he was also a great teacher.

"Mommy, see how dis piece has a fwat side right heew? Dat means it goes on da siiiiide."

-Oh really?

"Yeah. And see dis one has Spiderman's foot on it... see mommy... right heeew?"

-Yup, I see it.

"Dat means we haf to wook for da west of Spiderman....hmmmm....oh! Heew i-dizzzz. I did it! I did it! Wook Mommy! I did it!"

We celebrate together; he dumps the puzzle and starts over.

Meanwhile, I have to take the marbles away from Elijah because he keeps putting whole handfuls in his mouth (they give him 'fire power' apparently), and Micah has pulled every book out of the living room bookshelf to use on his tent. Ahhh, it's a good day.