I didn’t know Rudy Acosta and just learned of his existence on Saturday. Since he died in Afghanistan on March 19th, and the school has been grieving, I have heard nothing but wonderful things about him. From all accounts, he was a young man who deeply loved Jesus, was witnessing to his fellow soldiers, and had big plans for his life. He was in the class of ’09 at the school where I teach. For such a young person, his circle of influence appears to extend to hundreds of people who are sincerely mourning his loss as a brother, son, classmate, and American hero. Everyone in Rudy’s life is making big plans to support his family and show honor to this young man, who died serving his country. This includes everything from elementary students drawing pictures for the family to the USA awarding the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. It is amazing to see the school, church, and military rallying around the Acosta family.
Another death. Maybe losing someone important to me two years ago makes me notice deaths more. Last year seemed especially full of the deaths of people who I am acquainted with or connected to. What a reminder to get right with God and remember your Creator while life lies before you. You don’t know how much life lies before you.
Between family, friends, and co-workers, I know the stories of 10 deaths or serious injuries within the last two months. Every couple days, there is a new story of pain from somebody choking on the sting of salt tears. There’s the mom with two girls, 6th and 7th grade who didn’t feel well, and was dead only a matter of days after being diagnosed with brain cancer. The 5th grader who lost a grandma. The motorcycle accident. The softball cracking a skull.
Death is unexpected and sudden, even though we wait our whole lives for it. It leaves people broken, families reeling with shock, widows poor, fathers with no one to take care of the kids…
Divorce reminds me of death, because it’s something ending unnaturally and horribly awry. Like death, divorce is a result of sin. Also, like death, divorce wreaks havoc that doesn’t resolve itself without divine intervention. It leaves many kids with open wounds that will chafe for years. I see those wounds in my students when tears slide over their cheeks and they try to hide it from the other kids in the class. I’ve got four kids going through this right now.
“For I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes fro what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” ~Romans 8:18-25
This is probably because I’m engrossed in teaching. Someday I hope to make it to Japan for a visit but I’m not the type to live by myself in a foreign country and I suspect the idea was an escapist dream at a time when I didn’t like my life very much.
Teaching takes most of me these days and the last five weeks feel like six months. It’s also crazy to think that it’s been a whole five weeks already.
It’s a gift to be able to talk about Jesus to my students. It’s not true education to leave out what is most important to these kids’ souls and I’m so thankful that my mouth if free to proclaim God’s goodness to them. I’m starting to feel more settled in at the school, in my classroom, and with co-workers. So many neat things have happened and so many challenges, too. My first days of teaching have been a crazy tilt-a-whirl experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything. Some days I’m sure I should probably just quit and stop messing around with kids’ heads. Other days, like today, I feel like I’m gonna make it. You know, His grace is enough every day.
…and I think I’ve blocked out the little milestones from the 7th week for the most part. Not that it was bad– it was a great week– it just went by really fast and nothing too out of the ordinary happened. The master teacher was gone at a conference Tuesday-Friday so it was me and two different subs throughout the week. One sub had her bunny eaten by a raccoon.
My mind feels like a sieve. I’m not writing things down enough and keep forgetting things. 🙂
I’m applying for a job at a school that wants me to list the titles and authors that I’ve read in the last 12 months. That is the coolest application question ever! The whole application is more fun than work to fill out. We’ll see what happens.
I took the RICA yesterday. It’s a test that is supposed to show that a credential candidate knows how to teach reading and language arts to children K-8th. I hope I passed. I think I passed. I have to wait a month to find out. Sidenote: during the two and a half hours that I took the test, someone in our room was always out with the restroom pass from the first moment until I left. I’ve never seen a group of adults so constantly in the restroom before. Nervous bladder, perhaps?
The chicken mummy is drying out. The salt doesn’t draw out much moisture from week to week anymore.
Halfway point. Four weeks down and four to go. It feels unreal that I’m already half-way through the first teaching assignment.
Midterm evaluation from the master teacher. I need to work on volume when I speak in front of the class. Apparently, my sweet voice can cause the students to tune out.
Starting a social studies unit on ancient Greece tomorrow and being observed by the college supervisor. It’ll be good to get that out of the way early in the week.
Job lead on a place that I would absolutely love to work- a long commute being the only drawback.
Encouraging time of accountability with some great friends.
First parent/teacher conference. It was interesting to see three interesting people discuss an interesting kid. Poor kid. I would be more descriptive but I don’t want to type anything that I wouldn’t want to show up on the front page of the New York Times. You never know.
First time introducing honored students in an assembly. I said, “We would like to honor R______ and C______.” and passed the microphone down the line.
First time wearing pumps to work. I got the lowest heel I could find. My feet hurt.
First time using a Glasslock for lunch. The glass rectangular dish has a leak-proof snap on lid. No leaks and you can take the lid off and zap the food in the microwave. Definitely a high point in my week.
First time teaching 6th grade math. O, math! The bane of my existence! I hoped we had said goodbye in high school. Math will probably haunt me the rest of my life. It hurts my head. I lack the proper cellular arrangements necessary to compute with ease and alacrity.
I received this as an email forward and think that everybody should be made aware of this proposed legislation. It took me less than 30 seconds to complete the call.
___________________________________________
Please call Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at 916-445-2841. There is a recorded message designed to poll Californians’ opinion about SB 572, which the governor is being pressured- more from all sides -to sign. It’s all going to come down to how much pressure California’s governor feels.
If signed, SB 572 would pressure every California public school to have anofficial Harvey Milk Day promoting the homosexual, bisexual, and transsexual agenda to children as young as kindergarten. The sky is the limit on what a school considers suitable commemorative exercises. SB 572 is written so broadly, and could allow gay-pride parades on campus, cross-dressing, and homosexual marriage dramas, etc.
The call will only take about 30 seconds to complete and can be completed any time – day or night… Press the buttons in the following order:
1 (English) 2 (legislation) 1 (SB572) 2(against)
Remember,last year the Democrat-controlled Legislature passed Harvey Milk Gay Day, but Schwarzenegger vetoed it. This year, Schwarzenegger is being lobbied more heavily by homosexual activists. Sean Penn, who played Harvey Milk on the big screen, and Milk’s homosexual activist nephew, have both personally lobbied Schwarzenegger to ask him to sign SB 572. The other difference from last year is that there are four more Democrats in the Assembly voting for Harvey Milk Gay Day. And for the first time, a Republican, Senator Abel Maldonado, is supporting this anti-traditional family value bill.
In Fall ’08 I entered a state school teaching credential program and completed one quarter. I struggled with many things during that period but a feeling of frustration that there was a missing piece somewhere became one of the main themes. All the classes were meant to teach us students to become certified teachers in public (government) schools. There were many professor-led discussions, critical of aspects of government schools, yet always with an underlying loyalty to the system in both the students’ and professors’ minds. Discussions asking questions such as “Why are schools failing? Why aren’t we turning out educated kids?” So many times the classes talked about “problems” with government schools– poor teaching methods, teachers, and curriculum. Antagonistic administrations, lack of money, stupid parents. The list goes on.
I couldn’t understand why we just didn’t fix the problems. I know, it can sound simplistic, but sometimes it is. I especially couldn’t understand the gripes about curriculum, or why so many schools use lousy textbooks when there are tons of great books out there. REAL books. Curriculum that works! I know, because I’ve used it. I learned from books like that. I know lots of other people who have, as well. I’ve read the catalogs that offer such materials. These things are not that hard to find. Why can’t these presumably smart teachers, administrators, and curriculum committees find these books?? And that is just one of the problems. There are solutions out there, but nobody was capable, apparently, of discovering and using curriculum that was glaringly superior and easily found.
During the weeks when I was most frustrated, I happened on a book by John Taylor Gatto called “Dumbing Us Down”. Finally, I got it. I understood why there are so many “problems” with government schools and why no one can find solutions. It was all summed up in one radical thought. A piece of information that sounds like heresy to most who hear it. All the politicians, teachers, and even plenty of parents who are all searching for solutions to all the “problems” will never solve them.
Government schools aren’t failing. They’re doing exactly what they were created to do! And they were not created to educate.
Although a small feeling of frustration remains, I no longer spend hours trying to figure out why people in education don’t just buckle down and do better. They believe in the system. They are loyal to it, and while they will spend their lives criticizing and trying to improve “problems”, they are incapable of questioning the entire system. Criticism is okay from those who trust the government schools and are attempting to improve “their own”. But criticism from those who question the system and say that the schools are not, in fact, failing, but triumphing gloriously, are only heretical lunatics. Ultimately, the only “problem” is that most people think that government schools were created to educate. Once you realize that that is not true, it makes more sense. There is still the whole issue of whether we want government schools to do what they’re doing, but the whole disconnect between a “place of education” being incapable of educating is resolved.
1. Are you a sophomore? I sure don’t want to be a sophomore. It could make for some interesting research to find out why there is a sophomore year in high school and college. Or maybe just knowing what “sophomore” means says something about those years in school?
2. This is pretty much the antithesis of popular pedagogy right now.
3. I don’t know what “abecedarian” means. I should look it up. Or, maybe you could look it up and let me know! Then we’ll both be smarter. Unless you knew already. Which could be an interesting story. How did you know what that word means?
Montaigne speaks of “an abecedarian ignorance that precedes knowledge, and a doctoral ignorance that comes after it.” The first is the ignorance of those who, not knowing their ABC’s, cannot have read at all. The second is the ignorance of those who have misread many books. They are, as Alexander Pope rightly calls them, bookful blockheads, ignorantly read. There have always been literate ignoramuses who have read too widely and not well. The Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all sophomores. To avoid this error– the error of assuming that to be widely read and to be well-read are the same thing– we must consider a certain distinction in types of learning. This distinction has a significant bearing on the whole business of reading and its relation to education generally.
In the history of education, men have often distinguished between learning by instruction and learning by discovery. Instruction occurs when one person teaches another through speech or writing. We can, however gain knowledge without being taught. If this were not the case, and every teacher had to be taught what he in turn teaches others, there would be no beginning in the acquisition of knowledge. Hence, there must be discovery– the process of learning something by research, by investigation, or by reflection, without being taught.
Discovery stands to instruction as learning without a teacher stands to learning through the help of one. In both cases, the activity of learning goes on in the one who learns. It would be a mistake to suppose that discovery is active learning and instruction passive. There is no inactive learning, just as there is no inactive reading.
This is so true, in fact, that a better way to make the distinction clear is to call instruction “aided discovery”. Without going into learning theory as psychologists conceive it, it is obvious that teaching is a very special art, sharing withonly two other arts– agriculture and medicine– an exceptionally important characteristic. A doctor may do many things for his patient, but in the final analysis it is the patient himself who must get well– grow in health.The farmer does many things for his plants or animals, but in the final analysis it is they that must grow in size and excellence. Similarly, although the teacher may help his student in many ways, it is the student himself who must do the learning. Knowledge must grow in his mind if learning is to take place.
