Archives for September 2009

Tonight Journey kicked off another character study series. This time on Elijah.

I think I’m gonna have to add this to the mix in high school and do an annual character study. I really think they are great and they inspire me to want to not waste my life on crap that doesn’t matter- which is really really easy to do in my estimation/observation/experience.

Tonight I was reminded of how we all have choices and if you want to make a seriously influential dent in the history of the world, then you don’t have to be great… you just have to be tight with a GREAT GOD. What a reassuring truth that is for a schmuck like me.

I loved this 1/2 a verse about Elijah and his obedience to God.

• “So he did what the LORD had told him.” (1 Kings 17:5a)

Simple enough. Yeah…. now go do it. Elijah changed the world because he did.

As I thought about this truth in service, several other characters came to mind. Ed mentioned three of them in service. Here’s the first ones I thought of that validated the point even further:

• ABRAHAM: “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6)
• ENOCH: Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away. (Genesis 5:24)
• NOAH: “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.” (Genesis 6:9)
• MOSES: “The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” (Exodus 33:11a) “Moses did just as the LORD commanded him.” (Numbers 17:1)
• DAVID: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (Psalms 42:1-2)
• JOB: “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” (Job 1:8)
• SIMEON: “Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.” (Luke 2:25)

Ok… so after doing some research tonight and seeing NUMEROUS comments from people on blogs, facebook, and what not about how the problem is not so much with the speech as it is with the infamous lesson plans sent to teachers…. I went in search of said evil material.

After lots of searching, I finally found it on the almighty public web.

Here is the pdf for the K-6 grade.

Here is the pdf for the 7-12th grade.

After my review, again I am left with questions.

1. What is the problem? Really, what is the big beef about this lesson plan?
2. Who could possibly ever do ALL of the ideas in this in one class? Clearly you are supposed to pick some, not do all. So I’m not thinking that qualifies as “telling teachers what to do” or justifies fears about not showing the speech. No where is this an all or nothing plan in my opinion- plus it is littered with subjective phrases like “could” or “might”.
3. If you’re a teacher or administrator and you don’t like this “suggested plan”, why not write your own or tweak this one they gave as a starter? What teacher in the United States cannot look at this suggested list of ideas and tweak it to create one that is appropriate for their age bracket and classroom subject? I mean really. If you do not have the capacity to take a lesson plan and twist it to make it your own that you can teach with confidence, do I really want you teaching anything to my kids at all? Maybe the problem really isn’t our kids.

I said this 3 days ago.

Now, go ahead and click this and read. It is the president’s published and “controversial” speech he is giving tomorrow to children from kindergarten to 12th grade.

If you are one of the ones complaining about this speech, here’s 3 things I think you should do:

1. read it.
2. tell me what you think is so dangerous for our kids to hear.
3. if you can’t find anything, and you were vocal about your criticism, go ahead and write him an apology.

I personally would LOVE to see our presidents make this an annual tradition. Sure, go ahead and have a state of the union address. But how about giving a speech like this on the day after labor day for forever. Challenge and inspire students. I say every school in the country should start with an assembly, show the speech, and the president should offer an encouragement to students to stay in school, study hard, overcome obstacles, and make a positive contribution to our society. Then have students return to class and share what they were inspired by and what they disagreed with in a classroom setting.

I’m looking forward to watching this with my kids. I’m definitely gonna DVR it.

Everything in my life needs to be maintained. Everything!

On the one side, I can’t wait to get to heaven where I’m praying the earth waters itself like the good ol’ days of Eden. On the other side- this side of eternity- I can’t seem to ever just let stuff go untouched.

Failure to address things regularly leads to mountains of catch up work, stress, and way more effort than had I just simply dealt with it in the first place.

Here’s my observations:

• yard work takes an hour if I do it weekly or a whole day a month if I let it go.
• my body stays fit if I regularly exercise and eat well. If I let it go, it will take months to fix.
• my soul requires daily rest and feeding. If I let it go or ignore it’s cry for attention, I end up depressed, discouraged, overwhelmed, and exhausted.
• my marriage requires daily attention. If I ignore it for a day or two, it takes 14 hours of conversations, a grip of apologies, and probably some counseling classes to fix. If I ignore it for longer than that… we become roommates and shuffle kids around. If it goes past that… well, yeah- It’s not pretty.
• my kids require daily love and attention. Ignore them for any period of time and I become out of touch, lose my influence, and an observer instead of a participant in life with them.
• my school work requires regular studying and process. when I pace myself, I’m good. when I let it pile up, I have to hibernate for 3 days to fix it.
• our youth group data base takes a few hours a week to maintain. ignore it for a few months and it’ll take countless hours and all summer to undo.
• my cars require regular oil changes, tune ups, etc. When I let them go, I pay hundreds of dollars to repair what could have cost way less had I simply paid attention to wear and tear.
• bills have to be given weekly attention. If they are not regularly paid they result in bad credit, fees, and a massive headache.
• a to do list regularly visited gets done. Ignore it, and in compounds with interest in intensity and investment by the hour it seems.
• my dog even requires attention. lots of attention. I’m not exactly sure what happens when I ignore him. Mostly he just barks at me more and tries to bite me so I’ll chase him around the house.

Here’s my conclusions:

• a life that is daily maintained is easy to maintain.
• a life that is consistently ignored is consistently impossible to enjoy.
• before adding anything to my life, no matter how shiny it is at first, I need to ask myself, “do I have the time and energy to maintain it?”
• the tortoise beats the hare every time.

To which they offer these two paragraphs:

As with any significant current events topic, some teachers may choose to include the President’s speech as a part of a supplemental learning activity focused upon the importance of education, goal-setting, and college attendance. We will not be encouraging teachers to do so, nor requiring they use any of the suggested learning options from the Department of Education.

Some families may not wish to have their child watch the President’s speech at school. If a teacher plans to include the speech as part of a lesson, parents will be informed by the end of school this Friday to allow parents an opportunity to opt out by notifying the teacher prior to the broadcast on Tuesday morning. Students who have opted out will be assigned supervised alternate learning activities out of the classroom during the 20-minute speech and any immediate follow-up discussion

Ok. So… this bugs me on several levels of which I will simply state in the form of 3 questions:

1. Who thinks it is a good parenting decision to shelter their kids in a public education environment from a public address of the president’s opinion on education?
2. Even if I disagree with everything the president says, isn’t this the perfect opportunity for me to talk to my children about what they are learning in school anyway? I mean how many times to actually get to hear the full subject matter of a teacher’s lesson in the first place?
3. When are we going to embrace the value of teaching our children how to interact with the world around it instead of hiding from it and especially with and from the opinions of those who are in leadership over them? Especially those of the President! No wonder we can’t get young people to go to the poles and vote.

I believe it is our responsibility as educators and parents to teach our children not what to think, but how to think. The capacity to truly interact with the opinions of others is the difference between a mere follower of the crowd and an intelligent thinker, learner, and leader in our society.

I guess I’d understand the concern if this was a speech about sexuality, the mexican border, abortion, a war, our response to a 911 type event, or some other controversial issue that may not be age appropriate for my 6 to 12 year old kids… but this my friends is ridiculous. I think it’s parenting and politics gone stupid.