Tag Archives: teachers

May 21, 2019 · 12:14 pm

Prayerful thoughts on closing 2018-19 school year, summer

Certainly I have not kept it secret that I am a retired educator, and also there is no secret that I served in the pulpit for 10 years in a bi-vocational role.  Therefore surely there are no surprises that my thoughts for this week are closely connected to the ending of the school year.

The postings on Facebook are flooded with graduation notes, and I cannot help reflect, especially on the ones that are students of my former students graduating.  

I have been watching one whose sons are graduating one from college and entering into the world of professional football, and his brother graduating from high school moving into college football. Oddly their dad was a basketball player, not football; but the pride he shows and the quality of athletes he and his wife have raised is evident.  And I admit a sense of pride seeing the postings.

Another graduation I watched via postings was a former student from an entirely different program who walked across the stage getting her masters degree.  I feel so privileged to be part of her academic journey.

I could continue listing graduations for all levels:  from pre-school to kindergarten, from kindergarten to elementary, from elementary to middle school and middle school to high school and the list goes on.

Each graduation marks the end of one set of struggle,s but also notes the beginning of the next challenges.  The resilience of our young people can be amazing, but there are those who may never experience the emotional high of moving from one transition to another for any number of reasons.  

Consider all the children who live in settings where there is no Christian foundation.  The values outlined in the Bible are unknown to these young ones and there may be no sense of being valued as an individual.  They may not even experience positive child-parent relationships.

The children who escape from negative home environments rely on school for a sense of safety, for being valued as an individual, to receive unconditional love, not to mention the physical needs of clothing, food and shelter that are provided during through school systsems.

And then comes the end of the school year and the students begin acting out when for months they have been doing so well. Educators know; and dread what is ahead for these students.  They must find ways to let go of their students with prayers for their continued well-being.

Today, I encourage all Christians, all people of faith, to join in concentrated prayers for the young people who are closing another school year.  

  • Pray that they may be safe in their homes.
  • Pray that they will have food.
  • Pray that they have an adult who mentors them.
  • Pray that there are programs that can provide positive experiences.
  • Pray that they are safe.

The list could be continued, but prayers are also needed for educators.  They too, have reached the end of a school year and the demands on them have worn them out.  

Even though they are adults, they too may struggle with the shift to their routine.  They may be highly gifted with interpersonal skills in the classroom, but the demands of the students—academically and emotionally—drain them and they need prayers too.

  • Pray that educators find mental rest.
  • Pray that educators have time to enjoy their own families.
  • Pray that educators can find ways to expand their professional growth.
  • Pray that educators can prepare for the upcoming year with enthusiasm.

Finally, there are others, too, who are critical to the education of our students.  These are the supporting teams who work along side the educators making sure that the entire system works smoothly.  

The secretaries, the maintenance crews, the technology teams, the kitchen staffs, and even the groundkeepers have so much to do when the students and educators are not in the buildings.  These individuals are essential and need prayers, too.

  • Pray that they have the energy needed to work long days to repair, to improve, and to prepare for the coming school year.
  • Pray that they are trained to do all that they can for the success of the students.
  • Pray that they are valued for all the extra effort that provide for the well-being of the students.

Undoubtedly the calendar is guiding my thoughts today, but how easy it is to forget the needs of our students, the educators, and the support teams working diligently through the school year.  How easy it is to forget they need our prayers now as well as during the school year.

And I know, summer vacation brings summer schools, advanced degree work, and vacations.  Maybe those of us who are not educators tied to the school calendars, should remember John Wesley’s principle:  Do all that you can in any way that you can for all students and educators that you can when ever you can–prayers and even more if you can.

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February 16, 2018 · 3:47 pm

Enough is Enough: School shootings

I just sent off a letter to the editor at the KC Star.  Sometimes I just have enough.  Even though I already posted once this morning, I turned to the electronic of the KC Star and could not stop thinking about what has happened in Florida.  I can’t let this slide.  I can’t say enough about how change is needed.  Therefore, here is one of my entries I am calling Enough is Enough.  Please share if you agree.

 

Seeing Florida mom Lori Alhadeff’s outrage pains me and justifiably so.  The raw emotion should trigger the entire country’s sense of enough is enough. She rightfully screamed into the camera and asked that our country fix a problem that cannot be ignored another day, another week, another month.   

As a retired teacher, I hear the news and cringe.  I know the faces of the students, and I know them personally.  I may have taught in the Midwest, but that does not lessen the outrage I feel as the long litany of school shootings continues.
Young people carrying guns in backpacks is simply unacceptable.  Young people in school must focus on preparing for the adult world being educated how to learn, how to question, how to create, how to dream.  Schools must be filled with teachers and administrators focused on teaching the individual to the best of that student’s ability.
Our society is out of time.
Stop reacting and start shifting the paradigm now.
Education has become a numbers game:  educating all students as a mass, not as indviduals.
Education must value the students each as an individual at all cost.  And yes, it will cost; but we must not allow the cost to slam the door shut on the country’s future.
Enough is enough!

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February 16, 2018 · 1:49 pm

Reality through R-2’s class of ’72

Admittedly graduates of 1972 are facing a new reality–we are reaching traditional retirement age.  Last week my hometown class faced the reality with the death of our classmate Steve.  The event might not seem noteworthy, but only one other classmate Debby has died and that was due to a train wreck within the first year after graduation.

Flash ahead to the events of another tragic school shooting this week.  How do these become connected?  For my classmates education was valued.  We were taught that school came first.  We were pushed to focus on academics even before sports–I know, that may shock many today.

My parents tasted college, but never finished a degree plan.  We lived in rural American when family farms were the norm in the Midwest.  They instilled the value of education for my brother and myself so we did complete college, even achieving our masters later in our adult lives.  We were blessed to have our parents and live in a rural community.

Reviewing the circumstances of the 1972 Class from Montgomery County R-II, I cannot escape making observations that may be overlooked in our current school environments, especially after this week’s horrific Florida school shooting:

  1. Numbers.  The size of our schools continues to grow reaching the size of a city.  How in the world can students be individuals if they are forced to bump shoulders, often literally, in the halls and classrooms of a building?
  2. Testing.  Another concern is that success in school is based on numbers, not on student individual growth.  The individual is lost in the demand that testing prove achievement. Some testing is necessary, but just as a marker not a permanent diagnosis.
  3. Teachers.  Value teachers!  What other profession places educational demands at the cost of the individual without fair and equitable salary and benefits.  The profession cannot maintain the gifted teachers who are called–yes called–to step into the classroom alone with 20-30 kids who no longer value education and/or have no stable home environment to support them as they step into the classroom.
  4. Students.  Yes, there are those who do value education, are respectful, and have a supportive system, but sadly they are being outnumbered by the students on the opposite side of the spectrum who need schools to be a safe, supportive, nurturing environment that can teach them how to dream, set a path to reach that dream, and to work successfully towards that dream once they are fed, clothed, and housed safely.

The classes of ’72 is waning and the generations now entering into the profession of education may not have any of the critical skills or understanding of how to teach the masses who are now generations removed from the Greatest Generation and its values.

Do I have recommendations?  Certainly,

  1. Reduce the size of schools.  Create a learning environment that is safe, family-like, and supportive.  I realize the cost is beyond consideration, but why not be inventive and establish settings in some of the places that are unused during the school week.  Think about empty store fronts, empty Sunday school classrooms, office buildings.  Use the spaces effectively and reduce the physical size of the schools were kids are crammed into one place.
  2. Establish reasonable testing expectations.  Numbers are NOT the only way to measure student growth.  You cannot boil education down to one standardized set of scores.  No child should be left behind, but education is not about a set of numbers, it is about growth and nourishing our young people to be the best they can be.
  3. Value teachers.  Provide a reasonable financial package, including appropriate benefits for teachers that attracts them into the profession rather than turn them away.  Teachers are life long learners, but the salaries do not support continued education even while requiring more formal education.  Masters degrees are expected within five years of starting one’s career.  Sadly the income cannot sustain a teacher to live at a comfortable standard and pay for the coursework demanded of the profession.  There is very little incentive to invest in teaching as a lifelong profession, especially if wanting to raise a family, too.
  4. Students are important.  Every teacher must be taught the neurology of learning and the development markers that all students inevitably must face and manage.  Education is malleable, not concrete.  No one student follows a prescribed formula. Each student is different and all teachers must be taught to know that and even to recognize that reality.  Students must be valued.  Students must not be just a number.

Our society must accept the reality that we are far removed from the Greatest Generation.  The truth is the potential for each generation to be the greatest is always present.  The horror is that we are not acknowledging the potential in our individual students by the devaluing of the human factors in education.

Our culture places the dollar before education.  Education is how we make American great again.  When we prioritize the profession, the teachers, and especially the students then we will make American great again.  This week’s violence must not be forgotten.  Let’s use it as a cry for the change at the very foundation of our society–our education of the future.  This is the way to stop the violence in the schools–shift the value, even the paradigm, of education in our schools today.

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August 2, 2014 · 10:24 pm

Embrace the community of the future

given on Sunday, August 3, 2014, including the scripture and the excerpts to support the sermon

The Word Mark 9:36-37 & 10:13-16                NLT

9 36 Then he put a little child among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me but also my Father who sent me.”

10 13 One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. 14 When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. 15 I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” 16 Then he took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them.

Matthew 19:13-15                                            NLT

19 13 One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could lay his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. 14 But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.” 15 And he placed his hands on their heads and blessed them before he left.

 

Today’s sermon  “Embrace the Community of the Future”

From the Book of Discipline: ¶162.III The Social Community

C. Once considered the property of their parents, children are now acknowledged to be full human beings in their own right, but beings to whom adults and society in general have special obligations. Thus, we support the development of school systems and innovative methods of education designed to assist every child toward complete fulfillment as an individual person of worth. . . . Moreover children have the rights to food, shelter, clothing, health care, and emotional well-being as do adults, and these rights we affirm as theirs regardless of actions or inactions of their parents or guardians. In particular, children must be protected from economic, physical, emotional, and sexual exploitation and abuse.

“Embrace the Community of the Future”

Oh my goodness! August has arrived and school is just around the corner. Maybe this does not strike many as a major life event, but I continue to follow the school calendar even though I may be cataloged as one of the “over the hill” teachers.

Walking down the aisles at the stores, the itch hits to pick up a new pack of pen and pencils. To look at the new styles of spirals, composition notebooks—which have made a rebirth in the past few years—to check out the crayons and maybe even pick up a package to smell those new neon colors.

The new school year is the ideal time to review the church’s stand on the youth in our community. How easy it would be to ignore what is going around us even in our small rural communities. We see the news and hear all the deplorable things young people are doing, the gangs, the self-damage of the newest social media challenge—setting oneself on fire and posting the videos.

Listening to all the crazy things young people do or all the horrific things adults do to the kids in our communities can be overwhelming. It is easy to put distance between the community of the future and the community in which we have lived our lives. Why should it matter to us in our retirement or in our later years? It matters because the youth are the community of the future. The grandchildren we dote on are these youth.

Jesus had just three short years to teach his disciples how to live and to minister to the world. He knew the time was short, but the disciples did not. The disciples were concerned that the kids were disrupting the Master as he was training them. They could not see why the children should be allowed to interfere with another teaching session. But Jesus knew they were the community of the future:

Mark 9: 36 Then he put a little child among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me but also my Father who sent me.”

We cannot afford to ignore our responsibility as Christians to focus on the community of today’s youth because they are the future.

The problem that develops, especially in the small, traditional churches of all denominations, is what can we do for the youth? As we look at the situation, we cannot see a way to reach out to kids when even their parents are not involved in churches. Logically the problem shifts to reaching the working class, the middle aged, the parents of the children. But using logic is not the way God works. God works by unconditional love and a servant’s heart.

The problem is not new, the problem has existed even during Jesus’ lifetime:

Mark 10: 13 One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. 14 When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children.

Certainly we do not want to fall into the same rut that the disciples did. We know that the perfect scenario is when the Christian parents raise their children as the next generation of Christians, but that is not a guarantee. Remember in our personal histories we know of classmates or neighbors or family members who may have been raised by Christian families in church, but the real world distracted them and they left the church, forgot the Christian lifestyle they were taught.

In the UMC Book of Discipline, one paragraph targets this very problem:

. . . . Moreover children have the rights to food, shelter, clothing, health care, and emotional well-being as do adults, and these rights we affirm as theirs regardless of actions or inactions of their parents or guardians. [¶162.III.C]

Granted, we are a small community and we have roadblocks such as age, health, and/or finances, but that does not excuse us from embracing the community of the future. The question becomes what can we do regardless of all the roadblocks that we could easily use to ignore our social, Christian responsibility.

The answer may be so much closer than ever dreamed and the clue is in the same paragraph from the Book of Discipline:

Thus, we support the development of school systems and innovative methods of education designed to assist every child toward complete fulfillment as an individual person of worth. . . . In particular, children must be protected from economic, physical, emotional, and sexual exploitation and abuse.

Maybe the wheels in our brains are not turning yet (yup, that is a cliché), but it is time to brainstorm or to review what we do try to do.

As an educator, also, ideas for what can be done start bubbling up. Pretty soon the pot begins boiling and without supervision the ideas boil up and over the edge. Acknowledging that too many ideas too fast might not be a good idea, the ideas need to be shared, evaluated and carefully tried. At Reese, one of the most valued pieces of the week are the homemade goodies the Reese Grandmothers provide each and every week without failure.

These two ladies heard about the students being served at Reese and decided they needed some home baked goodies. They approached the principal and asked if they could do this and when would be the best time to have them at school. Over the past two years, the Reese Grandmothers have baked cookies, cupcakes, breads, and so many tasty tidbits and delivered them each Friday of the school year. The 30+ kids enjoy them and the staff makes sure that they acknowledge the efforts of these two ladies.

Such a sweet, small contribution to a group of at-risk students who may not have the supportive family or grandparents that many of us were blessed to have. These two ladies are past retirement age and are not confined with any health roadblocks plus have their own grandchildren they love. Yet, they love unconditionally these at-risk students without fail.

Ministry efforts do not have to be long-term. They do not have to cost a fortune. They do not have to be so big that everybody knows it is being done. Ministry efforts can be so small that some might overlook them. For instance, what if we step out our doors in the morning as the bus goes by and wave. What if we watch the kids from the porch, as they walk to school making sure they get a hearty “good morning” and that there is no bullying going on or no one tries to harm them?

Maybe it is identifying the school as a separate, yet complete, community. What efforts can be made to create the most welcoming, inviting, safe environment for the children?

Maybe focusing on the teachers is a key. They need unconditional love and support, too. Maybe providing treats to them so after school is out the can decompress with a cookie and a cup of coffee or tea. Possibly there is some teaching tool the local budget cannot manage and we can. If you have an hour or two or more you can give to the school, maybe there is a child who needs help with homework or needs to practice reading.

The list of ideas can just keep growing. The office ladies might need help once and a while to file papers, collate and staple papers. The maintenance crew could use some help, too. The list of chores is unending. A workday around the building could include pulling weeds, landscaping, or painting windows frames.

Jesus asks us to serve. The more we can do, the better we can demonstrate God’s love. The young people are watching. They know what is genuine and what is fake, so living our Christian faith publically is so important.

In the familiar verse from Matthew, another issue shows up:

19 13 One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could lay his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him.

Our words often reveal un-Christian behaviors. Children today may not have parents who have attended church regularly or maybe did not have parents who were connected to a church, but at birth children are granted grace. What we say out loud does not always model God’s grace. God wants us to demonstrate unconditional love for all people—children and their parents.

When young people, their parents and grandparents, and even friends, arrive at our door, welcome them. Love them. Serve them.

With school beginning and the community fair coming, there will be many opportunities for us to embrace the community of the future.

14 But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.” 15 And he placed his hands on their heads and blessed them before he left.

Do not be like the disciples who thought the children and their parents were a bother. Open your hearts, your arms as we open the doors each. Let us be the arms of God embracing his children.

Closing prayer:

Dear God, father and teacher,

Give us the wisdom to embrace the community

in any way that we can.

Give us the strength to serve the community

in all the ways that we can.

Give us the voice to share our faith

with all that we can.

Open the ears and the hearts

of all who walk within these doors.

Open the doors to all your children

despite from where they come.

Open the minds to the future

so ministry can reach those needing you

Thank you for the wisdom of your word.

Thank you for the example of your Son.

Thank you for the Holy Spirit within us.

May we rise to the challenge of loving one another

as we want to be loved.

May we accept the commission to make Christians

of those who will be the community of the future.

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