Ringing Like a Bell

It's that time again. Early Monday morning 900 students will fill the halls of our high school. The last few days of this week began with lazy procrastination and culminated yesterday afternoon in a fevered rush to make everything perfect for the first day of school. Earlier yesterday morning we had our annual district-wide convocation. For the last few years it has been held digitally, so our staff gathers in the library to watch our superintendent give his remarks about the year ahead. Usually it consists of a lengthy list of accomplishments given school-by-school which is followed by what amounts to a professional pep rally. If you work in public schools, you'll know that it takes a lot of encouragement to make it through a school year; the task ahead is daunting. Sometimes we even watch an inspirational video. I think I shared last year's with you,  Dalton Sherman asking, "Do you believe in me?"   I was moved to tears last year and walk...

Today began with such promise. I woke up early to an unseasonably cool breeze and sunshine filtering through the trees. Today is the last day of my summer vacation. It seems as if it was to be the last perfect pearl plucked from the strand. I took Bailey for our morning walk, prayed, and read my Bible. I already decided yesterday that I would give our house one more good cleaning before my time and energy got sucked away by the greedy demands of teaching public school. The turning point came while I was wiping down the kitchen counter. I saw the slobber stains all over the glass of our back door. That's where Bailey spends most of her time outdoors, waiting impatiently for someone to let her back inside. She uses the doorknob as a signal by hitting it with her nose; the more frequent her hits, the more frantic she is. That's how her saliva gets all over the glass and the knob. That's when my glorious morning morphed into a bad episode of I Love Lucy . It's easy to...

"I hated it when my teachers did that! It was so unfair," I hear that statement or similar ones pretty frequently in social situations. Sometimes it's awkward. Someone will say, "I hated it when my teachers punished the whole class for what one person did." How am I supposed to respond to that? I'm guilty of the thing this other person just declared that he hates. What's worse is that I used to be just like him and think the same thing -- until I became a teacher. Now I know. Things aren't always what they seem to be. People are particularly nasty when it comes to talking about tests or as we call them now "assessments." Nobody likes being tested; it's a lot of pressure. You are judged, graded, and evaluated. Most of the time the results are less than favorable. I have heard, more than once, teachers say things to students along these lines, "I wish we didn't have to have tests, that we could just learn, but that's n...