Ringing Like a Bell

I've written before about the quotes that motivate and sustain me each school year.  This year my focus has been on the fact that I belong to God twice over -- created and redeemed.  Interestingly, my students seem to have a unifying phrase this year too, very different from mine: That's it! I'm dropping out! Multiple students have said that to me this year half-jokingly, half-seriously. At first it was funny, and I laughed. Now when they say it, it makes me sad because I've realized that many of them do leave school instead of pushing forward to a future full of opportunities. What's more is that I think it exposes a certain mindset they have in general. If anything is difficult or challenging or painful, their first instinct is not to dig in deeper but to quit. Can you blame them? I can't. That's what I want to do too, all the time. My drive to work yesterday was a minute by minute struggle against turning around and going back home. For starters ...

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...

I know people who are bold, courageous, and inherently tough. I know people who are humble, focused, and intuitively seem to know just what needs to be done in every situation. I know people who don't have a habit of second guessing themselves. I know people who find living and breathing in their mortal bodies effortless. I am not one of those people . When I first started writing this blog last year, I felt like I was trying to expose what's really going on with me, deep inside, the way you might pop off the back of a watch to see all the little gears and springs inside. I've got a box full of old journals in a closet right beside the desk where I'm sitting. The chief difference between what you're reading now and those journals is audience. I'm letting you see what I have to say if you want to. I just read a book called An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith   by Barbara Brown Taylor. As I read the introduction, I found a kindred spirit, not someo...

Since school has been out, I've been catching up on all the little things I've put off during the year. One of those things, besides resting and going to the dentist, is listening to all the podcasts I've missed in the last few months. One of my favorites is the Freakonomics podcast. The subtitle is "The Hidden Side of Everything." So if you like thinking about off-beat things in a weird way, let me recommend it. The Stevens (Levitt and Dubner) do a lot of talking about unintended consequences, and last week I listened to one called " The Cobra Effect ." Here's a quote: MEHROTRA : So the “cobra effect” refers to a scheme in colonial India where the British governor, or whoever, the person in charge in Delhi, wanted to rid Delhi of cobras. Apparently in his opinion there were too many cobras in Delhi. So he had the bounty placed on cobras. And he expected this would solve the problem. But the population in Delhi, at least some of it, responded by f...

Let me tell you about a student who sits right beside my desk. I'll give you three chances to guess why he sits in that particular seat, and the first two don't count. This guy drives me crazy! He spends his time in my class constantly looking at the other students and thinking of things to say that will make them laugh. (Mostly quotes from Rush Hour 2.)  He's a classic class clown. Needless to say these behaviors often interfere with his learning; he'll be lucky to get credit for my class at all. You might be thinking that I dislike this student of mine, but I don't. At heart, he's a good kid -- he just exhausts me. In fact, there's a tender spot right in the middle of my heart for him. I've been teaching for a while now (next year will be number ten), and I've learned quite a bit about human nature in that time. I can tell you that the atmosphere in the room shifts in just this certain way when a punch is about to be thrown, and nothing brings...

If there's ever a Lifetime movie made about my life, I'm convinced it will amount to nothing more than a chubby actress bumbling through life enduring a series of clumsy, self-inflicted accidents. Scene one : she falls off her tricycle and skins her knees. Scene two : she loses her grip on the merry-go-round and is launched into a huge puddle of red mud. Scene three : an entire montage of bike wrecks. Scene four : she knocks down an entire row of tables at McDonald's. Scene five : an entire montage of horrendous athletic accidents -- tripping, bobbling the ball, getting smacked in the face... Scene six : she falls, head first, down the bleachers. Scene seven : she loses her balance and rolls down a hill on her college campus. Scene eight : she tumbles off her stool while her students are testing. Scene nine : she slips while trout fishing and nearly breaks her arm. Last night I added a new one to the list; I fell out of the church van while Christmas caroling. ...

A few guys I taught last year are crazy. I don't mean literally crazy. They're loud, and somehow they manage to find me wherever I am. One morning I walked up to another hall to visit one of my teacher friends. I sat down in one of her student desks for a quick chat before school when these students burst through the door panting. "There she is!" They yelled. They'd tracked me down. Last year they waged one of the best student council election campaigns I've ever seen. They didn't hand out Jolly Ranchers or make empty promises to the student body. Oh no! They just screamed. A lot. In between classes they constantly yelled, "Vote for him!!" Over. AND OVER. They followed that up with a series of posters with Conan the Barbarian [Arnold Schwarzenegger] giving a hearty endorsement. It was obnoxious, but what can I say? He won. There's this thing they love to do - The Trust Fall . It might be familiar to you from corporate team- building work...

I'm a Hallmark movie kind of girl, so of course I got emotional waiting for my brother at the airport. I stood there on the day before Thanksgiving with about fifty other people. In any other situation, it would have been awkward standing so close to complete strangers, just waiting around in public, but all of us were united in the camaraderie created by waiting for our loved ones. A flight landed just before my brother's, so people started to trickle out. I watched as people I didn't know jumped into each others' arms, and little children cheered, "Grandma!" As I stood there, a lump developed in my throat. I hadn't seen any of my family in months, so I was already excited. I also felt moved by the love I could sense in the reunions of strangers standing around me. I recently read a book called Edmund Persuader . If you're a Jane Austen fan, you should check it out. Here's a quote that came to mind while I was waiting in the airport: It ...

Of all the things I need to teach my students, one of the most difficult is clear pronoun-antecedent agreement. For those of you who don't speak 'grammarian', that's the connection between the thing you just talked about and the he, she, or it that replaces that thing later on. When my students write, they are forever rattling off a list of men like Bob, Charles, Tom, and Alex. Then they begin the next sentence with 'he.' I've lost count of the number of times I've written, "which guy?," in the margins of  student essays. A few days ago, one of my classes was discussing a writing assignment. The thread of conversation carried us around to the topic of homeless veterans, which might have seemed illogical, but you've got to remember that I'm teaching a herd of fifteen-year-olds. One girls said, "That's messed up. They shouldn't let that happen." Her friend chimed in, "Yeah, They need to do something about that....

Everyone I've talked to has said, "They're an investment." I haven't met a single person with a pair of Dansko shoes who doesn't love them. I'm sure there's somebody out there, but it isn't anyone I know. Other teachers, nurses, friends, even my school's principal have all said the same thing. All I did was mention that I was thinking about getting a better pair of teacher shoes. That little opening did it. I heard all about how I would buy a pair and never go back. Lately my feet and lower legs have been just a little bit tired and achy. My shoe philosophy since I started teaching has been to buy shoes that are decent but not too pricey. I also have to admit a weakness for shoes that match a particular dress or look lovely, so I've suffered for fashion sometimes. I started to google 'teacher shoes' and ask around. The result? Like I already said, everybody is crazy about Dansko. Not the best looking shoes in the world, but und...

I'd like to say it all started when I fell down the bleachers in the fifth grade, but that isn't exactly the truth. It started when I was born. My mom says that I was a cautious baby, testing things out before I tried to use them to help me stand up. I'm sure it's because I knew, even then, that I would easily fall. I fall down. A lot. As a four year old, I  insisted on wearing dresses and ended up with scabbed over knees every day . Right now my knees are scarred up looking from all that falling on sidewalks with no pant legs as protection. In elementary school, I fell off the merry go round into a huge puddle of red mud. My first grade teacher made me sit outside on the sidewalk until my mom came to get me. In middle school, I fell head first down the bleachers in the gym one day before school. If I've never told you about it, ask me sometime. In high school I tumbled down steps at school and fell up the front porch steps and through the bottom of the ...

We had some pretty nasty storms here today. The windows got really dark when one of my students was sitting with me after school making up some work she missed. Rain started pouring down and thunder clapped. The power blinked. Our eyes met and we shrugged. We were thinking, just a thunderstorm . She went back to her test, and I to the papers I was grading. A few minutes later, my friend walked in wearing a worried look. "I think we're under a tornado warning," she said. A few minutes later our assistant principal made an announcement advising us to find a safe place to stash ourselves. I decided to quickly call my husband to let him know I'd probably be late getting home. In the middle of the call the power flashed again, and my student looked at me with wide eyes. I knew what she was thinking, so I told her, "I'm going to stay with you until your ride gets here. I won't leave you; I would never do that." We went with some other teachers and stud...

My prayers this morning were unusually focused. Afterward I felt calm, truly ready to face this day. My mini-sausage biscuits were scrumptious; you know how much I love sausage. My cup of English breakfast tea was perfect. At the stop sign, I got to see the rising sun break over the hills in the distance. The light bounced off the mist woven through the trees. This afternoon, I felt satisfied with my lesson plans, got papers graded, and left school feeling accomplished. I've had a great hair day, and the weather is so flawless it's absolutely heartbreaking. At the library a few minutes ago, I found some excellent books to read. One is called, The Story of Libraries . I also found a book about a topic I've been thinking about lately. There it sat on the shelf, waiting just for me. Days like today are rare for me. Aren't good days rare for all of us? Today wasn't perfect. In fact, there are still lots of things that make me sad and concerns hovering at the edges...

I'd already admonished my students to arrange their make up work with me. As I sat at my desk looking at the spreadsheet for my ninth grade class, there were holes, lots of holes. Some of the grades were downright abysmal, and progress reports were going home tomorrow. I shook my head, deciding to call the parents of students missing important test grades. Maybe that would get some results. The first few tries didn't get anyone, so I had to leave a message. Finally, a mom picked up. I explained who I was and said, "I'm calling because the test your son missed last Thursday needs to be made up." I paused expecting the standard response, "Okay, when can he arrange to do it." That's not what she said, "My son didn't miss that test. He was at school on Thursday." I sighed. "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but I don't have a test grade here, so he must have missed it." She stood firm, "Nope. He was at school. You've ...

The first one I can remember is Ms. Anna. When we moved up to her Bible class, it was a big deal because we'd also be going to school that same year. Every week she brought us Starburst candies and used her felt-backed visual aids to teach us Bible stories. In case you didn't know, Jesus is always the one in white with a royal blue sash. She loved the pink Starbursts best, so we'd all pretend to fight over them but give them back in the end, so she could eat them. She loved us, and it showed. At public school that year I lucked out again. Ms. Brown. I remember her as extremely patient and kind, but she also paddled me (just a little) for talking during nap time. It didn't hurt; I was mostly sad that she was disappointed in me. She was there to teach me to tie my shoe when my mom was too busy with a new baby. Later on in college, when I was working in a local restaurant, she slipped a wad of bills into my hand. "I remember how hard it is. Use this to help pay for ...

For the last couple of days, I have written about what philosophers and theologians call "The Problem of Evil." In other words, "If God is good, why do bad things happen?"  I hope you're still with me, even if you disagree with the things I've said because there's a little more I want to share with you about the bad things that happen in this world. Part Three: Evil and the Fallen Creation If you've read what I've written in the last two days, you know that only God can declare things right or wrong and that sometimes we suffer from choices others make. But what about the rest? What about natural disasters and other things that aren't as easy to explain?     I'd like to talk about nature first; nature is powerful. In my short lifetime the earth has experienced earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, hurricanes, and tornadoes -- I'm sure I've left something out. The bottom line is that nature can kill. Nature can destroy....

Yesterday I started to explain my answer to the age old question, "If God is good, why do bad things happen?" Just to review -- making judgments about whether things are "good" or "bad" is a little bit more than we can do as limited human beings. Now you're probably still thinking, "And? What about the other stuff?" You're right. Things that seem bad to us can end up actually being for some greater good, but what about all the rest? If God still does designate things as "bad," what about those things? Why doesn't God just put a stop to them?  God doesn't stop some bad things from happening because of freewill. Part Two: Freewill    There I am in the kitchen washing the dishes after I've prepared a meal and taught all day. I'm tired. I want for my husband to swoop in and say, "Oh sweetheart, let me do those dishes. I want to do them for you because I love you so much." This never happens, by ...

All you have to do is check out your favorite news source. Bad things happen. Every day . Hurricane Issac brings flooding to people who were just beginning to recover from Hurricane Katrina. When I've seen these people, people living close to my own hometown, being interviewed on the news, my heart goes out to them. They are so tired and sad. Incidences of  innocent people being killed in public places are becoming more and more frequent. Many people are afraid to go to work, school, and especially church. A few years ago one of my students was sitting in my class concealing a machete in his hoodie pocket. I thought we were all just sitting there practicing writing skills. I was wrong. Thankfully no one was hurt, and I can honestly say I feel relatively safe at my school. However public school just hasn't been the same since Columbine. Friends are diagnosed with cancer, children die, and millions of people live in poverty around the globe. As a Christian I hear this...