Ringing Like a Bell

In full disclosure, I have drafted this post multiple times. That should help explain why it's been so long since I've posted anything. Every time I post to this blog, I've tried to be really honest about the lessons I'm learning and the issues that exist in my life -- to be authentic. Lately that thing has been forgiveness. I've been hurt. Friends of mine have been hurt. There's been a huge, gaping need for forgiveness in my life. I watched a movie recently that had a great scene in it that I think demonstrates what it means to forgive. It is called In My Country and is a fictional story that includes historical elements from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa. A small boy sits, stone-faced in a plastic chair while two adult men recount the way they killed his parents in front of him. One of the perpetrators stands up, then kneels in front of the boy. He's a grown man sobbing, begging to be allowed to do something...

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 ...

Pat McCrory Office of the Governor 20301 Mail Service Center Raleigh, NC 27699-0301   November 16, 2013   Governor McCrory: Let me introduce myself. I am Brandy Carter, and I teach tenth grade English at Bunn High School in Franklin County. I'm sure you receive many letters each day and lately plenty of those letters have surely been from educators like me.   I'm not anyone special. I show up early for school each day, try to build good relationships with my students, and summon my best efforts to teach them the things they need to know. I figure that makes me the equivalent of an Average Joe, which is why I decided to write to you. A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with one of my colleagues that inspired me. He was a firefighter before he became a teacher, and he was explaining to me how firefighting teams work. When there's a large fire, the chief stays in one central location handling all the communications. His job is to manage th...

I ate a Gigi's cupcake today. It was a lemon-lime one. When our (former) students bring us the leftovers from their parents' shop, I always want to try a new one. I was tempted by the one just to the right, which was clearly cookies and cream. I'm brining up the cupcake because my dessert fast has ended. I actually ended just over a month ago. On the first day I shocked myself. I didn't even eat anything sweet; I didn't want to. That's how much my attitude toward dessert changed in a year. When I finally did indulge, I ate a Reese's cup, and it tasted AMAZING! It felt like I was tasting the confectionary equivalent of the Mona Lisa. I also got a colossal sugar rush that lasted for at least thirty minutes. Since then I've had a few sweet things like the cupcake I ate today, and I still really like sweet things. The difference now is that I've realized I don't need them in order to survive my life. Part of the reason I didn't write abo...

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...