The Product

I just read a good post over at the Guru's Handbook, called The Dirty Secret of Education. I would like to encourage you to read it, so I am going to give you a little taste:

In most professions the practitioners can point to a product or an effect of their work. A better tool, a running program, a written document, satisfied clients, smoother operations. Yet there is no object produced in teaching and the teacher’s job is not to make people or institutions happy, but to draw the student to learn, to change. What is the product? It is not the curriculum, which is only one of many ways of organizing subject matter. It is not the student’s mind, which arrives mostly assembled. It is not an abstract ideal of knowledge which if it exists only exists inside this mostly assembled student’s mind. The teacher’s work is to lead the student to learn – perhaps the material, perhaps how to learn – but only the student can do the actual learning. So what is the product?

Ok. That was a big taste, but I like that! "What is the product?" I believe that this thought is at the core of my frustration with the media... even the conservative media. Even though they want to praise teachers out of one side of their mouths, they also want to blame those same teachers when students don't perform to expectations. You see, many believe that the product of the teacher is an educated student. I just don't agree.

The Guru's Handbook went on to discuss what the product of the teacher IS, but it stimulated a few braincells in the direction of the fact that student achievement is the product of something. I work with the same amount of energy, desire, effort, and ingenuity with each of my students and in each of my classes, and yet I have the full spectrum of student achievement... sometimes in one classroom! My student's achievement is not the product of this teacher. Frankly, I wouldn't dare rob any of my students of the credit for their achievements. But even the collective student achievement (or lack of achievement) is not the result of the collective of teachers. I believe that it is the product of society... of culture.

Teachers are not to be let off the hook. There are certainly good teachers and bad teachers, but the problems in education in America are not primarily the teachers. If we (collectively) are part of the problem, then we are about 10% of the problem (if that!), and yet all I ever hear about is what the teachers could be doing better. Then I hear about crazy things like merit pay for teachers! Nuts!

The system needs to change, there is no argument there, but I just fear that the direction of change is still the wrong direction.

Anyway, read a better post here. (Only slightly the same topic.)

Getting Back

I am probably not as good as most teachers when it comes to "getting back into the teaching spirit." I do love to teach... just in-general... I love teaching things. I don't love some of the aspects of being a teacher: Paper work, motivating students, dealing with parents, dealing with discipline in the classroom, grading, more grading, confronting students on poor grades, etc. I don't hate these things, I just don't love them. In fact, I down-right dread some of them.

For example, I would love to be able to start the year by saying, "If you want to learn, or if you know that you need to learn this and have become resigned to doing it... then stay here. If you don't want to learn and are going to fight it every step of the way, I wish you weren't here. I would love it if you would change your mind, but if you won't, then I wish you would go." Of course, I can't do this, but I wish I could.

I admire those teachers that really get into it and passionately look for ways to motivate their students and find creative new ways to present the materials, but philosophically I don't believe that the biggest problems in education are the means or the methods, I believe that the biggest problems lie with the students. Not that the teacher or how the teacher teaches doesn't play a role, but there are students that will learn despite the teacher and there are students that will not learn in spite of the what that teacher does.

Does any of this make sense?

How does this play out? Well, I believe that one of the best things that you can do for a student is give clear instruction, have clear expectations, determine clear consequences, and clearly follow through. If they want to pass, whether it be for good reasons or bad, they will do what they need to do.

Does this work? I say yes! On one condition... Everything must be tempered with compassion. If you do these things with compassion, they fit and work in that everyday classroom situation. Then you don't get angry at the disruptive student, you simply say, "Well, you just earned yourself a detention... would you like another, or would you like to sit down and be quiet?"

This is a rash sort of post, but I just had a couple of things bouncing around in my head as I am trying to get back into the right frame of mind and I thought I would spew them out onto this blog.

Finally (and a personal note about store brands)

Before I started drinking diet soda, I was an avid drinker of (regular-full strength) Mountain Dew. That could get expensive though, so I started drinking the Sam's Choice Mountain Lighting.

When I finally switched to diet, I kept hoping that they would come out with a diet version of the Mountain Lightning. 10 yrs. later it is finally here. Now, maybe it has been around for longer than this, but this is the first time that I have seen it. And I am pretty sure that I check every time I go to Wal-Mart.

But, before I finish this post, I would like to share a little insight into the purchasing of "generic" beverages.

My first real encounter with the ins and outs of the world of generic came when I used to work at a cheese packaging plant in Crawfordsville, IN. It was there that I watched them take one huge block of cheese and as they began to slice it down and I watched it get packaged, I noticed that from the same block of cheese we would change the roll of plastic packaging material several different times. Once I got "promoted" to the end of the line to fill and stack the boxes of cheese, I learned the real truth. From one block of cheddar (or whatever the kind of cheese of the day was) we would package every brand of cheese that was put out of that plant. From the most expensive brand to the plain label brand, it all came from the same block of cheese. At the time that I worked there, there were over 20 brands of cheese that were packaged by that plant.

Another example... directly related to the Mountain Lightning. At one of the Distribution centers that I worked at, I talked to a truck driver that delivered soda. He told me that he used to deliver Sam's Choice. He said that the interesting thing about it is that sometimes it was bottled by Coca-Cola and sometimes it was bottled by Pepsi-Cola. Obviously the formula remains the same for whoever bottles it, but the company that put in the lowest bid was the one who bottled it for a certain amount of time.

The important thing to remember is that the quality remains the same. Sure, it might taste different , but that is the formula, it isn't because anything has and greater value. You truly are paying for the name.

One final example.

When I was working at the Target Distribution center, in Oconomowac, WI, I spent half of my time there as a receiver. In other words, I helped unload the trucks that were bringing products in from all over the world. We would then sort the different items out to their proper departments, to eventually make it onto a conveyor and into a truck that delivers it to a store. I would love to tell you about that process, but it would bore you to death.

Well, while I was there, I can remember unloading overseas shipping crates that were fresh in from China. One time that sticks out in my mind is when I unloaded a shipment from a sewing company. The whole crate was from the same sewing company. Are you ready for the interesting part? It was a whole shipment of jeans. Every brand of jeans that Target sells. They all came from the same sewing company!

I could give other examples, but I have digressed off of my excitement about the Diet Mountain Lightning.

What have I been blogging?

Lately I have been blogging through Genesis 1 on my Let Me Not Wander blog. Just before that I finished blogging through I Peter 2:1-12. If you haven't checked that blog out... Oh, c'mon! Check it out! I'll be honest, I am blogging about that blog right now because I am trying to acquire more readers! I can admit that.

I know I started that blog for myself, to help me to really dig deep in each and every verse that I read, but it is a little more fun and a lot more encouraging when you have readers participating. Maybe you don't like my commentaries on those verses, fine... come by and add your own commentary in the comment section. I am inviting that! I want to learn and understand these scriptures, and your input could be helpful. And maybe, just maybe, my input might be helpful to you.

http://letmenotwander.blogspot.com

impressionable

I was talking in class the other day and strayed into a mini-soapbox-rant about effort and grades.  (I couldn't be a teacher if I didn't do that every so often.)  I was saying something about how those students who are doing well were really working for it, as opposed to those students who were not doing well...  There is actually quite a bit more to this speech, so please don't take me out of context...

When I reached my first lull in my rant, one of my students, with a smile on his face, says, "...maybe we could take some extra points off the top of those high grade students and give them to those students who don't have as many points.  In my neighborhood, that's called fair."

He's a sophomore.

moral vote

It bothers annoys alarms me that I would even have to go down this path... that I would even have to try to explain that it is wrong to kill babies. I find it frightening.

Almost a month ago I was talking to my sons on the way home from school about life, the universe, and everything. (And I have to tell you, we have some great conversations on the way home. There just isn't anything like rolling down an old highway in a big old Chevy pickup truck with your boys. ) Anyway, Number One was asking me about which candidates I would vote for and why. He had heard some of the names the previous day and was wondering about this. So he asked me if I was going to vote for Barack Obama.

I thought about it for a moment. I really did. He doesn't know all that much about Republicans and Democrats, so I wanted to give him some solid understandable answer, so I replied, "Well. Mr. Obama believes that if a woman doesn't want her baby that she can just kill it..."

That was as far as I got.

Number Two snapped out of his daydream world with a look of horror. Number One's face took on this strange, angered look. They both sat there for a moment with that shocked look that many of us get when we get smacked with reality. Honestly, they couldn't believe it. They could not believe that there could ever be a person that would consider doing such a thing. It was a harsh reality to the evils of the world, and I HATED telling them about it.

I have warned them on many occasions that there are evil men in this world that would do evil things to children, but they never guessed that it could go that far.

I told them that the sad thing was that there are so many mothers out there that get lied to and believe that this is something that is Ok. They get convinced that they are not ready for a baby and their doctor tells them that this is OK. I could see the sadness in Number One's eyes as the world he thought existed slipped out of his fingers and out of his imaginations. He sat with the sickening realization that the world that he lived in included doctors who kill babies, mothers who ask them to, and presidents who make it possible.

We sat for a moment in silence, as my big ole truck bumped down the road when Number Two's face lit up with an idea. He says to me, "If they don't want the babies, we could just take them!"

"Of course we could." I told him.

Number One then adds, "But we still need to stop them. We still need to tell those mothers that it is wrong."

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This is why I title these posts, The Moral Vote. I still believe in Life and Liberty and maybe even the pursuit of happiness. I still believe that I need to speak up for these things. I still believe that my one little vote says something, and I want it to say that all men and women have the right to live! People will always do evil, but that doesn't mean that we stop speaking what is right.

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There has yet to be the nation that has crumbled because of its poor economy. There is yet to be the country that has fallen from its height because it didn't provide mandatory health care. I know there has not been an empire that came to its knees because of too many people wanting to live and work there.

And you can have whatever opinion you want on those issues! BUT...

There has been many a nation that has crumbled from the inside out because of its immorality, and more importantly because of its lack of compassion for the smallest and the least.

If a candidate does not hold to the rights of life for every individual, then don't kid yourself... It will affect every other policy that they support.

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One final thought.

We lost Number Three. My wife can still tell you what age she would be today (Read more about her here). We know her name. We miss her, though we never knew her.

For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.

Psalm 139:14-16(ESV)

God knew her and had record of her in His book.

I find it offensive that I would have to defend her reality to anyone.

If you love life, say it with your vote. And stop being so selfish and defensive of your possessions, because every other issue boils down to exactly that.

show me your faith (2)

I have heard many people recently, with their warm fuzzy feelings, use phrases like, you know its "...the time to show our faith in Jesus as Lord." They say it so casually and flippantly. It rolls off their tongues or clicks off their fingers as they type it on their blogs or their e-mails. The question I have is this... Do you even know what you are talking about?

James, the brother of Jesus, started his walk on the earth with no faith in Christ. He may have thought that he had faith in God, but as Christ walked this earth, it was put to the test. He didn't believe in God's living word.

After Christ was crucified, buried and resurrected, James became a believer. He became a prominent leader in the church, and wrote the book of James. You will be hard-pressed to find another book that pictures faith the way James does. He says things like this, "What good does it do to say that you have faith if you don't have any deeds? Can that kind of faith even save you?" It is of course a rhetorical question. The obvious answer is NO.

Real faith is an action producing thing. You can't have real faith without deeds.

Consider the words of James a few verses later. "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that --- and shudder!"

I would like to point out that the word "believe" is that same word that is found in John 3:16. It is the greek word pisteuos. It means, adherence to or commitment to.

He goes on to say, "You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?"

I used to get confused about this verse. It seemed almost contradictory to the passages in Romans that talk about how Abraham was considered righteous by his faith, yet here it is talking about how he was considered righteous by his deeds. To understand this, you need to understand that the deeds were deeds of faith. Abraham was doing what God said. That's faith.

We have the same option. God still tells us stuff. We can go to the scriptures and find His words for every area of life.

• You have kids? Are you bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?
• You have enemies? Are you loving them? Do you know what love means?
• You have an unrepentant spouse? Are you still following in love? Are you doing what it says in I Cor. 13? Are you bearing all things? Are you believing all things? Are you hoping all things? Are you enduring all things?
• Are you in a trial? (Who could say "no?") Are you showing joy? Are you exhibiting patience? Or are you just fed up and you are aiming for what you want?
• You overloaded at work? Are you trusting God that He will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able to handle?

Just like Abraham, God gives us great opportunities to show that real faith.

There are some who, instead of showing genuine faith by doing the deeds of God, will set their sights on what they want and aggressively pursue it. The sad (and appalling) thing is when a person has set their heart on their own selfish desires and in their pursuit will justify their efforts as faith.

"I am doing _____________..." or "I am going for _____________... and I have faith that God will give me what I want."

I hope you can say as James says, "Show me your faith without deeds (of God) and I will show you my faith by what I do."

(All of the James quotes come from James 2:14-26)

Show me your Faith

Have you ever heard anyone talk about showing faith like it is some sort of fuzzy feeling they get. Some hard circumstances come along, and they want to move on, but they don't want to completely expose their lack of concern for God's ways, so they begin talking about having faith in "all of this." They speak of it like it is the thing that helps them to keep a stiff upper lip.

James says that faith is shown in good deeds. Faith is demonstrated in action. You can say that you have faith all you want, but if you don't have any works, HA! That isn't real faith at all. It is some sort of distorted dead faith. Faith is not keeping a smile on your face and hoping for the best. It is actually Loving your enemies. (That is following the true definition of Love. Not just some sort of feeling, but acting for their good.) It is being patient towards people. It is showing kindness towards all. True faith produces aggressive good works.

Sometimes people talk about their faith as their ability to see that something good will happen. The misquote the Bible and talk about how God works things for good. What they really mean is that they are hoping that God will get His act together and give them something that they think is good. God is going to work it all out. God will give them the husband they want or the kids they want or the car they want or the life they want.

The "good" that God is working out in your life is to make you more like Christ. So, to "show our faith" is not some inward feeling but an outward expression. It is patience for God's work. It is meekness and kindness. It is suffering for the sake of Christ. It is those who are pure in heart.

Forget the old ways that you were doing things. The ways of selfishness and show that you actually do have faith by participating in God's Kingdom.

Sorry for the rant. It was poorly put together, but it has been on my mind all day.