Reflections:What Once Was and What Is

From time to time, our walk with God takes us to place where we must reflect on the past, the present, and what His will is for us in the future. In just about 15 days, I will have been living in Texas for exactly 1 year. While this last year has been a growing experience with me and my walk with God, the months leading up to that year were not so great. That’s what happens though when you are alright with God. Just alright. Every time you think you are alright with God, He allows a circumstance to befall  you that reminds you that there is so much more you have to learn.

In many cases, being forced to learn new things causes us to put up a fight. Students from Elementary to High School fight against parents and teachers when being told that they MUST learn in order to receive an award whether a grade or some special treat. Yet even with that prize, it is still not enough to make the situation peaceful or less stressful for parties on both sides. Similarly, God had something new in store for me in the form of opportunities here in Texas. I however decided I was already alright and didn’t need God telling me what I should and should not be doing. Yes, these are all things I have talked about before and it just sounds like I’m repeating the same old testimony. In reality though, it was a situation that nearly had me walking away from church for good.

For those newer to this blog, there are only remnants of it’s origins left. Many a blog was deleted and edited to reflect a massive change of heart and spiritual direction. Though, through some of the older blogs, you can kind of piece together some of what happened. For those that know, there was a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, and a lot of other things. I once wrote in a now non-existent post “I do not hate the people of my former employment…”. This was a statement to help me rationalize that I was doing the right thing. Let me tell you, the minute you ignore Proverbs 3:5-6 and start to try to use your own reasoning for things, you are destined for trouble. My personal experience taught me that we have no choice but to rely on God’s understanding and wisdom. When we lean on our “own understanding”, we look foolish and exposed for the real person that we are–a sinner who needs God.

But God is patient (which should be an example to us). Even though I was ready to give up on church and doing the “Christian” thing, God was not ready to give up on me. I think God was frustrated when he saw that I had taken matters into my own hands. By doing so, I was not willing to listen to Him. I was so hot, loud, and angry that the sound of His still small voice was completely drowned out by my mindless and thoughtless commotion.

Now, over the course of a year, God has turned my entire spiritual world upside down (thanks of course with the help of some of the greatest people I’ve ever met). I stumbled upon a new church that was so alive, I could hardly believe it. I’m not saying that my old church was spiritually dead, I think, like we all get at times, they were just stagnant. I know I was stagnate. And I wasn’t getting any fresher by sticking to the same old routine. I was to comfortable.

It went further than just waking me up. I stepped into a spiritual realm that, before coming out here, I thought was old-fashioned Bible stuff. Never again! God shook me up and opened up a new world I couldn’t help but want more of. With the help of those great Christian people (and an awesome church), I came to realize that there was so much more that God wanted to bestow upon me. I thought I had all that I deserved or could get. So not so.

Here I am nearly 2 weeks after our Revival and still just as in awe as I was during the Revival. I’ve been to those “mountain top experience” sort of things before but I’d never been to something like this. This was a God-encounter! And now that I have actually encountered God, there is so much more I want to learn.

I have been blessed to work with the people I’ve worked with in Anza. I have been blessed to be a part of the lives of those from Anza. But I never expected for God to bless me as much as He has here in Cove. I guess what I’m trying to say is thanks to God and thanks to all of those who have allowed me to be a part of your lives. It has been a privilege to work with the kids/students I have worked with. I hope am a blessing to those of you who read this and those whom I see in person on a regular basis.

In Christ,

Mr. Josh

The Homework Problem

I know that practically every kid dreads homework. Maybe not every assignment but at some point, every child comes to a point when they want to be doing something else. In fact, I’m pretty sure that any kid would want to be doing something. Lately however, I have heard parents complaining about homework–and rightly so.

For those of you who have been with this blog for awhile, it may seem that I contradict myself in this post. Understand, I do not. I have never been fond of homework (either as a student or as a teacher) and believe that there is a place for worksheets and “dittos” but not to the extent that they are used today. This has always been my belief and I have not wavered from that. Recent comments regarding the homework load of some after school students I am priveleged to know brought this debate back to the surface.

First things first–if I could get away with sending absolutely NO homework home, that’s how it would be. I know though that parents expect some kind of “homework” though and my curriculum demands (some) homework (though I have devised a way of still completing EVERYTHING and minimizing the homework load). I find almost funny to me that people think that the more homework a child has, the better education they are getting. This is simply not so. In fact, careful observation of the homework coming from the schools around here suggest that it is only used for the purposes of preparing kids for the standardized tests. I know this because I assist many of these kids with homework on a regular basis in our afterschool program. They even come in with this pointless garbage ON A FRIDAY! Seriously!? Can’t kids be kids at least on the weekend? Besides that, many of the kids I see on weekday afternoons have soccer, football, and other activities to go to, just to name a few. These are all programs they SHOULD be in afterschool. Yet I’ve discovered that time after time kids aren’t getting the rest they need because they have homework assignment after homework assignment to finish after all their events.

And what response does the education system have? Education is important. Well yes, but these activities are equally as important and need to be taken into consideration when planning an education system. Even the first graders here are overloaded with page after page after page of worksheets and the regurgitation of the days lesson (most of which I have learned they tuned out after sometime). The common response is “The teacher didn’t teach us this.” Now this opens a few possibilities. Either this child was not listening in class or, the teacher really did send home a new concept before teaching it. The latter is quite unlikely as most homework assignments usually have a completed class assignment on the back side with the same concept.

Then again, perhaps the child was listening but was just unable to retain everything spewed out for that day. I repeat that I believe that there is a place and time for worksheets and writing assignments. There is a place for teacher instruction. But there is also too much of BOTH! And yet, nearly every curriculum calls for hours of instruction and the droning on of the teachers and piles of piles of worksheets to be completed. Do people really believe that this is good education?

My previous post has a picture of something I observed my first graders doing. They built a hopscotch game out of puzzle mats. No prompting. No instruction. Nobody telling them where to put the squares or how many there should be. The did it on their own and it came out great. Recently in my classroom, I acquired two sets of those marble run play sets. It was intriguing to watch them work as a team and develop a course that would take their marble through all the various twists and turns before depositing it in a collection piece at the bottom. One piece in particular allowed the Marble to jump from one tower to the next. The whole concept of measuring trajectory and figuring out how far away the two parts had to be was solely up to them. Nobody showed them how to set it up and they had disregarded the instructions within the 1st 5 minutes. This was something the conquered on their own*.

Now you may ask “what the education in that?” Well, one aspect of our current closed minded, scripted curriculum is to teach critical thinking. Our current system has already told them what to think (because there is only one right answer to the question). In the case of the Marble Run, there was not one right answer. They had to use problem-solving skills to make a marble jump and make it to the other part of the run.

Not to mention making in balance correctly so it wouldn’t fall over on the very unsteady carpeted floor. Sure, it would be easier if they built it on a table, but who’s allowed to climb on tables? This led them to devise a plan that would also support their structure if they expected to be effective at all. What can be learned from all of this? Well, let’s break it down.

First, geometry. While it’s not the typical triangle, square, circle curriculum, it definitely has geometry in it. They had to figure out how to put the pieces together so that the marble(s) hit every run. Place the wrong piece in the wrong place or direction, and the marbles would drop to the ground.

Secondly, math (and more specifically algebra). Granted, first graders aren’t solving equations in my class, but they still needed to know how many pieces it would take to get from point A to point B without having all the information. While they may not know it now, they were preparing THEMSELVES for algebra problems in the future. This would also develop their counting skills, addition, and subtraction as they needed to know how many pieces there were, how many it would take to build it, and how many pieces would be left when they were finished. To further the problem solving development, they also tried to figure out how to incorporate the leftover pieces in their completed structure all this working as a team (team building skills, social interaction, positive peer  pressure, etc). And this was only about an hour of the day! How many other hours of the day are THAT productive.

For those of you squirming uncomfortably and about ready to shout “THAT’S NOT EDUCATION” give me another minute. All of the above happened AFTER are regular day of events (which actually could have been less than it was if I had known it was going to be that productive). This has led me to develop actually class time set aside for projects such as this while also making sure our core curriculum is finished.

No, it is not Caine learning. No, it is not unschooling. It is not traditional. It is simply a blend of the best ideas from everywhere! Perhaps there is no utopian form of education but I for one do want to find new and innovative ways to teach. Not just to teach, but to engage students in learning and develop their desire to want to learn more. After all, why should we just keep doing things the same way just because that’s how its been done for so long?

*I would like to note that while I did participate in some of the marble run activity, I was referring to a specific day and a specific set of events that I was NOT an active participant in–merely an observer*

Poker Chip Learning

Are you serious? A Christian teacher using poker chips for learning? OK, get over it, they are GREAT manipulatives (and cheap). I bought about 1000 from Walmart for about 5 bucks. I didn’t really need 1000, but it looks better to fill my manipulative bucket (and by manipulative, I mean math manipulative not that the bucket is a manipulator–more on that in another post). These circular little trinkets provided a great visual and hand-on tool for learning place value (among other things) and the kids had a blast using them. They even wanted more and harder and harder situations to figure out. They were engaged in the learning and came away with more than they would have had I just done a typical routine.

All in all, today was extremely productive! Week 2 is off to a great start! Thanks to all of you who have kept me in your prayers since the days at AVCS. God has blessed me so much since then–more than I could have ever dreamed. In fact, a thought occurred to me:

I believe that if my job back in Anza would have continued, it would not have led me to where I am now. I believe where God has me is where He intended me to be now all along. If I had not been presented with my job loss, I probably would have not listened to His call to move on.

What’s the point of all this? We sometimes can’t see at the time why things go the way they go. In these hard economic times, it’s hard to see how God could be working. But I was pretty much at rock bottom not to long ago. I can assure you, He is ALWAYS working. It doesn’t feel like it sometimes, but He is working…and He will see us through.

This thought remains to be continued…when I have more time. For now, just wanted to say that teaching 1st Grade is still a whole lot of fun (and work). But, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else right now. It has also proven to me how much fun “work” can be. I look forward to each and everyday as another day to impact lives (whether my first graders or the after school kids). Even on the rough days, I look forward to the next as a fresh start for God’s blessings to overflow.

So, until another new day is upon us, have a blessed night!