My students just knew I’d love this video and insisted on showing it to me.
They were right… I LOVED it!
I’ve never seen this kid, but I’ll be watching more of his “pep talks.” In addition to him being very cute, he seems to know the right questions to ask. For example, this very important question addressed to us all:
“What will you create to make the world awesome?”
Very encouraging. From the mouths of babes.
I wish someone taught me these principles when I was his age. I wouldn’t have so much to make up for now. Better late than never.
Share this to encourage someone who needs to know they’re special and needed in this world.
When you think about the words that you’ve seen in some girls’ bathroom stalls, what do you normally think about? Words that typically come to my mind are vulgarity, nastiness, foolishness, offensive… lots of these types of adjectives come to mind. Of course, then there are all the phone numbers revealing personal data about people who had no intention of sharing that information.
Who would think that one could receive wisdom from a girls’ bathroom stall? And yet, that’s exactly what was found in a university restroom, in response to the disclosure of some tragic and terrible life experiences, written in a single stall.
That someone took the time out to thoughtfully respond is remarkable. Her words are inspiring – for anyone.
Take a look at the story, with an image of the actual note, here.
I love teaching. I love teaching biblical texts. Teaching biblical texts affords me the opportunity to help my learners understand scripture in a way that they’ve never had the opportunity to learn it before. I get to help them explore the texts in their historical and cultural contexts, but we also get to explore together how those texts influence our culture and lives today.
In my Old Testament classes, we’ve been exploring the narrative of the man and woman in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. We do a pretty close reading of texts because I find that students’ assumptions of biblical events and the meaning of those events is often colored by what they may have previously heard in church, and crucial details are often missed, which sometimes leads us to a not-so-complete interpretation of the stories. I think we do ourselves a disservice by not attending to these sacred texts intently, because we can possibly miss what the original intent of the writing was.
Not that there aren’t other ways to interpret the Bible other than historically. I’m by no means saying that. I’m just saying that I’ve discovered that examining scripture in its original context can provide some pretty rich interpretations, and can really help to enrich one’s faith. At least it has enriched my own.
Okay, I’m a little off on a tangent…
My learners and I were exploring the following text:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’“ (Genesis 3:1-3)
Now, that’s not the command God originally gave regarding that tree. God originally told the man (Adam):
“You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (Genesis 2:16-17)
So you can see, what God told the man and what the woman said God commanded are a little different.
So I asked my 9th graders, “Why do you think she got the commandment wrong?”
Some students said, “Maybe she just didn’t hear the command clearly.” Others said, “Well, God didn’t give it to her, and so the man (Adam) may have not communicated the command clearly to her.”
To which one of students said,
“Maybe he just didn’t like her.”
Silence.
I was speechless.
Because it made sense.
For what other reason would he blame her for being tempted to eat the fruit? For what other reason would he not fess up to getting the command wrong?
So I stood there in the front of the class, pondering what she said. For about a minute. I couldn’t seem to move on from my learner’s statement. It intrigued me.
And my other learners watched me in my state of intrigued-ness. I think they took some delight in it, knowing that, as I said to them, I had heard something about that text that I’d never heard before, and it came from a 14-year old.
Which is why I teach.
I learn so much from my learners. If I ever think that I’m teaching only to impart a bunch of knowledge, to open my students’ brains and pour into them everything I know, then I need not be in a classroom. For my classroom is a community, and we are all there to learn.
So in that moment, I was reminded of how each of us has a voice, a very important voice, because God has imparted to each of us a measure of wisdom. It’s up to us to hear that wisdom and use it for the betterment of us all.
And it doesn’t matter who imparts it. Whether I get it from my 8-year old daughter, my 14-year old freshmen, my 17-year old seniors, my ??-year old husband (who is incredibly wise), or someone on the street, it doesn’t matter. God uses His children to share His wisdom with us all.
And I’m thankful I’m in a position in which I can encourage my students to explore their own inner wisdom by asking questions which causes them to dig into texts differently than they’ve done in the past. Because in doing so, I think I’m empowering them to use those voices for good.
I hope.
The challenge – look for wisdom to come in unexpected ways.
The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove.
TED.com is a website that I became acquainted with through one of my teaching colleagues. According to the website:
“TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.
You can find talks about various topics, from education to religion to technology to entertainment…Lots of very intriguing speakers, some who are well-known, such as Al Gore, to less well-known people, who, in their talks, inspire us, teach us, persuade us, fascinate us…
I came across a new TED talk today that I felt I had to share. This talk was given by Tony Porter at the first TEDWomen conference held just this past month. Mr. Porter is the co-founder of A Call to Men, a non-profit organization “committed to ending violence against women.” In his presentation, he discusses the “Man Box,” and how living in the “Man Box” causes men to live in bondage to what some men think being a man is all about. He discusses how much of living in the “Man Box” leads to violence against women. Nonetheless, he concludes his talk with a profound statement of liberation that we all, men and women, must hear.
Below is the video of “Tony Porter: A Call to Men.” Play it for every man you know. But as a woman, I feel it is also a call to me – to further understand these issues so that I can understand that there are other men who are trying to break free of the “Man Box.” I need to understand these issues so that when my husband explains the “Man Box” to our daughter, that I will be able to understand right along with her.
I am the wife of a man who has long broken out of the “Man Box.” Nonetheless, let us all seek to understand the men in our lives to support them breaking out of their own “Man Box.”
Poetry slammer Katie Makkai gives voice to how we – as parents, as teachers, as those concerned with the tender hearts of our young people – should respond to the insecurities our girls carry as a result of listening to and watching what the media deems to suggest what’s right for them. It is absolutely powerful.
I haven’t posted in quite a long time, not on a regular basis, as you can see. Life got in the way (this is not a bad thing at all). See, I’m a wife of almost 10 years (yea!), a mother over 6 years, a teacher over 10 years, you get the idea. And your life is no different – I mean, we’re all busy.
One of the areas of greatest concern to me now, as a mother and teacher (in a private school) is the state of education today – public education, that is. Our daughter is in first grade in the public school system, and I’ve found myself dismayed by the education system in this country. Civility is no longer valued among students, teachers are not respected, some teachers deserve not to influence our children’s minds. So one of the things I focus on is education.
To that end, my posts will probably focus more on the topic of education, since the need for education reform is staggering. We all need to engage ourselves in this effort, because if we don’t, we’ll decline into third world status…literally. And our children, so precious, deserve so much better than that.
To that end, I want to share this video. It’s entitled “Lost Generation.” It’s less than two minutes long, but in that less than two minutes, a great message about our young people needs to be heard – and spread across this country.
Take a look…
Our children deserve so much more than what we’re giving them.
My husband is a phenomenal man! He doesn’t settle for second best. He seeks to do everything with excellence. So when he told me he was updating his first book, Steppin’ Out of the Darkness, my first question is, “Why?” He replied, “I can do better.” So after many months of rewrites and revisions, my husband has now published and released his first hardcover book entitled Come Morning. You can view a description of the book on my husband’s blog, “When Least Expected.”
Come Morning is indeed a blessing to read. There is something for everyone in this book. It was easy for me to identify with different characters in the narrative. Oh, and there are surprises in the book as well. I remember reading and editing the revision for one chapter, and as I read, I suddenly laughed and said, “Wow, I wasn’t expecting that.” I won’t tell you what happened; you have to read it for yourself.
Take a look here to read what my husband has to say about the book. Then go to Amazon.com and order it! Keep a journal by your side as you read. As someone already reviewed, it “…will make you take a slow, deliberate & honest look at your mindset…” You’ll want to write the insights you make about yourself in your journal as you read.
Invest in yourself…invest in others…read Come Morning.
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