Category Archives: Teach it

Teaching is a gift, not one to be taken lightly. Every day I thank the Lord for this gifting and humble myself that I cannot do it on my own.
James 3:1-2 :: Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.

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One Voice

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Election cycle is upon us, but don’t worry, this post is not political. However, this time of year reminds me of a conversation I had during the last presidential election. We were talking about the candidates and I said something to the effect of:

“I’m researching the Libertarian candidate right now. I like to know all my options”

The other person scoffed before replying with:

“That’s throwing your vote away.”

I don’t remember the rest of the conversation, but I do remember feeling hurt and angry because that statement is simply not true—but it is shared by a large portion of the population! That’s a shame because the way change happens in a nation, government, institution, and society is always the same. All it takes is one voice. One person who is willing to go against the established norm. Sometimes, exciting times, that one voice catches like wildfire and society shifts.

Photo by Joshua Newton on Unsplash

And sometimes it doesn’t.

Regardless, things CAN’T change if people aren’t will to at least look for alternatives, and they certainly CANNOT change if we keep perpetrating the LIE that our singly voice is TRASH!

Currently, I am in the midst of the Night unit with my E2H kids, so we talk a whole heck of a lot about voice and speaking up when something is not right. One of my favorite diagrams is the pyramid of hate.

Students are asked to study the pyramid and decide where one person (presumably the individual reading it) can stop the upward movement. In other words, where can one voice pipe up and stop society from reaching the zenith? There is a lot of mumbling, but not a lot of confidence here. So I ask this question:

How many of you have heard a racist, prejudiced, or stereotyping joke lately?

They squirm. No one raises their hand, but there is a lot of murmuring, indicating that it was probably 20 minutes ago in the hallway. So I ask a second question:

How many of you have laughed at or made one of these jokes lately?

Now the squirming is uncomfortable and all eyes are looking at the floor because they know that I know. Earlier that week a kid made a blonde joke, you know all in good fun, but I called him out on it. I asked why it was so important to him to make the girl in question feel bad about herself?

And that’s where it (hopefully) hits them: jokes at others’ expense lay the foundation for hate. Your voice, speaking up when others are doing wrong, matters. It doesn’t have to mean putting your life on the line like the thousands of unnamed heroes who saved as many lives as they could during the Holocaust. Speaking up starts with your own sins, then your friends and family, then your school. Our voice matters because it can have a ripple effect.

Photo by Kai Dahms on Unsplash

I have been teaching for 13 years now. At approximately 6 classes per years (a couple of. Years I only had 5–I miss the 7 period day…), that’s 78 classes of students. Most had at least 25 (sometimes as many as 36) individuals. That makes for 1,950 students, give or take, who have come through my classroom over the years. Have I changed every one? NO. But I have impacted some and they’ve gone on to do amazing things in the world! So, I have to believe that one voice matters, because if I don’t, every day of my adult life has been a complete waste.

Which is where I challenge you to find your voice and use it to make a real difference. No, I don’t mean posting a rant on social media in which your opinion is meant to make other people feel bad, I mean a real difference. First in yourself, then in others around you.

Because who knows? Maybe your voice is the spark the world needs.

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Permission to Create

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I love my job.

I have been teaching for 12 years now, and while one some levels that is unbelievable, on others it feels almost as natural as breathing to me. I know that sounds really silly and maybe a bit cliche, but I was born to teach—in the classroom or in life, I can’t seem to help myself; if there is a lesson to be learned, I will try to teach it to you.

Whether you want me to or not.

So when I found out I would be teaching creative writing at my school this year, it was like being handed a beautiful gift. One that I treasured every single day since January.

Now don’t get me wrong, like all classes we had our ups and we had our downs, but giving students permission to be creative, unique and innovative in a world where standardization just about beats it out of them was refreshing for both me and my students.

Because the truth is, when we are kids we feel like creativity is our right, but as we get older it is almost as if we have to apologize for thinking outside that box.

That’s sad.

But when we are given permission to create, to think with our own minds, and to really explore what makes us passionate and excited…that’s when magic happens.

And magic happened this year, my friends.

At the end of the course…

  1. Students fell in love with writing
  2. Students found confidence in their own minds
  3. Students learned to give and receive feedback
  4. Students collaborated and encouraged one another
  5. Students became authors, and published a 250 page anthology of original works.
  6. Students became dreamers and learned to both build up AND compete with one another (well…this is a lesson we are still learning. It’s high school, after all).
  7. Audience, purpose, and tone became real as students understood for whom they were writing actually mattered in how they were going to market and sell their products.
  8. Students became teachers, and took me along for a pretty wild ride.

I have published two books myself now, and I am incredibly proud to have accomplished that goal, but I’m not sure that matches the feeling of having put together the amazing anthology for my students and watching them become excited about this journey we took together.

And that’s how I know I don’t just teach, I am a teacher.

So, I give you permission to create. Sculpt something, draw something, sing something, write something.

Because I believe in magic.

Do you?

Learn it, Teach it

House Cleaning

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House Cleaning: My journey through Psalm (90)

They say that life is short, so you should play hard. While I believe there is a lot of value in that aphorism, I’m not sure that’s what God wants us to glean in the 70, 80, 90 years we live on this Earth. Lately, I’ve had to come to terms with that hard truth in more ways than one.

This past week was my first full week back to work. I mean real work. Not workdays, but work work. As in for 8 hours every day I have to be at the top of my game, I have to smile when I feel like screaming; I have to listen when I want to nap; I have to stand when all I want is a nice bubble bath and a glass of Cabernet. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. I love my students (more than they even realize), but the first week always feels like…the first week. My feet hurt. My back hurts. My brain hurts. And I love it. In my English 4 class, we read part of The Things They Carried, a fabulous book that chronicles the young protagonist’s time in Vietnam. It is painfully honest, and I focus on the chapter “On the Rainy River” with my students. These are seniors, who come to school this last year thinking they have it all figured out. Thinking they’re going to slack off and still walk across that stage. Thinking they’re done.

They’re not. And this short story helps me to prove it to them.

Let’s be honest, most our students know squat about the Vietnam war. Hell, I know only what I have researched. Even if you fought for (or against…) the Vietnam war, often there was so much confusion about WHAT you were fighting for that the reasons and logical sense of it got lost in the propaganda and manipulations. On both sides. Whatever sides those were. What my students DO know and understand is that no one, especially not 18-25 year olds, wants to be told what to do (side note, I know this from experience. I made some epic mistakes the past few years when it came to honesty and advice giving to this age group. I didn’t do it well. BUT I’m learning…). So, when a young man receives a draft notice, life comes at him quick in this short story and he’s left standing at a crossroads. What I particularly love about this story is the way that the protagonist addresses the paradox of decision making. For him, going to war was cowardly because he didn’t believe in the war and the only reason he went was that he was embarrassed by the possibility of people looking at him as a coward. Our society sees him as a hero for going to war and not running out on his patriotic duty, but he sees himself as a traitor to his own morality.

And life is like that.

It is short.

It is hard.

It is filled with decisions that will change the course of our entire reality; with peer pressure; with internal conflict that sometimes, will never be solved.

My seniors understand this.

I understand this.

I didn’t want them to just understand it. I wanted them to embrace it. Make it their own. So, the assignment was simple: make a map of the choices you have made over the past…4-5 years. It can even include choices you will make (like, after graduation). But you have to include the alternatives. You chose a path, follow that around, but reflect on the path you could have taken and how that might have made your life different. They don’t love this assignment. It forces them to reflect on things they may not like reflecting on. What they produce though, is pretty cool.

None of their maps are the same, but all of their maps show one thing: life is short. Our decisions matter.

I wish someone had given me the courage to look at my life this way as an 18-year-old, but it’s a lesson I am still learning to this day. And I think God wants us to embrace this. To understand that our decisions matter, so we should seek Him. Not so our journey can be easier. Nothing worth doing is easy, but so our journies matter. They become meaningful when we make purposeful decisions. When we ask God to “teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12), we make our lives matter. We make a mark.

So, yes, life is short. Don’t just play hard. Don’t just take risks. Be wise. Make a mark.

Teach it

Why I teach Students, not English or Anything Else

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I was recently at a conference and was asked a really important question:

Do you care about students, or do you care for students?

I’ll admit my mouth dropped open a little as I soaked in that thought. Don’t let any one ever tell you words are not important, because that one preposition shift changes everything.

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Humans are everywhere, but they don’t always live with a purpose. In fact, I’d argue that a large majority of people are lost. Spoon-fed on social media and misinformation and wandering the planet without focus or direction. They’re working for a dollar sign or in the case of students, grades. Both arbitrary uses of symbols that represent far less than what we should be working toward as a human race.

They don’t know why it matters.

Too often, they don’t even care.

It is up to those of us who DO have purpose and direction to TEACH these humans how to learn. Not just give them information, but actually TEACH them how to invest their time, energy and passion into something they TRULY care about.

But teaching people to care is about as fruitful as bathing suit shopping in January and as obnoxious as Christmas decorations in October. It isn’t something that will ever have meaning for people unless you first learn yourself how to care FOR those under your charge. And the burden shouldn’t fall on parents, teachers, preachers, and youth leaders alone.

I care about a lot of things:

  • Global warming
  • Politics
  • Reading
  • Writing
  • Activities
  • Music
  • Health

I can care about a lot of these things, but I don’t care for them. I don’t nurture them. I don’t invest in them to the point that I am overwhelmed with emotion, needing to fix every little thing that’s wrong with them. I read a book. I cry, scream, or shout for joy–but then I put the book on the shelf and move on. I can care about them all day long, but until I actually invest my energy into them, I will never care FOR them.

Humans are the same. I can care about them, but until I invest something in them–a part of myself–I will never care for them.

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And they will never see the relevance in anything I say.

Especially kids–or young adults. They can smell irrelevance and in-authenticity from miles and miles away.

I teach maybe one or two kids who actually care about English as something that will impact their future. Maybe. On a good day. “I hate English,” one student tells me daily. Fair enough. I hate math. Not everyone will love the same things because no one is the same. And that’s OK–great even!

“I hate English,” he says, but then adds, “But I like you so I do it anyway.”

Wow. I’m not tooting my own horn or even trying to say I’m the greatest teacher. Hell, if I were trying to be a popular teacher the kid probably wouldn’t ‘hate English’. What I am saying is that even though this kid doesn’t like the subject matter, he knows that I care–not just about him, but for him. So during lunch, he slinks into my room, and we chat. Sometimes about school work, but more often about life.

Yet he hates English.

Knowing that someone cares for you is more motivating than any assignment I could ever give them.

Kids need adults who care for them. Not adults who listen for a moment, pat them on the head, then put them on the shelf and move on. They need adults to teach and mentor them them. They need authentic guidance.

The movement to hide kids away and shush them as though they were distractions like cell phones is damaging our society and silencing the voices that aren’t just the future, but the here and now. And ANYTIME you SILENCE someone’s voice, they’ll find it someplace else.

In drugs.

In alcohol,

In sex.

In violence.

We complain about what is wrong with society. We blame it on the media. We blame it on movies and TV shows. We spend so much time blaming the problems in our society on whatever scapegoat is most easily accessible at the time, we never stop to realize that individually we are ALL a part of the problem If we want to see real change in our society, a change in the future…If we want to make the world great, the answer will never be found in the government. It will be when, as a society, we learn to care FOR–not just about–each other and more importantly OUR STUDENTS, OUR KIDS, OUR NEXT GENERATION.

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Teach it

Heroes amidst Hedonism

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For years our self-indulgent society has been poisoning our sense of social decency and responsibility.

Instant gratification.

Instant pleasure.

Instant results.

If we wait for anything, we are impatient and cranky feeling an exaggerated sense of entitlement–we deserve to be served first, fast and well. The rest of the world can go straight to…well, you get my point.

Which begs the question…where are all the heroes? The selfless individuals who put others first and think of the reward…

And then I stop with that line of thinking too, because let’s face it–the heroes of the past, the heroes of today, everyone who has ever done anything at all that could be considered truly great…they’re all just humans. Humans with major flaws, but humans with big hearts too.

This week I had my students complete a character sketch for King Arthur, who (as it happens) is an legendary, Romantic hero who may or may not have actually existed, but the values he stood for are certainly very real–as are his very human flaws. Then, because Arthur is the ‘Once and FUTURE’ King, I had then do a sketch for a modern Arthur. It got real quick.

They said things like…

  • 20160218_113108He wants to see a world without war.
  • He sees a world that needs to be fixed.
  • He reacts to the opinions of others.

What struck me the most was the visual representations. In one, Arthur was naked save for a pair of boxer shorts. I don’t know if my students meant this to be as deeply revealing (no pun intended) of a hero’s character–but being stripped down to the skin keeps a person from hiding behind masks.

Masks made up of labels. Fabric. Materialistic nonsense.

It takes us back to a place where people are real. VZM.IMG_20160216_195330

Reminiscent of the garden, when Adam and Eve first introduced sin into the world and realized not only were the
y naked, but they were wearing their shame. Which is, really, what we need in this world. People, leaders, heroes who are stripped down to their core self to recognize their shame and own their true selves rather than continually trying to be what others have constructed for them.

Unfortunately, the world hasn’t changed that much. We say that we’re living in troubled times–but the world has always been troubled. It’s what sin does to the world. What makes the difference is the leaders and heroes we raise up during those troubled times. They don’t have to be perfect. They just need to be real. 20160216_184718 (1)