Category Archives: education

May 29, 2013 · 2:49 pm

Half An Apple Ministry: Assistance with School Supplies

Announcing the Launch of
Half an Apple Ministry

We have learned that 564 children in the Krum ISD, a very small community where our church is located, qualify for the free lunch program.

Do you know what the income qualifications are for that program?  If you would like to know, click here.

In case you didn’t look, a family of four qualifying for the free lunch program sees a household income of less than $30,000/year.

A family qualifying for free or reduced lunches also probably has difficulty providing school supplies. It costs nearly $100/child to purchase all the supplies the teachers request, particularly in the elementary/middle school years.

In response to this situation,  we are launching “Half an Apple” ministry in an effort to be very intentional about helping as many children as possible reach the starting line on the first day of school.  

We are asking people to make this the special ministry to children this year instead of Christmas gifts to low-income children. While Christmas gifts are nice, it is far, far more important to help these children educationally. With education, there is some chance of breaking the poverty cycle before it becomes generational and entrenched.

We call this “Half an Apple” ministry because we not only cannot, but we must not provide all the supplies. We need to partner with the parents so we are working hand in hand to make this happen.

This ministry also partners with Special Touch at New Life/First Baptist Church here in Krum. They have figured out a way to provide the basics for each child for about $15.00/child. We’d like to add to that a backpack for the youngest children who may not have one. We have found some good quality ones for $3.75 apiece.

We need your help.  Backpacks must be ordered by June 7 to qualify for this price break. Adequate funds have already been designated to Half An Apple Ministry to order 48 of them (they have to be ordered in boxes of 24).

All other supplies will be purchased over the course of the summer as sales come and go. The folks at Special Touch are monitoring the sales and will make the purchases. By July 15, we would like to contribute at least $2500 to that effort, and far more if possible.

Please prayerfully consider an additional gift to this ministry–above and beyond your normal giving.  Should you wish to contribute, you may do so online or by putting “Half an Apple” on the memo line of checks made out to the church and sending them to: Krum First UMC, 1001 E. McCart St, Krum, TX 76249

Thank you.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Christmas, education, finances, generosity, poverty

Tagged as , , , ,

May 2, 2013 · 3:21 pm

Straw Blankets, Ministry With The Poor

hay-blanket-peppers-smIt is cold here right now in North Texas.  Wind is blowing wildly, temperatures continue to drop and we are on target for record lows tonight.  Areas just slightly to the west and north are under a frost watch.  I suspect my own garden may get a bit of frostbite because it is on the north side, high up, with a large pasture behind it, so there is nothing to block the wind and cold.

I went out and piled straw around all the warm weather plants.  Am hopeful they won’t be damaged.  However, many gardeners and farmers may wake tomorrow to a fair amount of destruction.

As always, weather really does win. All who have reasonably well-insulated houses and functional heaters will stay comfortable. But for those who don’t . . .

These thoughts always lead me to the mandate that we are called to be in ministry with the poor.  I honor that, respect that and believe that it is nearly impossible for anyone who is reasonably protected to actually do that.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and research this past year, trying to get a handle on what it means to be poverty-striken.  Now, there are lots of kinds of poverty:  spiritual, educational, financial, social, and cultural, just to name a few.  I think it is possible to have few monetary resources and not be poverty-striken, but those who manage that generally have rich inner resources and strong community support.  Most of the time, being impoverished in one area means the rest of the areas also suffer from the effects of poverty.

I understand that the vast majority of people in the US who end up in bankruptcy or in other terrible financial binds get there, not because of financial mismanagement or spending too much on luxuries, but because of the atrocious cost of even basic health care.  Emergencies and chronic illnesses, again much more common among those living in poverty to begin with, can send people into a never-ending spiral of greater debt, more ill-health, less ability to work, leading to greater debt, greater stress and even more ill-health.

And here is my conundrum:  how can we, particularly as United Methodists, confidently affirm that we seek to be in ministry with the poor when we have the straw blanket of fairly decent health insurance tucked all around us?

To be really, seriously, stuckly poor means no health insurance and extremely limited access to what few available means there are for medical care and the practice of habits that bring health rather than destroy health.

Last year, I had to undergo my first-ever surgery. A rapidly growing uterine tumor starting causing enough symptoms to set off alarm bells that even I would listen to.  Although I did have visions of someday being written up in a newspaper story (Headline:  ”Woman With Watermelon-sized  Tumor Steadfastly Denies That Anything is Wrong”), and after grieving that I would not be able to reach my stated goal of dying with all my lady-parts intact, I agreed to a hysterectomy.

Sure, I had co-pays.  Absolutely the hospital wanted their money up front.  It was a lot of money for me.  The insurance company paid their part (a pittance of the actual bill), and then it was over.   I was lucky. The tumor turned out to be benign, despite its rapid growth.  (One of the nurses in the hospital said, “I could not believe how much your uterus weighed!”  I tried to take that as a compliment.)  I recovered reasonably uneventfully, although I will say it is not a good idea to take an international flight just a couple of weeks after that kind of surgery.

But more to the point:  if I had not been able to wave my handy-dandy insurance card around, and whip out a high-limit credit card for my own part of this event, I would have faced these choices:  One, go ahead and let the tumor grow.  Two, have the surgery and be faced with years of paying off those bills.  And that was a relatively inexpensive procedure with no complications.

I am not rich, but I have straw blankets all around me.   I have a level of protection that cushions me to such a point that despite my real concern for those who do live in poverty, I can’t fully enter into their experience.

I do not know what it is like to live so close to the edge that a child sick for just a couple of days can have such an impact that my whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

If we are really going to do ministry with the poor, then we need to be in solidarity with the poor over these issues of health care.  I admit I do not know how to do this.  I don’t want to relinquish my own health insurance.  But I am reaching a point where I think it smacks of great hypocrisy to make that statement as a guiding principle and then live with the kinds of straw blankets around us that too many are routinely denied.

7 Comments

Filed under clergy, education, garden, health care, hypocrisy

Tagged as ,

February 21, 2013 · 11:04 am

On Adolescence and Underwear

It is very easy for someone who works exclusively in a church environment to become culturally isolated from the “real world,” so I make it a point to read extensively outside my field. I want to learn what others are thinking and how they experience life.

So, I perused a recent article in The Atlantic written by a middle-school teacher extremely concerned about the ways the girls in her classroom dressed for school.

She writes, “I hate having to defend my right not to see a girl’s underwear. . . I hate having to worry that being able to see a girl’s underwear will so addle the boys’ brains that they will be unable to concentrate in science class.”

Now, this makes perfect sense to me.  Learning to dress appropriately, showing respect both for self and others, should be part of the maturing process.

It was the comments on this article that opened my eyes to differing views. Radically differing views. Apparently, a fair number of people in this world think this teacher is way off base. Coming down strongly on the side of freedom of expression and support of individual choice, they see few or no problems for either the girls or boys when dressing provocatively in those extremely turbulent years of early adolescence.

Keep in mind that I reared three sons, no daughters. While I insisted they dress decently, there were minimal protests and I have no first-hand knowledge of the art of purchasing clothing for girls. I’ve heard of but never witnessed emotional meltdowns when a tween or young teen is told she must wear more modest clothes–and thereby possibly threatening her very survival in the eyes of her peers.

I also remember my own tense teen years as I sought my independence, but was nowhere near ready mentally or emotionally for it.  The transition from child to adult is extremely tough for both youth and parents, with never-ending and utterly exhausting battles around every corner.

With that in mind, I was still dismayed that multiple commentators could see no problems with such revealing clothing in a school setting.

I don’t get this. Academics have become an increasingly difficult setting for boys. Their bodies scream, “I need to move around and expel some of my excess energy” while the opportunities for needed movement shrink. Instead, pressure to sit still and learn quietly increase.

Additionally, during these years both boys and girls face hormonal storms that threaten to remove any possibility of rational response from their immature minds.

Why then, is it apparently OK to flash underwear for the world to see? Both boys and girls are guilty here.

We’re talking school, folks. Not the beach, not parties, not hanging out time. School. That place where heroes–that is how I define ANYONE who teaches for a living, and especially those who teach pre-teens and younger adolescents–perform superhuman feats hourly by pounding some essential knowledge into those hormone-addled brains.

Why, in the name of all that is decent and reasonable, would parents do ANYTHING to make that task more difficult?

I understand the concerns expressed. Commentators fear females are going to be blamed as provocateurs when sexually assaulted. Additionally, few would wish that we become like those who keep girls and women cloistered lest the just the sight of them incite the helpless male to irresistible lust.

I still ask: is it possible to agree on a general school-day dress code, without having to go to uniforms (which do have much to say for them) that honors both the need for personal expression and the need for respect, both for self and others?

Or, am I just too caught in a world that teaches at its core that all humans have a responsibility to treat others the way they want to be treated themselves that I am hopelessly out of touch with the “real world.”

10 Comments

Filed under accountability, adolescence, compromise, cultural context, education

Tagged as , , , ,

January 29, 2013 · 7:45 pm

Lawrence Wright, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief

With both horror and fascination, I just finished reading the Lawrence Wright exposé called Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief.

This exquisitely researched book takes us into the bowels of Scientology, a religious group that has apparently systematically lied, cheated, abused its followers, sought to destroy its detractors, devastated families, amassed giant amounts of money which impoverished many and landed in the pockets of very few, and pandered to celebrities whose egos got stroked by the maniacs who run the show.

Scientology doctrines do not actually address the major religious concept of a holy God or the idea that there might be a moral and good center to the world.  It is based on the idea that people, by following its scientific principles, can become essentially super-human and immortal.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t show much respect to science.  The whole thing was built on the science fiction imagination and highly prolific pen of one L. Ron Hubbard, whose writings have been elevated to the state of Holy Scripture, forever and unquestionably true.

But there is little holy about them or about the organization.

A lot of people have been sucked into it and had the life sucked out of them. Wright’s work particularly chronicles the life of Paul Haggis, highly successful screenwriter (multiple well-known TV shows and movies, such as Crash and Million Dollar Baby), the years he spent in it and his eventual journey out.

Haggis was told never to read anything about Scientology that someone outside the fold wrote.  Should he disagree with anything that Hubbard wrote, no matter how crazy it sounded, the entire problem was within him and he must change his own thinking.  The rule: NEVER question what he was being told or taught.

Secret upon secret, lie upon lie, he and his family were pulled through the upper ranks of this organization.

Haggis finally could no longer tolerate the organization’s abuse of his daughter. He began to ask questions and read materials from outside the fold.

He had indeed been in a prison of belief, along with others who may have been unable to escape. The structure and insularity of Scientology consumes their entire lives. Wright documents spiritual, mental and emotional abuse heaped on many loyal Scientologists, most of whom entered the organization as sincere seekers of greater spiritual truth and emotional freedom.

How could this be?

I think all of us long to be surrounded by a group of like-minded people whom we believe understand us and are in general agreement over major life issues. And most of us like being near the seat of power. This desire appears early–the so-called “popular” boys and girls not only call the shots, but other children vie get near them, to have some of the aura of popularity rub off on them.

Dangerous religious groups draw people in by keeping the real secrets of the faith tenants hidden until strong personal connection is already made.  They also create enticing incentives to move to the inner circle which will than have them deeply enmeshed in the culture of secrecy they have created. Because this touches a basic human need, the movements may grow rapidly.

I contend that when an aura of secrecy dominates any religious group and those in the inner circles are there to be served rather than to serve, there is something terribly, terribly wrong. Belief has indeed become a prison.

Wright has done us all a favor by writing this book.  He has probably also put himself at risk.  Scientologists have a long history of stalking, threatening, and piling lawsuit upon lawsuit on those who have dared to question or expose their secrets. This is a courageous piece of scholarship and deserves a careful reading.

Let’s think, people.  If we can’t read critiques of our belief structures and their histories without attacking, there is something very, very wrong.

5 Comments

Filed under accountability, character, education

Tagged as , , ,

December 10, 2012 · 10:02 am

Cold and Comfort, Disquiet at the Disparity

Winter WeatherIt’s one of those days where I realize just how fortunate I am.  The wind is pretty wild here in Krum and the temperature dropped well into the freezing range overnight.  It’s projected to be bitterly cold here tonight.

I personally welcome the cold weather.  I sleep better, and also appreciate the necessity of extended cold for the sake of yard and garden.

I am also not poor.  I live in a reasonably well-insulated house with a good heating system, have warm enough clothes, a car with a good heater, and plenty of blankets. No reason not to enjoy this.

But I’ve been reading one of the most painful books I’ve ever dipped into.  It’s called The Working Poor: Invisible in America, a national bestseller written by David K. Shipler.  This excellent writer brings the reader into the lives of those who live right on the margin of debilitating poverty, but who are nonetheless employed and hard-working people.  One little extra stressor–a sick child, a car repair, a lazy or negligent landlord, a bad harvest, a weather extreme, an extra medical bill, a fight with a spouse–and they plunge into a unending cycle of hopelessness.

Children born into this system are far more likely to suffer cognitive delays because of actual malnutrition and lack of necessary attachment time between parent and child.  Schooling becomes an unending nightmare, and parents do not have the resources to demand and get extra tutoring.  Plus, it may be too late by then.

These people are the ones who make lives possible for those who are more comfortable. I am one of those.

And this has all left me comfortably warm and uncomfortably disquieted.

2 Comments

Filed under charity, comfort, education, health care, schooling

Tagged as , ,

September 21, 2012 · 10:39 am

The Shipwreck of Faith

Last week, we began a study on “The Theology of Sexuality” in order to better equip our youth with a more solid understanding of the nature of their physical selves in relation to their spiritual selves.

Today, I saw this article in the Huffington Post Religion section, asking, “What would we our younger selves about faith?”  Most respondents, both those quoted in the article and those who are writing in the comments section, essentially said, “don’t believe any of it.”

I experience two things when I see something like this.

First, a lack of surprise.  The way faith and religious practice has been taught has been damaging for many.  We give children a magical, fairy-tale faith structure, and no tools then to address the real problems that show up later with such a foundation.  That’s why we’ve started this study–our kids don’t live in a fairy tale world, and offering them a fairy tale God is useless at best and exceedingly damaging at worst.

Second, heartbreak.  Why aren’t we giving our “younger selves” a better foundation?  Why don’t we offer much space for doubt and questions and soul agony and exploration?  Almost all young people growing up in a church environment will experience a shipwreck of faith when exposed to a wider world of scholarship.

In the best of worlds, the ship that has wrecked has such good wood in it that it can be rebuilt into something that can carry people into adulthood with maturing faith understandings.

In the worst of worlds, we have what the responders noted on the article cited above:  an early faith life that has left them feeling alone, deceived, and angry.

It’s time to start embracing that shipwreck and preparing for it, rather than just hoping it won’t happen.  It does and it will.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under education, faith

Tagged as , ,

July 14, 2012 · 6:11 pm

Short Cuts, Herbicides, Church Growth Techniques and a Swath of Death

Flower Bed and Weeds

As I continue my work of finding multiple parallels between church and garden, I find myself frequently returning to the issue of short cuts.

The current picture:  my long-suffering husband has built for me a massive number of flower and vegetable beds at the parsonage where we live as he is aware that my soul stays cleaner and healthier when my hands stay dirty and soil-stained.

The two of us have a general division of duties for yard and garden:  he does the vast majority of the big heavy work—building the beds, hauling in the dirt, tilling as necessary, coming up with innovative and affordable watering systems, mowing and edging.  I purchase plants and seeds, put them in the ground, and lovingly tend them, and that includes hand weeding this large number of planting areas.

Now, I was gone for nine weeks, had major surgery two weeks before that, and was in the midst of Lent and Easter before that.  The result of months of neglect in the fast growing and very wet spring months?  The weeds have made major, huge, significant, destructive and discouraging moves into those formerly weed free beds.

Oh my.  Goodness gracious.  Yikes.  What a mess.

The Short Cut Solution

After about 50 hours of hard labor in the last ten, hot, dry, days, I am beginning to see the return of those flower and vegetable beds to their former status, but some of the extremely invasive weeds are going to take months of diligence for me to eliminate them.

I really would love a quick solution.

But here’s why I don’t use one.  This article speaks of the destruction of probably hundreds of thousands of trees by use of an herbicide (weed killer).

This herbicide, developed and marketed by DuPont, was described this way:

Imprelis, which was registered by the EPA in October and marketed to professionals treating residential and commercial lawns, golf courses and sod farms, was touted by DuPont as “an innovation that was worth the wait.”

“It is the most scientifically advanced turf herbicide in over 40 years,” the company said in a marketing release, citing more than 400 field trial protocols dating to 2006.

Professional lawn care specialists apparently embraced it with enthusiasm.  After all, who doesn’t like a short cut that makes life so much easier and would increase profits?

It also proved to be particularly deadly to evergreens such as Norway spruce and white pine trees.  Probably hundreds of thousands of trees have died.

Yes, lawsuits have been filed.

The short cut, marketed as most short cuts are as a way to make life easier and more pleasant and to eliminate tedious chores, left this large swath of death.  Of course, the lawns and golf courses are also probably weed free, but at what cost?  A mature tree is valued at thousands of dollars, and simply can’t be replaced at that same maturity.  It will take years to recover from this “short cut.”

Two Common Church Short Cuts

So what are two major short cuts we tend to leap upon in the life of the church?

First, the decision that “making disciples” is a short term activity and can be achieved by pushing people through a series of classes and thinking we’ll graduate spiritually rich, mature individuals.  It takes years and a lot of life experience along with the careful practice of spiritual disciplines to move into deep maturity.  That doesn’t mean that young, not yet fully formed (for no one is fully formed) people should not take leadership roles in church life.  It does mean awareness that they’ve got a lot of growing to do, and even several years in intensive study, such as in a seminary environment, does not necessary equate to one walking in tune with God and well equipped with holy discernment.

Second, the wholesale and undiscerning implementation of ministry techniques, generally taught at expensive and highly touted seminars where “successful” church leaders share their secrets to explosive growth.  Those techniques will often do what the short cut of artificial fertilizers will do:  cause some very impressive short term growth.  However, with out the in-depth improvement of the soil, the plants will demand heavier and heavier applications of artificial fertilizers—all of which will eventually kill the soil.  Healthy soil, the kind that supports long term and sustained growth, takes a lot of time to create.  Plant growth in healthy soil is often slower than those grown with artificial stimulants, but is much, much healthier and able to survive predators far better.

The Grasshoppers Cometh

While I was gone, we here in North Texas experienced the annual invasion of grasshoppers.  That happens yearly, but some years are far worse, and this was a particularly bad one.  I had read about the invasion before I returned home as several gardeners mentioned that their vegetables had been stripped by those voracious little critters.  I expected to find almost everything gone when I arrived home.

Much to my surprise, except for one hibiscus that has always had a problem with grasshoppers (probably not enough sun), and two tomato plants, already well past their prime, nothing else seemed harmed.  The critters were present in the garden, but not in huge numbers.  I believe the essential health of those plants, growing in carefully cultivated soil, slowly built up over several years by frequent application of organic mulch and gentle, natural fertilization, gave them an edge over the artificially stimulated plants found in most gardens.  They were alive–and they were also competing with all those weeds for moisture and nutrients.

I honestly wish there were herbicides that I could spray indiscriminately and magically erase my weed problems without causing other damage.  But such a product will never exist.  I also wish I could wave my magic wand, create the ideal discipleship program and systematically turn out mature Christians whose passion in life is to love God, love their neighbors, and fill the church seats and coffers.  But at what cost?

Boredom or Diversity?

But even as I write such a goal, it sounds stultifying and boring to me.  Who wants a mass-produced Christian when it is our very diversity that provides color, life and the possibility of touching the entire world with grace, not just those who look like me?  A garden with only one plant might turn out a lot of food or offer a bundle of cut flowers for a season, but it will eventually destroy the soil.  But a garden bounteous with diverse plants, various ripening/blooming times, and contrasting textures, heights and colors brings delight and life to the world.  I think that is what we are supposed to be about.

3 Comments

Filed under church as garden, discipleship, education, food, garden, nutrients, short cuts, soil

Tagged as , , , , , ,

June 19, 2012 · 11:03 am

Hollow Be My Name

Fatigue wrapped its ugly arms around me earlier today–the worst I’ve experienced since starting my Sabbatical. Think it came from a weekend spent in the Cotswolds where I had a wonderful time reconnecting with a beloved nephew and his family and saw glorious countryside–and parts of New College Oxford where scenes from Harry Potter are filmed.  But . . . I completely lost the rhythm of walking/reading/writing that had characterized my days recently and that had led to such a sense of physical and spiritual well-being.

My best recourse when I reach this point is to move.  This body is made for walking.  I headed for the nearby Downs where there are miles of walking trails through forests and fields.

And, as I often do when the walking rhythms take hold, I began to pray.  I realized suddenly that I was about to load on God all my petty complaints and little frustrations and bigger concerns and all the other trivia that often occupies my mind.  I stopped and regrouped.

When I started again, I began with the prayer Jesus taught his disciples.  It was time to acknowledge God’s holiness, and move from thinking I am the center of the universe to the spot where I can and will worship the Center of all the cosmos.  Then I hit the phrases that always stop me: may God’s will be done, may God’s rule overcome, here in this limited earth time/space as it already is in the fullness of the heavenly places.

Over the weekend, my nephew and I were helping his older daughter, 5, practice praying the Lord’s Prayer.  She is learning this in her school here and wanted to show us what she’d learned.  In typical five year old fashion, it went something like this, “Our Father who aren’t in heaven, hollow be my name.  My kingdom come, my will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Working on reining in our laughter, we gently corrected her and encouraged her in her great progress.

Personally, I think what I heard from her is really what most people do think.  God’s not really in heaven, glory and honor have nothing to do with this–the whole thing is hollow, and what we really want is our own will to be done.

But the prayer does, in its non-five year old form, call for God’s will be done.  What is God’s will?

I’ve been pondering again the words to Mary’s Magnificat, the words she spoke after her pregnancy was confirmed by Elizabeth, herself pregnant with John the Baptist:

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,  for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;  he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.  

He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.

It’s that middle paragraph that stops me cold:  scattering the proud, bringing down the powerful, lifting the lowly, filling the hungry but sending the rich away.

Could that be God’s will?  Seriously? Put down the power?  Turn the weapons of mass destruction into means of food production?  Remove the carnivorous nature of the wolf so the lamb can safely nestle there? Celebrate the huddled masses, the poverty-stricken, desperate, illegal immigrant population as welcomed sojourners? Hug the lepers, touch the unclean and discover that the gospel comes best from the most unlikely sources, from voices that have historically been silenced?

Surely not.

Surely God’s kingdom is my kingdom–where I get what I want, and I stay the center of the universe.

Or maybe we’ve missed the boat completely.

5 Comments

Filed under education, food, heaven, holiness, prayer, schooling

Tagged as , , ,

May 25, 2012 · 6:43 am

London Schools, Uniforms and Innocence

I spent yesterday afternoon at a programme (I’m working on my Britishisms!) put on by the fifth form girls, 10 year olds, at a fairly posh but not absolutely first-rate British public school for girls, aged 3 to 18.  I’ve learned that is called public because anyone who pays tuition can get in, but in the US, we would call this private.  The school is girls only–their brothers generally attend an all-boys prep school about four blocks away.  Most schools here, and about all tuition-paying schools, are sex segregated.

As is also the case with nearly every school in the UK, the students wear uniforms. For this school, the youngest girls wear loose-fitting checked lavender and white dresses.  They have lavender jumpers (those are “sweaters” to the uninitiated), lavender blazers with the school crest embroidered on them, black maryjane  style shoes and white knee socks.  The fifth form girls who put on this program had graduated to lavender and white checked button-down shirts, navy a-line skirts hitting several inches above the knee, and the same jumper, blazer, shoes and socks as the younger girls.  For sports (i.e., PE, with their favorite sport being “rounders,” similar to softball, I think), they put on navy shorts.  All have identical bags in which to carry their books and other school needs.

The girls’ hair is done in ponytails, long braids or quickly french-braided.  A few have short, easy-care haircuts.  Those with nappy hair have it done in simple styles appropriate for their hair type or culture.  Because swimming is part of their weekly sports programme, hair is all easy care.

Katie, the ten-year-old cousin of my two grandsons, and whom I’ve just adopted as one of my own and who is also carefully teaching me proper British English, hand-delivered an invitation for me several days ago to attend the performance.

I walked into the hall just a few moments before the performance was to begin. I was immediately greeted by several of the girls, who had no idea who I was, but who knew it was important to show hospitality, and offered tea, coffee and biscuits (cookies, you Americans!).  They showed me where I could be seated comfortably and watch the show.

The hall was small, perhaps 25’X40’, with tables and chairs set up on one side for the visitors, and the girls seated closely together on the concrete floor on the other side.  No air conditioning, and the day was warm, but windows were opened for ventilation.

The students put on an old-fashioned talent show, with individual and small group acts interspersed with group songs where they invited the audience to sing with them.  We were treated to poetry, originally written drama, duets and trios singing current hit tunes, modern dance, clarinet and violin solos and a lovely piece (Pomp and Circumstance in honor of the Queen’s Jubilee)  with eight recorders supplemented with the clarinet.  One girl, who was a dead ringer for Angela Cartwright when she starred in the original Sound of Music, sang a solo with the voice of an angel.

It was beautifully done with only minor technology glitches and presented with much poise.  They had put this together in less than two weeks.

There was no giggling, silliness, shoving, or undue restlessness, especially considering the girls were sitting on that hard concrete floor.

And they all  (about 50 of them) looked like ten year old girls.  Really.  No pimp-inspired clothing although several were in costume appropriate for their parts.  No bare bellies, short shorts, adult make-up, artificially colored hair, or any other pretensions to puberty or young-adulthood.

They just looked like girls.  Because of their uniforms, their faces were unusually distinct and easy to distinguish from one another. When the programme was over, Katie immediately came to my seat and offered to fetch me another cup of tea (“not white, please” — I don’t like milk in my tea which is how it is usually served here). Several others passed the biscuits again.  All the girls came over and talked to adults they didn’t know–somewhat shyly, but very sweetly.

Later, when riding home with Katie and her seven year old sister, Grace, I asked them further about uniforms and makeup issues.  They love the uniforms–no worries about what to wear. They delightedly told me that no make up was permitted until 11th form, when uniforms are discarded and more facial adornment is OK.

They could just be little girls, playing sports, going swimming, moving freely (even in skirts–all girls do wear skirts to school here), keeping their hair back and out of their eyes to free their concentration, concentrating on  their studies, and slowly growing up.

They are also sheltered from multi-media.  Eleven year olds who want to get into a good-quality private secondary school (OK, it’s really public because there is no tuition, but it is called private because enrollment is highly selective) must take a set of exams and score quite well on them to qualify.  If they don’t make the cut, they can stay at their current school where their parents will continue to pay tuition, or venture into the low quality normal schools for the rest of their required education.

Because of those exams, the fifth-formers are employing tutors and are spending longer hours in homework and preparation. This is serious, and they know it. They are not going to waste time on TV.  As a result, fewer of their values are being formed by the media, and more in the schools.  Most of these types of schools are Christian-based, although many of the students are Muslim.  The children learn their prayers, basic Christian theology (non-Christian parents have no expectations that their own faith traditions will be taught or observed), good manners and responsibility to the larger community.

One major result: little girls get to be little girls here for much longer than they do in the US.  With all the challenges of living here, and there are many, the Brits may have this one up on us.

We hurt our children by over exposure TV and video.  Our children lose innocence too soon and also see their creative impulses disrupted by too much pre-packaged entertainment.  I doubt that my voice will change anything here, but I did need to say this. We in the US are going to pay dearly for letting sex and violence saturated media rear the next generation.

2 Comments

Filed under education, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , ,

May 20, 2012 · 3:37 am

Sunday Mornings Near London

It’s a rare quiet morning here in this household. The two boys spent the night with their aunt and uncle and cousins.  Jonathan and Adriana attended a formal dinner party and dance last night and are using this very, very rare morning away from the kids to sleep in.  Sami, the youngest, is extremely light sensitive and wakes the moment the sun comes up–and that is very, very early here, right now around 5 am.  Blackout drapes help, but nothing can stop some light from penetrating the room and awakening him.

I also wake early here, and use those early morning hours to read and pray.  Soon, I hope to add long, vigorous walks to that, but am just not able to do that yet.

Today, I shall be one of the few around here to attend a place of worship. There is a small independent church not too far from here, and I shall indeed walk, albeit slowly, to join them for a 10:45 am service.

I have spent a lot of time with Adriana’s friends here–mostly parents of the other boys of the prep school they attend.  A number of them were here yesterday, choosing to stay and chat with one another during Joshua’s birthday party.  Watching them, by the way, has led me to develop what I suspect is a near-universal principle: The Law of Inverse Attention.  In other words, the more parents in attendance, the less attention is actually paid to the children as the adults are so relieved to be talking to other adults for a while that they completely tune out and/or ignore their children’s misbehaviors.

Anyway, I’ve been in some conversation with them, all in their late 20′s to early 40′s, all highly educated, most multi-lingual, few actually born here in England, but transplants, as are Jonathan and Adriana, from multiple other nations. A goodly number are from Muslim backgrounds, quite a few from Roman Catholic.  None really practice anything.  The prep school is Christian, and the boys learn prayers and some basic Christian doctrine (and the Muslim parents have no problem with this nor do they demand equal teaching on their own religious traditions), but the parents chose it for the quality of the education offered there, not for its spiritual base.

They really don’t care.  They are good people, conscientious citizens, accomplished professionals, love their children (even as they ignore them!), and spiritually unconcerned.  Simple as that.  It just doesn’t matter.

That’s the world of the future.  Very concerning.

Leave a Comment

Filed under education, parents, spiritual unawareness

Tagged as , ,