Category Archives: schooling

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.

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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.

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February 22, 2012 · 10:15 am

The Small Stuff

I saw this intriguing article over the weekend.  The writer speaks of a charter school in Chicago where the students must pay a fine for violating even the smallest rules.  Here’s how the atmosphere at the school is described:

A sense of order and decorum prevails at Noble Street College Prep as students move quickly through a hallway adorned with banners from dozens of colleges. Everyone wears a school polo shirt neatly tucked into khaki trousers. There’s plenty of chatter but no jostling, no cellphones and no dawdling.

This is an urban school–and urban schools in Chicago have nearly daily fights breaking out among the students.  There is only about one fight per year on each campus that is a part of this charter school system.

I think they are on to something profound.  While we talk about not sweating the small stuff, sometimes paying attention to the small stuff is literally life-changing. These schools fine students for having untied shoelaces or chewing gum, for unbuttoned shirts and for carrying cellphones.

Certainly such an atmosphere can become deadening–but, done properly, it is also liberating.  The school is fining students for tiny actions that show disrespect for themselves and for others, and so pushes behavior that is respectful.  It is paying off in terms at both educational atmosphere and educational achievement.

Now, link this to our spiritual lives.  What if, during Lent, we paid special attention to the small things that either show respect–or disrespect–to the Holy One and to the world created by the Holy One.  Things like care in language use, time set aside for worship and daily prayer, offering gracious responses when less gracious moments come our way.

The little things really do matter.

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January 17, 2012 · 1:22 pm

Education, Yesterday and Today

I’ve seen this before, but it is making the rounds of the internet again.  It is a copy of the questions on the 8th grade exam given in Kentucky in 1912.  The questions are hard, and much is way beyond what is taught to our 8th graders today.

The kind of math is also extremely practical for a farming, rural community. If they were to function in the world, young adults needed to know these things.  As for grammar and spelling–well done here! I’m personally appalled at the extreme lack of ability many high school graduates have  to express themselves properly in writing that I see today.  Why these things aren’t taught is beyond me.

We have the best of athletic facilities, band and performance halls, extracurricular activities that take up every spare moment. But are our children really educated to deal with the world they will face?

How many know even the basics about personal finance? How many understand how completely the world is linked together and the real necessity of understanding other cultures and learning other languages with comfortable fluency? How many have any real understanding of basic biology, the workings of their bodies and what is necessary for healthy living? How many actually understand our governmental structure and are willing to participate in the political process? How many have the math and literacy skills just to fill out an insurance form or decipher a hospital bill?

They can shoot hoops and tackle opponents and make great music. This is wonderful. But there is a whole lot more to life.  Just basic literacy and an ability to write a grammatically correct sentence goes a long way still.  Texting language will not make it in the world of commerce, and we’re going to have a bunch of handicapped former students screaming for special privilege someday or wondering why they can’t get past an entry level position.

Most of the children in 1912 knew school was a privilege, did their school work in facilities that we would be appalled at, went home and worked the family farms, and still managed to get to church on Sundays.  We don’t need the same knowledge as they had–we live in a different world.  But we do need to know some things well, and I am really wondering if those things are being taught.

Here’s the exam.  See how you do on it:

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