I spent 20 years in “church ministry” and for the last four years I have taught second grade in a Texas public school. You are pushing HOT buttons. Politicians don’t know how to run education. In defense of the teachers I know, our goal is 100% passing and I don’t know of any teacher in our buiding “writing off” any student. We put tons of energy into the lowest students too. If anyone gets shafted it is the gifted/high achievers. TAKS is incredibly stressful for teachers and administrators but we do what we do because we love the kids. We fight for our kids.

I don’t know Larry’s source but I can asure you that isn’t representative off all schools and all teachers. I am in a Title 1 school with low socio-economic kids teaching in a bilingual classroom. It is a huge challenge and I pray for God’s strength to help these kids as much as I can.

Who else but college students question as they do, get bored with things worth getting bored over and fired up about things worth getting fired up about?

Give up something stupid, but not teaching.

Daniel
Life and Teachings class of ‘03 (Fall)

God has been teaching me a lot about paring down my life–making it simple, less complex. Leaving behind the American balancing act of “family time” “work time” “what-have-you time”, and “letting the dead bury the dead” knowing who “my mother and my brothers are” putting my “hand to the plow and not looking back”. It’s time to be a radical disciple, letting go of the things of this world.

So, not that you need my permission,and though I know many freshmen will miss out, if God’s calling you to leave teaching behind–go forth and be radical for the kingdom of God!

I have one funny Balaam’s donkey story for you. Apparently in some older versions of the Bible the animal is refered to as an ass. Anyway a friend of mine had a relative who got into a discussion of the story with a preacher one Sunday morning. Apparently this lady had never read the story before so it was completely new to her. She promised to read it that afternoon so she could continue her discussion with the preacher that evening after services. Well, she got side tracked and forgot to look up the story in her Bible. On the way to church that night she suddenly remembered then exclaimed, “Ohh. I forot to look up Balaam’s ass!” Needless to say the lady’s husband almost had a wreck.

A few years ago I was teaching some deaf kids(using sign language of course). Our church organized and t taught Bible classes to some elementary age kids that attended a local deaf school. One Wednesday night I was teaching on Jesus’ parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep and the lost boy. If you know anything about American Sign Language, you know that there is a bit of acting that goes into communicating with it. It’s a multidimensional language that paints a picture instead of just using words. Anyway, after I finished telling the story of the lost boy I noticed that nearly all of the kids had tears in their eyes. It was like a bomb had exploded in their hearts. They told me that they had never heard that story before. Most of the kids came from broken homes and in many cases the father had either left or was in and out of their lives. When they learned what type of father God is, they marveled at the depth of His love for them. Over the next year most of the kids came to know Christ and were baptized.

It amazes me how we can take such powerful stories for granted. We need to realize that when we share Jesus, we are dealing with some powerful stuff.

The good news: most of the students are so in tune with the importance of the Spirit in the story of the Gospels and early church. The bad news: fundamentalists and evangelicals (no matter what the sign on the church says) are way more similar than they are different. So…I’m trying to get them to read the Bible as “the unfolding story of God” (thanks to my good friend John York) rather than a rule book or collection of divine timeless principles.

All that being said, I find these freshmen students to be incredibly spiritual if not “biblically literate”–they have a zest for the Kingdom in ways that far exceed my own.

Christendom might be in trouble…Christianity is writing a new chapter in America.

Mark - Excellent question. Let me clarify what I meant by saying that Randy was preaching on Balaam’s donkey: he was preaching on that topic; he was not, however, actually sitting on the donkey while preaching. It raises an interesting image, though, doesn’t it.

Mandy - Keep forcing your students to think. Your dad did it to me when I was a student at HU.

Brooke - I’m sitting here stunned. Thanks for those words. They make it hard to give up this teaching gig. Blessings on you as you participate in the mission of Jesus.

per my grandma

Today after the lesson one of my students came up and said, “I know what you are doing [with these weekly Supreme Court case discussions]! You are trying to get us to think of things and understand others in a way we never have before!”

YES! (At least one of my students gets it!)