The value of education

Education has always, or at least for a long time, been a value in this nation, correct?  Thomas Jefferson said, "An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people."  Since Jefferson was in office many federal and state dollars have been put towards educating the citizens and future leaders of our society.  But have we lost sight, lost focus of this priority somewhere along the way?

It seems that the focus has turned to homeland security, and spending money on wars on foreign soil and anti-terrorism.  Homeland security has always had a fuzzy definition for me, but the current spending pattern seems to demonstrate that no one has a clear definition for it.

Furthering this thought about education and spending, what if we fully funded our schools?  Maybe then prison funding wouldn't be an issue.  Maybe, we would find money left over to fund our institutions of higher education, and the society of educated citizens that Jefferson envisioned would actually have a shot at reality.  Just some food for thought.

I'm a teacher! (No but for real this time)

Hi y'all!  This post is long overdue.  I'm glad you don't expect these on a regular basis, because I am crappy at it.  Anywho.

At the beginning of summer, I wrote and bragged about how I had just accepted a job, and I was now officially a teacher, Yipee!  Several things have happened since then:  I passed all the Praxis exams (first try), I actually have my license, I have had my first day of school (best & worst day), and no kids have gotten hurt or died on my watch!  That's a success.  I really meant to write another post once I moved, but that didn't happen, and then a post while I was a midst the craziness of prepping my classroom, also didn't happen, and a really important post after my first day.  Well, today is the day after labor day, and we've been in school for over two weeks.  Oops.  I'll do my best to summarize the last three months.

Moving away from Hillsboro was really hard.  I had a final lunch date with my summer boss before I left.  She pointed out that if I was having trouble saying goodbye it only meant that I had connected, and really made my time worthwhile in that place.  Three years ago I never would've imagined it would've been so hard to leave silly old Hillsboro and tiny Tabor.  But it was.  It was hard to leave friends, and the Christian community that had been home for three years.  It was also hard because I knew one person moving out here, but no super-close friends.  Furthermore I now live six hours from where I grew up.  Funnily enough, as many of you know, this is not the farthest I have ever lived from home.  But I don't have a return ticket this time, and it was scary.  This is the farthest from home any of my siblings have ever lived indefinitely.

I moved July 27, just me my parents and the U-haul.  After some final hugs and packing help from Rachel, Michael and Asia, checkin' out of my boring, white apartment, and some Subway lunch, we hit the open road.  My parents got to experience first hand just how excruciatingly long the stretch from Hutch to Dodge is.  Bleech!  We got in before any rain hit, and moved me into a slightly larger, two story apartment in Sublette.

Monday morning I set to work in my classroom, sure that I didn't have near enough time, and not having a clue what I was doing.  The next three weeks-ish I spent in meetings or workshops or in my classroom, certain I was not cutout to do this job and that I was nowhere near prepared.  Thankfully I work for a great Educational Cooperative and I have a sound and encouraging mentor and a supervisor, who both assured me that I was indeed ready.  The night before school started I couldn't sleep because I was just positive that the next day was going to flop.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL: I didn't wake up excited or with butterflies, I just wished I could go back to bed.  I thought this to be a bad sign.  Coffee helped a little, but the 12 mile drive to school didn't help much.  Once I pulled into the metropolis of Copeland, the excitement starting bubbling up until I could hardly contain it.  By the time I got to the school parking lot I was bursting with joy.  I saw a junior high student as soon as I walked in the doors, who very cheerily said good morning, and I knew it was going to be a great day.  My first day of teaching excitement is akin to my first day of Kindergarten.  I was finally big enough to go to school!  Again, I'm finally big enough to go to school (and get paid for it)!  The rest of the day was fine, not all my butterflies were gone, there were some scary parts, but it went fairly slowly and I got through it.

Since then, I've been getting by, getting better, getting to know my surroundings and my students.  I truly do love every one of my students, and I love that constantly seeking ways to improve their education is my job.  I'm thankful for the school that I work at and the Cooperative that I'm employed by and I believe in their missions and philosophies of educating students.  No matter how cliche` I sound, each day brings about new successes and challenges.  Building relationships, especially with people my own age is slow, but it's getting there.  I've been visiting churches, and I'm close to settling on one.  Something I absolutely can't forget is that God sent my here, and He's taking care of me no matter what.

Tomorrow...is the first day I have a substitute.  I'm not super scared, but I'm nervous.  I'm worried that my plans aren't detailed enough, and everything is going to crumble when I'm gone.  Granted, things crumble even when I'm there, but then I'm there to pick up the pieces.  But it won't, and I have fabulous paras who will hold down the fort.

Thank you for sticking it out this far (in the blogpost, and life).  As always, thanks for your prayers!
Becca

I'm a teacher!

Almost, pretty much, basically.  I don't actually have a license in hand. But it's coming!  This is more of a teacher that I've ever been!  I've taught Sunday School and Bible school and lessons to real kids in school.  But no, now I'm really a teacher!  See look, I'll prove it.  I did some very important things to become a teacher:

1. I graduated college!  With a bachelor's degree (and an endorsement and a minor)!  Yahoo!  Yay! Yay yay yay!
2. I got a job!  Signed a contract the whole bit and kaboodle!  To date I have had two official job offers, and two other "are-you-still-looking-for-a-job" offers.  Which are pretty much basically job offers, right?
3. I passed the Praxis! The whats-is? you say.  The Praxis.  It's the hard standardized exam for teachers.  Let's do some analogy work here.  The Praxis exam is to teachers as the state boards are to nurses and as the bar exam is to lawyers.  Well I passed two tests that is.  I still need to pass a third one, but I'm not worried.

So there you have it.  I'm I real-life, almost-certified, got-a-job-teaching-real-kids teacher.  I'm going to be teaching Special Education for kids in grades K-8 in Copeland Kansas.  It's going to be a tiny town, and a wild ride.  I look forward to growing to love those kids in big ways.  Thanks for your prayers y'all

holiday trees?

You may have read this post on facebook, or one similar to it.

"It was announced that there will not be Christmas trees at the White house this year. They will be called Holiday Trees. Obama says this is no longer a Christian Country, it's a country of many faiths. We as Americans must send the message to Obama that this Country was founded on Christian beliefs and we are STILL a Christian Country. Please repost this and let's stand up for CHRIST! MERRY CHRISTMAS! May God have mercy on this nation! THEY ARE FREAKIN CHRISTMAS TREES....Go home if you don't like it!"

Now, I'm all for Christmas. I go around my day-to-day activities and my shopping during this season greeting random strangers and cashiers with Merry Christmas. Granted, the traditionally festively decorated evergreens are associated with Christmas. However, in all fairness, this is not a Christian country. The founding fathers may have been Christian men who did daily devotions and had Christian principles in mind when writing the original documents to govern our country, but until the actions of this country's government align with the teaching of Jesus Christ, this can not be called a Christian nation. One of the basic principles that this country was founded on was freedom of religion, and those many religions in this country have differing holidays during the winter season. So it seems contradictory to demand that traditionally decorated trees in the home of the nations leader be referred to as Christmas trees. Yes, they are Christmas trees. They are not Kwanzaa trees, Hanukkah trees, Yule trees, Eid trees or Diwali trees. But if you were the President of a nation that boasts freedom of religion, would you not call them holiday trees in an effort to be sensitive to all the religions that are practiced in your nation? Let's not get all bent out of shape now shall we?

global collage

It strikes me how while aimlessly scrolling through my news feed on facebook, the posts are so drastically different. One is a status that says, "GO BIG RED!" And my heart inside says, "Yeah GO BIG RED! Win today! Beat Penn State! Carry on the Husker legacy!" The next won is a shared photo of a man's feet, from a third world country. The shoes on his feet are plastic bottles that have been flattened, and he used some type of root or twine to make them into thongs. And my heart falls and thinks how sad I am for him, and how ironic it is that I'm viewing this on my laptop from my heated dorm. The next is a small collection of blurry photos of a happy couple newly engaged. I smile and my heart leaps in joy because I like them, and they are good for each other. A pep talk from the Cornhuskers facebook page. A shared photo of a comic depicting the difficulty of awakening, "So true," I think. A status: "GO TCU! Win for my birthday!" A shared link of an inspirational contemporary Christian song on You Tube. A shared link of an article raising awareness of anti-LGBT groups and their cruelty.

Facebook has made a global collage. Of all we think, dream, live, believe, love, hate, do, wish, talk, see and hear. Sometimes I think we "share" these things without thinking, our hand on the left-clicker of our computer mouse is disconnected from our brain. Later we browse through everything those we love or don't know have "shared" with our eyes/heart disconnected from our hand. Hmmm.

this

This past Sunday at church the worship leader asked us what comes to mind when we hear the word 'God.' She paused for a moment to let us think before continuing on with the meditation. It was only for a moment, but the image I saw in my mind's eye was that of a child. A destitute child. Starved for love, acceptance, food, someone to teach them. This caught me a little off guard, and I wondered if it was only a glimpse, that I was imaginging this image because I thought that's what I SHOULD see, because I'm an education major. As I sat there in the pew pondering this possibility, it only became more clear to me that what I had seen was in fact what God had intended me to see. It felt like a confirmation, a calling if you will. It felt as if God was saying, this is the least of these, that's who I'm talking about. This is who I have called you to serve. And what's more, I'll share a secret with you, it was definitely a child in Southern Asia, or Northern Africa, a child of color. I've wanted to go to India since I was about nine years old. It felt like God was saying to me, stick with the education major, even though it's dragging, there's a purpose behind it, keep that passion and hope alive to serve internationally. Don't let going to India become some 3rd grade dream that never comes true. For this is what I have called you to do, this is who I have called you to be. This is who I am.

Crazy

Saying it all now sounds crazy. Absolutely crazy. But apparently before this summer started I thought I was turbo woman. I set out to do it all.

My plans were to:

-have full-time job,

-have part-time job,

-take 9 credit hours,

-try to figure out how to be in a close-distance dating relationship after being in a long-distance one for 1 1/2 years,

-live "on my own" for the first time.

-be responsible for a farm full of animals for four weeks (currently)

Sounds crazy doesn't it? But this is what I was going to do. Maybe, in some alternate universe I could have, or in 5 years, or 2 years ago, but not now. I keep asking myself where I went wrong. Where did I fail? Cuz that's what I feel like right now, a failure. Well, my full-time job started before school was really over, so maybe that's where I went wrong. And while education majors don't really have finals, I was playing catch-up from being bogged down/procrastinating, so I never really got a breather, one just flowed right into the other, and it didn't exactly flow. Ok, that must be it, that's where I went wrong. I had decided before school was done that I was going to quit my part-time job, so I put in my two weeks. Did things flow/automatically get easier then? Ha! Course not! I'm not turbo woman remember?

So I went through June, being stressed at work, stressed at home, thankful the people I'm living with weren't on vacation yet, not seeing my boyfriend as often as I thought I should, going to out-of-state obligations, not doing my homework, feeling like beating my head against a wall at the end of every work day. It was a grand month. At the end of this month, through some tearful deliberating I decided to drop 3 credit hours. Yahoo! This should make my life so much easier right? And the week I'm in charge at work I have to open at 6:30am, which means I get done way sooner, so I'll have plenty of time to catch up on homework right? Or...veg in front of the nearest screen to avoid feeling constantly overwhelmed which inevitably makes me feel even more overwhelmed. So now I'm faced with yet another decision through tearful deliberation. Do I drop my remaining credit hours? I'm not getting them done, they're stressing me out, and if my stressful summer flows into a stressful fall (it won't flow folks) it'll be all bad. But I feel like such a quitter, a failure! I don't quit! The last thing I quit was children's choir in 7th grade, and it was so awful that I've focused a lot of energy on not quitting anything ever. Dropping three credit hours was hard enough, and now to drop the remaining six? What's wrong with me? Other people have done it, are doing it, can do it. Why can't I? Am I deficient? When I look back on everything I set out to do at the beginning of summer, it sounds crazy. Absolutely CRAZY. And I tell myself I shouldn't have started it in the first place. But how were you supposed to have known says a voice in my head. How? I don't know, but I was turbo woman remember? Oh right, I'm not. I'm not turbo woman, I'm not psychic, I'm not self-sufficient. I'm a child of God. Who needs to be led through life by a mighty hand.

Lord forgive me for thinking I could do it all on my own. Thank you for constantly watching out for me.

Amen.