In Times Like These

This week I was in charge of giving the communion thoughts at church. I decided to speak about the events in Boston from this week. Below you will find my thoughts. 

 

In Times Like These

If you’re like me, you have probably spent a little more time this week tuned in to a news channel while taking in all the latest information on the tragedy in Boston.  During times like these we all undoubtedly hear questions asking “is there any hope for us?” As a father, I worry about what type of world I am bringing my daughter up in. But, even though, in times like this, we feel that there is no hope for humanity, we must remember that we do have hope and that hope is in the form of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. As Christians, I believe that we have a duty in times like this to help restore others faith in humanity. To do this we must continue to be the hands and feet of Jesus. We must continue to put Jesus first in everything we do and we must continue to make others see Jesus in our actions and words. We must show the world that we have hope because we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah 26:4 tells us to “Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.” This is a calling that we should practice every day, but especially in the wake of situations like the one this week.

When is a good time to get sick?

Last week had spring break which should serve as a time to relax and a time to recharge before the last stretch of 7 weeks of school. In our county, we have one week of review and then the state standardized exams or CRCT. This one week is our last chance to re-teach, review, and re-whatever we need to do to prepare our students for the high stakes testing that we all know and love. As you probably figured, this is a very important week for everyone at the school and probably not the best time to start missing days from the classroom. Lucky for me, my new friend bronchitis decided to pay me a visit.

 

 

I thought I could knock it out by making a visit to the urgent care on Sunday morning, but to no avail as a reaction to a steroid shot kept me awake all night and cost me to miss the first day back at school on Monday. I kept thinking to myself that it would be ok as I would still have four whole days and I would still be able to review the most important parts of our material for the test in those days. I go in to work on Tuesday and last a whole 4 hours before going home with a fever. After a second trip to the urgent care, a change in medicines and adding medicines; I finally am able to get out of the house again on Saturday. Yes, Saturday. I missed the whole week of school except for 4 little hours (2 and a half of those hours were homeroom, planning, and lunch). 

 

 

So, here we are. Staring down the CRCT and I haven't had a chance to review with my students at all. All week I kept saying to myself that this is not a good time to be sick, but, as a teacher, is there ever a good time to be sick? It seems that every day is so important that it cannot be missed. At least that is the way I feel. 

Surprise Spring Break Trip

This week was the much anticipated Spring Break. I decided last week to plan a surprise trip for the family and all I told my wife was that we were leaving on Monday morning and we would be back sometime Wednesday evening. I wouldn't tell her where we were going or anything. The only clues she had was that she would need some warmer type clothes and her bathing suit. Yeah, those clues didn't help either. So off we went on our journey and things were going smoothly until we got 45 minutes from our destination and found out the road was closed due to a landslide. Ok, we will take a slight detour and be there soon. Boy was I wrong; the slight detour took our 45 minute drive and turned it into 2 hours and 15 minutes. So, off we went again and we finally reached our destination of Gatlinburg, TN around 4:00. Both of us have been to Gatlinburg before, but neither has been in many years so this was going to be a fun and quick family trip for us. I quickly remembered that Gatlinburg is not somewhere to go if you are wanting to lost weight. We quickly made our way to Bubba Gump Shrimp Company and upon leaving there made plans to go to Pancake Pantry for breakfast the next morning. Of course, we had to stop at the Funnel Cake shop on the way back to the hotel for a treat.

The next day we took Callie to Wild Bear Falls Indoor Water Park and boy did she have a great time. They have a couple smaller areas which were perfect for kids her age, a lazy river, water slides, and a deeper pool which she could "swim" in. This was by far one of the most enjoyable days of being a Dad as I saw my little girl's face light up as she kicked her little feet and "swam" back and forth to her mother and me until we finally told her it was time to go. That night we decided to go back downtown to have dinner at a Mexican restaurant which was right on the creek and Callie got to watch the ducks as we enjoyed our tacos. We also took a little time to do a little shopping (had to get some fudge) where Callie made a new friend (see below) and stopped by an arcade where Callie took a couple rides and then beat me at air hockey (sorry no pic of that).

Wednesday morning we got up and realized that we probably have spent more in food than travel and lodging so we ate breakfast, took a scenic drive, and visited Ober Gatlinburg before heading home.

 

 

So much of the time we are in such a hurry to get from one place to another and to take care of the "important" stuff that we forget to slow down and take time for what is most important. I am glad that we were able to do that a little bit this week.

These Kids Today

As an educator, you always know you will have days where these thoughts pass through your mind. Well, I have had two of those days already this week where I have asked myself what kind of world will we have when these kids are the ones running it. I just do not see how we will be able to survive in a country where the vast majority of the population does not care enough about learning something new that they will take three minutes out of their lives to find an answer on their own. What kind of world will we have when these are the type of people running the world?

                You see, earlier this week we discussed moon phases in my class and I tied it in to the upcoming Easter holiday. I asked each of my classes if anyone knew how the exact date for Easter was decided from year to year. No one knew in any of my classes and they just assumed that I would tell them. I told each class to go on the internet and research the answer. Then they were to email me their findings. I even told them I would give something to the people that emailed me the correct answer. Now, I have 120 students, so I took time to clean out my inbox before I left for the day to make room for the multitude of emails I would receive that evening. This was such an easy assignment since all they had to do was go to Google and then copy and paste what they found in an email and then hit send. Goodness, they were going to be on the internet anyway. The next morning I opened my email and found a whopping 15 emails. Let me repeat that, 15 emails. 15 emails out of 120 students! 15 students cared enough to take 3 minutes out of their lives to find out something new on their own and I even told them I would do something for the ones that got it right.  I was shocked as I asked each and every class why more didn’t email me and the excuses came rolling in. Basically, all it came down to was that most didn’t want to go through the effort to find the answer on their own and that they would rather wait for someone else (me) to give them the answer.  So I am left to wonder, what kind of world will we have if this continues? What kind of world?

Camping, Reed Style

I have an Aunt and Uncle who are lucky enough to travel to Florida for the winter. They are able to stay on the beach on the panhandle of Florida and escape the cold, windy Indiana winter. They are lucky enough to do this from the comfort of their very own motorhome.  This past weekend, they started their journey back home again to Indiana (insert song lyrics here) and decided to stay a couple of nights at a campground in Decatur, AL. So, I loaded up the wife and our two and a half year old and we traveled over for a weekend of camping.

Now, I don’t do camping as in “roughing it” camping. My wife probably wouldn’t do well with that type of camping either and I definitely am not going to try to take a two year old camping in the “roughing it” sense. My idea of camping is heat and A/C. My idea of camping is a fridge, a stove, and a microwave. My idea of camping is running water and a PRIVATE place to take a shower and to use the restroom. My idea of camping is being able to pick up my Kindle or my smartphone and being able to check face book. My idea of camping was being able to sit on the couch in the motorhome and watching Big 10 and SEC basketball tournament games when my favorite teams were playing.  My idea of camping was knowing I was able to jump in my car at any moment and drive 5 minutes into town to get whatever it was that I needed. This was my idea of camping.

Some people might not categorize what we did last weekend as “camping”, but what we did last weekend was my idea of camping and that is really all that matters. If your idea of camping is the “roughing it” style, then more power to you. All I can say to you is that you never have to worry about having me join you on one of your “real” camping trips.

 

 

 

 

 

My Blogroll

The following are links to my current blogroll:

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/

http://blog.web20classroom.org/


http://barringerfamilyblog.blogspot.com/


http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

Pan-STARRS Comet and how lucky we are

Over the last few days astronomy geeks have had the chance to view a comet in the evening sky. This has been a real treat for me and my class as we have just started our unit on astronomy. I always enjoy this unit for a few reasons. The first being that I personally enjoy talking, learning, and teaching about astronomy. I feel that my students are able to sense that enjoyment in my lessons and hopefully it makes things a little more interesting than they would be if we were covering erosion and deposition. Secondly, this is the last unit we cover before spring break and the state standardized exams. Although standardized testing time is a stressful time for all, it also means that spring is around the corner and the end of the school year is not too far behind. The main reason I enjoy this unit has to be because the students seem to enjoy it more than any other unit we cover during the year. They are totally amazed by the grand specter of space and the universe. You should see their faces when I tell them that it is a distance of over 100,000 light years just to get across our galaxy. Then I tell them how much 1 light year equals! Their minds are totally blown. They cannot believe how small our planet, our solar system, and even our rather large galaxy is in the grand scheme of the entire universe. They have question after question about so many different things that I finally have to cut them off just to make sure we are able to cover all the material we still need to cover. Then we get an event like the Pan-STARRS comet. They cannot get enough of this comet. They want to read more about it. How can they see it? Do they need binoculars? Where do they need to look? Even the students which have been the hardest to motivate have told me of their plans to see the comet. I have provided them with as much information as I can in the classroom. We have read articles and I even had them write a "letter to a friend" which describes how they too can see the comet. These types of events should always serve as a reminder that we live in a large universe and we are but a small, small part of it. I always try to make sure I remind my students of how lucky we are to have just the right conditions to live here on Earth and how we should not take that lightly. There are billions upon billions of miles out there where life cannot exist so we should do the best we can to take advantage of how lucky we are to have a place where life can exist as it does here on Earth.

 

For more information on the Pan-STARRS comet: http://www.space.com/20175-comet-pan-starrs-near-moon.html