what's happening in schools today?

Here's an analogy for what is going on in schools today...

My dentist is great! He sends me reminders so I don't forget checkups. He uses the latest techniques based on research.

He never hurts me, and I've got all my teeth, so when I ran into him the other day, I was eager to see if he'd heard about the new state program. I knew he'd think it was great.

"Did you hear about the new state program to measure the effectiveness of dentists with their young patients?" I said.

"No," he said. He didn't seem too thrilled. "How will they do that?"

It's quite simple," I said. "They will just count the number of cavities each patient has at age 10, 14, and 18 and average that to determine a dentist's rating.

Dentists will be rated as Excellent, Good, Average, and Below Average and Unsatisfactory. That way parents will know which are the best dentists. It will also encourage the less effective dentists to get better," I said. "Poor dentists who don't improve could lose their licenses to
practice."

"That's terrible," he said.

"What? That's not a good attitude," I said. "Don't you think we should try to improve children's dental health in this state?"

"Sure I do," he said, "but that's not a fair way to determine who is practicing good dentistry."

"Why not?" I said. "It makes perfect sense to me."

"Well, it's so obvious," he said. "Don't you see that dentists don't all work with the same clientele; so much depends on things we can't control?

"For example," he said, "I work in a rural area with a high percentage of patients from deprived homes, while some of my colleagues work in upper middle class neighborhoods. I don't get to do much preventive work. Many of the parents I work with can't afford to bring their children to see me until there is some kind of problem."

"Also," he said, "many of the parents I serve let their kids eat way too much candy from an early age, unlike other parents who understand the relationship between sugar and decay." "To top it all off," he added, "so many of my clients have well water which is untreated and has no fluoride in it. Do you have any idea how much difference early use of fluoride can make?"

"It sounds like you're making excuses," I said. I couldn't believe my dentist would be so defensive. He does a great job.

"I am not!" he said. "My best patients are as good as anyone's, my work is as good as anyone's, but my average cavity count is going to be higher than a lot of other dentists because I chose to work where I am needed most."

"Don't get touchy," I said.

"Touchy?" he said. His face had turned red and from the way he was clenching and unclenching his jaws, I was afraid he was going to damage his teeth.

"Try furious. In a system like this, I will end up being rated average, below average, or worse. "Some of my patients who see these ratings may believe this so-called rating actually is a measure of my ability and proficiency as a dentist. They may leave me, and I'll be left with only the neediest patients. And my cavity average score will get even worse.

On top of that, how will I attract good dental hygienists and other excellent dentists to my practice if it is labeled below average?"

"I think you are overreacting," I said. "Complaining, excuse making and stonewalling won’t improve dental health'...I am quoting from a leading member of the DOC", I noted.

"What's the DOC?" he asked.

"It's the Dental Oversight Committee," I said, "a group made up of mostly laypersons to make sure dentistry in this state gets improved."

"Spare me," he said. "I can't believe this. Reasonable people won't buy it," he said hopefully.

The program sounded reasonable to me, so I asked, "How else would you measure good dentistry?"

"Come watch me work," he said. "Observe my processes."

"That's too complicated and time consuming," I said. "Cavities are the bottom line, and you can't argue with the bottom line. It's an absolute measure."

"That's what I'm afraid my parents and prospective patients will think. This can’t be happening," he said despairingly.

"Now, now," I said, "don't despair. The state will help you some."

"How?" he said.

"If you're rated poorly, they'll send a dentist who is rated excellent to help straighten you out," I said brightly.

"You mean," he said, "they'll send a dentist with a wealthy clientele to show me how to work on severe juvenile dental problems with which I have probably had much more experience? Big help."

"There you go again." I said. "You aren't acting professionally at all."

"You don't get it," he said. "Doing this would be like grading schools and teachers on an average score on a test of children's progress without regard to influences outside the school, the home, the community served and stuff like that. Why would they do something so unfair to dentists? No one would ever think of doing that to schools."

I just shook my head sadly, but he had brightened. "I'm going to write my representatives and senator," he said. "I'll use the school analogy-surely they will see the point."

He walked off with that look of hope mixed with fear and suppressed anger that I see in the mirror so often lately.

humbled by love

The other night, I got to experience something amazing- being humbled by the love I was shown from another human being. I say human being because there have been many times when I have been humbled by God's love for me... but never His love shown through another human... not to this extent anyway.
This particular day was really hard for me. Something that hadn't really hit me yet until the other day is just how drastically different my community is. Let me explain... last year, I lived with three other girls, one of them was my best friend, and we all grew to be family. I also had led a bible study for the two previous years and always had a group of girls my age who I hung out with. NOW... I live at home with my family. My sister lives in Chicago. My best friend is halfway across the world. My other close friends are either still doing the college thing or live far away.
Now don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that I'm lonely. I'm around people all the time. But I don't have the same relational ties that I had before and my community is completely different. I don't have roommates, I don't have girlfriend, I don't have girl-time, I don't have girls nights out... nothing. I was feeling very alone...
But then there's this amazing man in my life... I shared with him that I was upset and generally why I was upset. And he said he wished he could be there to hug me (but you see he lives an hour away from me) and that was that, he said he had to go run some errands. I was feeling sad again after that because this man is very important to me and I didn't really feel like he cared that much... He called me two hours later to tell me that he was sending something to my house at 8:30 so to make sure I was there. When I pulled into my driveway around 8:25... there he was. Standing in my driveway with a dozen beautiful peach roses (the only kind I like) and with open arms.
I can't even express the humility I felt... I say that in all honesty. I was absolutely blown away by this act of him showing me how much he cares for me and wants to me to know that. Obviously, he knows that he cannot replace my best girlfriend... but he wants to do the best that he can for me to be with me in all situations of my life, in everything. I definitely didn't feel like I deserved it, but that act just points me to Christ...
Here I am,
humbled by the love that you give,
forgiven so that I can forgive
here I stand,
knowing that I'm Your desire,
sanctified by glory and fire
Now I've found the greatest love of all is mine,
since You laid down Your life, the greatest sacrifice
majesty, majesty
Your grace has found me just as I am,
empty-handed but alive in Your hands...

advocate

(disclaimer: this is a long rant)
Of all the roles Jesus plays in our lives, the one of the advocate has always stuck out in my mind. Being a teacher, we often get to be the advocate for our students in order to get them a better education. This is something I have known and, quite honestly, a lot of the reason why I feel drawn to teaching in urban schools. However, not being in an urban area right now, I can see that even these students NEED more than they're getting...

for other word-nerds like me, this is what advocate means:
ad·vo·cate (ād'və-kāt')
1. One that argues for a cause; a supporter or defender.
2. One that pleads in another's behalf; an intercessor.
advocate. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Retrieved September 16, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/advocate

The education system in our country is deteriorating. With standardized test scores determining "good" schools from "bad" schools and how funding gets dispersed...
High test scores = "good" school low test scores = "bad" school
The "good" school gets rewarded for their high marks and received more funding... but wait... how, then,is the "bad" school going to get any better if their funding is less?
So flip it, give low-scoring schools more money and higher scoring schools less... but then what would be the incentive to get high scores on those standardized tests if they know they can get more funding for being "bad"?
In our country, everyone has the right to an education... but what if the things we are trying to do aren't working to get our students the kind of education we are proposing? Shouldn't that warrant change?
Anyone can teach to a test... just because students score high on tests doesn't mean they are actually learning.
What's more... is that our economy becomes more and more globalized, we need to be prepared to enter into that and survive. Just so everyone knows, the world becoming globalized doesn't mean that everyone is going to learn English for us. We have one of the only public school systems in the world that doesn't require foreign (or world, as they are now referred to) languages starting from Elementary School. Knowing more than one language is a skill that our children and our children's children are going to HAVE to possess in order to survive. So if this is the trend and most research points to the fact that learning another language gets a LOT harder as you get older, why is it that World Language classes in Elementary schools are the among the first things to get cut from curricula?
I don't understand it... but this ignorance needs to stop. We can't expect that the world is just going to be at our beck and call and do whatever they need to do to make our lives easier. If you haven't noticed, the U.S. is not the most powerful country in the world anymore...

So what am I going to do about this?
Don't think I haven't thought about it already. I'm not going to be one of those people who have strong opinions and beliefs about something but don't do anything about it. These ideas have struck a chord in my heart... why can't I be the advocate for our students? Why can't I fight for them? The idea that I have right now... is to get my master's degree in Early Childhood Development and advocate for World Language programs and Bilingual Schools. So that every kid will graduate from high school with a high level of fluency in another language.

...or we could just declare a second national language for our country. Then students would HAVE to know two languages.

early mornings...

Being a teacher, I have to be at school earlier than the students to prepare for the day. I usually get up at 5 am, which is the earliest I've ever had to get up on a daily basis.
There's something that I've noticed on my early-morning drives to work on my way to work... I'm out too early to actually see the sunrise, but I get to see the beginning of it. But this is what happens.... I get in my car and I can see the sky getting lighter over to the east. As I'm driving, when the trees break up, I can see the colors in the sky. This morning, there were no clouds, so it was just pure sky... a small hint of redish-orange on the horizon, which fades to a yellow, then to a small, faint green shade and then a massive expanse of blue... which fades to deeper blue as you look up and over to the west. Most of my drive is north, and there are a lot of trees, so I can just see the sky getting lighter on my right... and I get so anxious to see the orange and red, because I know it's going to be beautiful. Then, on my last stretch of road before I turn onto the road my school is on (it's not even a mile) I'm finally going east and there's a break in the trees.... It's one of the most beautiful few moments of my day. Then, I fight my urges to just drive and park somewhere where I can watch the sunrise and turn north onto the road my school is on, and the color hides behind the trees. After I park my car, if I'm lucky, I can see little hints of color at the top of the trees... and sometimes the color of the sun reflecting off of the clouds in the sky...
It's absolutely beautiful.
For me, this also brings something else to mind...it makes me think about life and how throughout all of it, we get to see little glimpses of God's glory... but we won't get to fully experience it until we're with Him in heaven. But when we see those little glimpses... we're so excited for the next one we'll get... and it's SO beautiful...

kids say the darndest things...

Last thursday was the last day I was in school, because of friday grad classes. I was teaching the Spanish 1 classes the geography of Latin America. Why is it that we're so bad at knowing where other places are in the world? Are we really that self-consumed?? Ill stop there with that, that would be a whole other issue and take away from the point of what I'm saying.
So my focus class is 4th hour, right before lunch, so they're always a little fiestier than any of my other classes. So we were going down the countries, south from Mexico, and we got to Honduras, a country that I've visited and that the kids know I've been to because I told them the day before. I asked the class if anyone knew the name of the country and that I had talked about visiting there... and one of the kids yells,"Starbucks!"
Now this didn't come completely out of no where. In the presentation I gave about myself the day before, I also shared with them my love for coffee, so he showed that he remembered... It just cracks me up! A country called Starbucks.... that would definitely be where I would want to live!
Anyway, kids are funny. And I can't wait to hear what else they say throughout this year. I'm looking forward to getting to know my students. That's good, right?
My mentor and I have also gotten to have some amazing conversations about faith and trusting God and following Him. I'm starting to see why this is exactly where God wanted me for this year, that He had this all planned out the whole time. It's given me so much peace, I'm not really worried about anything. Not a thing... it's that peace that transcends all understanding... that's what I've got...

primer dia

Well today was my first day on this end of the school day....

It was definitely different than I thought. It was very interesting to see how the kids varied in their attention spans as the day went on. I know it could have just been because it was the first day, but the kids seemed to be very unenthusiastic as the day went on. I was also struck by the variation in skill level across the classes. One of the Spanish 3 classes was really sharp and very talkative, while the later in the day 3 class was not up to par with the skills. We picked my focus class, too, 4th hour Spanish 1. They were so great and really understood what I was saying. I'm really excited to work with them. We'll see how things progress as the year goes on...

*One more cool thing that happened today... A lot of the teachers and administrators have a hard time distinguishing the interns from students (You know how all older people look about the same age? it's like that for older people when it comes to young people) But I was so excited today when one of the students in last hour recognized me as a teacher :)

We will see how much they respect my authority as the year progresses...