JW Meets the JW's

Saturday morning was cold, rainy and gross. I was leaving the gym when I noticed two guys in suits and ties walking through the parking lot. As I walked to my car, one of them, a teenager of maybe 13 or 14, greeted me and gave me a copy of a magazine. It was my first parking lot encounter with Jehovah’s Witnesses.

While I drove away, I thought about that kid. It had to be hard for him to approach a stranger and engage her in conversation. Like most boys his age, he probably would have rather been in bed at 8:30 on a dreary Saturday than in a parking lot distributing magazines. Yet he was out there, dressed up, confronting his fears of rejection because he believed it was the right thing to do. I started drawing comparisons to the 14 year olds I know, as well as to the 30 year olds in my life.

Sunday was a much nicer day. Early in the afternoon another Jehovah’s Witness came to my house. She rang the bell and waited a couple minutes for someone to come to the door. When Tabitha got there, the lady invited Tabitha to an upcoming celebration. Lots of local churches canvas my neighborhood with invitations for Easter egg hunts or Trunk-or-Treating, but their approach is different. They anonymously stick fliers in our storm doors. What are they so afraid of? What are Christians so afraid of? What am I so afraid of?

People fear rejection. Christians are no exception. We hesitate to share our faith for fear of offending someone or being laughed at. All the while, we bear the Name of One who:
…was despised and rejected by men, 

a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. 

Like one from whom men hide their faces 

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

I also wonder if Christians are complacent. After all, Scripture teaches us that Christ has secured our victory. We know that we are on the winning team, so maybe we aren’t motivated to play. Paul tells the Corinthian church, “…thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”, but he doesn’t stop there. In the next sentence he tells the young church, “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

Crossing paths with the Jehovah’s Witnesses this weekend was a wake-up call for me, a reminder to always give myself fully to the work of the Lord and not just to the work that is easy or comfortable for me.

Don't Worry Baby

Last week I had the opportunity to take a meal to a family that just brought home a new baby. I really enjoyed planning what to make, preparing the meal and packaging it conveniently. The meal came together perfectly. Since it was St. Patrick’s Day, I even made shamrock-shaped cookies coated with green sugar for dessert. I arrived at the home and things were going great until the proud mama asked me if I’d like to hold the baby.

I responded, a little too quickly, a little too frankly, “No thanks, I am not a baby person.” It’s always best to be honest, I reasoned, and I know many of my friends who have kids don’t mind at all when someone passes on a chance to hold their little ones. But still, how can I defend the statement “I am not a baby person”?

It’s not that I dislike babies. I think I dislike being with babies while their parents watch expectantly. I don’t know if the parents are expecting the baby and I to have this beautiful bonding moment, or if they’re anxious I might drop it. What I know is that it makes me very self-conscious. I’m not familiar with the protocols for rocking, singing, or making noises, so I tend to stand still and speak to the baby as if it were 25 years old. So, you were born. Well done, you. That’s a fine-looking onesie you’re wearing. Meanwhile, the kid’s parents are looking on in awkward fear.

When I told this story, a friend asked me, “So what do you plan to do, adopt two-year-olds?” While I’m game for whatever kind of family God gives me, I do hope to have my own babies at some point. I assume it will be different with my babies. When I talk to them like adults, there won’t be anyone watching. If I want to sing them Billy Joel songs, I can let loose a couple verses of “New York State of Mind” and no one will care.

Perhaps I need a new way of demurring when people ask me to hold their babies. Something like, “Sure, but only if you’re not watching” or, “Before I commit to anything, what are your expectations for holding, rocking and cooing?”

Any parents out there with suggestions?

Teaching Soap-Box 2

Teachers, if you want respect, you have to earn it!

Workshops are not my favorite activities for many reasons. The biggest reason, though, is that I can’t stand to be in a room full of teachers. Teachers are notoriously the worst students. Every behavior that riles us when we are in the front of the room, we do when someone else is teaching. The workshop I attended today was relatively interesting and immediately relevant to my classroom. During the workshop I observed the following behaviors: texting, checking email, talking while the speaker was talking, grading papers, and stapling tests. I admit to talking and texting at points, but I sincerely try to be an enthusiastic participant in workshops simply because I know many others won’t be.

Another thing about teachers that frustrates me is hearing how little they understand of the content they teach. Today the presenter asked us to name our favorite landform. Someone said isthmus and the girl beside me said, “What’s that?” At another workshop the presenter asked us to find an average of results and a teacher in the room was using steps that were completely wrong and was getting loudly impatient with the rest of us who were getting a different answer (the right one). I know a lot of these skills are “use them or lose them” and I don’t judge most adults who have forgotten geography terms or long division. But, when your job is to explain these things to children, you have to know them!

It goes beyond workshops; I’ve heard lots of troubling stories about teachers lately.
• Not grading papers--for an entire quarter
• Showing movies in the middle of the day while they catch up on paperwork
• Swearing within earshot of students
• Having fistfights with other teachers
• Taking off more Fridays than they work

Teachers so often complain about being disrespected by their students, their administrations, or their students’ parents. We get angry when legislators make decisions affecting our time, our pay, or our workload—decisions that seem to minimize the value of our jobs. I’ve been a card-carrying member of the teacher’s union from day one and I am the first to champion teachers’ rights. But, at the risk of losing my NEA membership card, I have to exhort my fellow teachers to step up their games and earn their respect!

Teaching Soap-Box 1

“If I can’t _____________, I can always just teach.” The first time I heard this sentiment expressed I was a college education major and it offended me. Twelve years later, I am a veteran teacher. When I hear someone conclude a thought with, “I can always just teach” I still want to smack them.

As a college student it was offensive to me because it implied I was frittering away four years studying a discipline that other people could “just do.” It minimized my classes, my presentations, my field experiences, my talents.

Now that I have more than a theoretical knowledge of what it is to teach, our society’s attitude toward teaching is even more troubling. It no longer offends me; it frightens me. What other profession lets you start work first, and get trained later? Simply having been a K-12 student does not provide one with the skills required of a teacher any more than the experience of having a cavity filled qualifies one to be a dentist.

In this current economic crisis, my county’s school system has been inundated with applicants. Well-intentioned people, frightened people, looking for job security in troubling times are filling out applications hoping they can “just teach.” My compassion is stirred for these people. Our state has been hit hard by unemployment, but turning to teaching for health benefits, and not for a desire to see children learn, is short-sighted. Similarly, there is a shortage of health care workers in the South, but I don’t think folks have lined up at the hospitals hoping to “just be a nurse.” No state would let people off the street start handling syringes and dispensing medications before they completed training and met licensure standards. As long as people are allowed into classrooms without adequate training and without licenses, our state and local boards of education allow the cheapening of teaching to go on.