try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around."
(unknown)
"If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence,
try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around." (unknown)
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"It's better to be a little behind than a big behind."
(D. Ed. Hoggatt) Originally posted March 2019 I recently sat in a professional development meeting - a grade-level meeting. Within the meeting, teachers committed many faux pas: they shared out and they referred to kiddos. They wanted everyone to be on the same page and encouraged each other to stick to the teachers edition. But I soon noticed another issue: many of them also wanted to cover everything before the test. They've figured out which lessons to omit, which lessons to consolidate, which assignments to make, how to present the information to small groups, whole groups, and... Whew! You see, these teachers - as good as their intentions may be - want to get to it all, and in doing so, they skip across the surface of everything. I fear that in skipping along the surface, they fail to swim in the deep waters. They rush to get things done in hopes of adhering to a pacing guide. It is a trap that emerges from committing themselves to a script, failing to keep their classrooms autonomous, and failing to take empowerment by the horns. It is a trap that comes from relying on a text. It is a trap deriving from an inability to create and instill creativity. If you are of this ilk, my suggestion is to get your nose out of the book, curate your own materials, grow your own style, go off script, and take the bull by the horns. Whenever you teach, teach well. Never be satisfied with simply exposing your students to a topic rather than covering it more fully. If it's worth teaching, it's worth making it stick. We're not in the business of handing out samples; we are in the business of serving full meals. OK, I know, there are moments within our school year in which students need to be allowed to belly up to the smorgasbord where they can try new tastes in order to find their niches. Generally speaking, however, it is absolutely important for teachers to swim deeper, climb higher, and add rigor to lessons. Be patient enough to teach well not spread things too thinly. Originally posted March 2019 I recently sat in on interviews to replace one of our school employees. One of the questions in the interviews involved the concept that we have shared leadership responsibilities at Cecil Floyd. Shared leadership is something we have slowly developed in our elementary school. In means that decisions are not made by one boss or rule maker, but by representatives of the staff. Parents, community members and, of course, students also have input. We work together to learn from our mistakes and find solutions to improve our environment. We heard answers from a handful of candidates. Teachers helping in the interviews were concerned when a candidate was too meek, too withholding, or too talkative. At the end of all of the interviews, the question arose about whether a direct answer was better or worse than a story leading to an answer. This reminded me of an article in Inc. magazine (online), headlined Public Speaking Is no Longer a 'Soft Skill': It's Your Key to Success in Any Field. The so-called soft skill of storytelling is discussed. One entrepreneur was quoted as follows: If an entrepreneur can't tell a convincing story, I'm not investing. You call it soft. I call it fundamental. Warren Buffett agrees: The one easy way to become worth 50 percent more than you are now -- at least -- is to hone your communication skills -- both written and verbal. The magazine article explains this by giving some examples. One such example compares a worker making $80,000 with another worker, with effective communication skills, who can make $120,000. In a world built on ideas, the persuaders -- the ones who can win hearts and change minds -- have a competitive edge. I've never understood the term "soft skills". That term relegates greeting others, getting along, and having the ability to communicate to secondary status, making it less important than other job skills. That said, we must begin to understand that those skills are key to getting the job, keeping the job, working with associates, doing the job well, and advancing. Calling public speaking a "soft skill" diminishes its value in a world that cherishes the hard sciences. Public speaking isn't soft. It's the equivalent of cold, hard cash. While the Inc. article focuses on monetary advantages, the social aspects for the job candidate (or the job holder) are advantageous to all. Impress people by keeping up a conversation, and one can master many situations: friendships, dating, and professional.
"The only one you're competing with is yourself: beat yourself without beating yourself up."
(D. Ed. Hoggatt) Originally posted March 2019
Truthfully, I have spoken to my brother on a couple of occasions about this. He used to be a corrections officer in a women's maximum security prison, and in trading notes about what we did, it sounded like we could have traded jobs and not noticed a difference. That, of course, is preposterous. In a prison, detainees are locked in; at school, weirdos are locked out. In a school, the teacher rewards difficult assignments and records the results. In the prison, inmates may earn rewards or get out early for good behavior. Time out might be similar, KP may be similar, and we need to stop pointing out the similarities and start emphasizing the differences instead.
Have you seen those annoying ads on TV: people hanging out of windows, shouting at the tops of their lungs, “It’s MY money, and I want it NOW!” In this world of four-minute popcorn, fast food at the drive through, high-speed internet, cell phones, instant messaging, and fuel injection, we want things when we want them – immediately, and not a minute later. We stand in the express line, take our cars to express lube, and watch movies-on-demand. Unfortunately, we just don’t think we can’t wait a moment longer for a bit of it. On top of it all, every Sunday driver in the world wants to cut in front of me, every railroad crossing is be blocked just as I approach it, and every light on Main Street turns yellow when it sees me coming! Simply put, we are impatient. Come to think about it, such impatience is a manifestation of our own greed and selfishness. In fact, it puts us at risk of being childish – like the little boy who can’t wait until Christmas morning to tear off a corner of the wrapping paper on the present under the tree, like the little girl who starts planning her Halloween costume in July, and like the couple who gives in to the temptation to “go too far” before getting married. One of the things we can’t control in this world is time. It’s out of our hands, and we can’t stand it. Our brother, Jeff Smith, makes the following statement: “Great art, great food and great redemption all take time to develop and mature and that requires patience. Patience is old-fashioned, though, and we seem to be competing with a world full of aggressiveness and self-service, where tempers boil over like geysers and change is swift and unforgiving. Without patience, though, we will be lost with the world.” Smith writes, “[I]n a time when medicine, booze and divorce all promise instant relief, longsuffering is a noble, but uncommon virtue.” Patience comes to us from the Greek word, makrothumia. It is “endurance, constancy, steadfastness, perseverance, forbearance, longsuffering, slowness in avenging wrongs*. Listed as one of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5, patience is a virtue, but a rare one. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them (Isaiah 9:2; Matthew 4:16, NASB). * Thayer and Smith, "The New Testament Greek Lexicon"
"When people say we don't want to
reinvent the wheel, I tend to stop listening; I want to reinvent the wheel!" (D. Ed. Hoggatt) It’s amazing how much pleasure can be derived from taking a shortcut. Connecticut Avenue has been closed for a long, long time, and many of our families have been forced to take alternative routes. For a while, we even had to stop at every light on Main Street before finally reaching our destination at the building. It sure makes one appreciate this very real shortcut even more. One of the biggest problems that exist in today’s society is that too many people want to take too many perceived shortcuts on their route to Heaven. We hear it all the time: “We just need to agree to disagree; we’re all going to the same Heaven anyway.” “It’s not a choice; I was born this way.” “She has her whole life ahead of her; delivering a baby would change things too much.” “Why don’t we just live together to see if it will work out; there’s no need to make a lifelong commitment.” “Just say this prayer [the sinner’s prayer], and you will be saved.” “I’m a good man – whether I go to church or not.” “A loving God would not punish his creation in the fires of Hell.” The list goes on and on. The shortcut is appealing and convenient, but the taking the shortcut in matters of faith are also character revealing; it reflects a distorted sense of priorities; and the shortcut becomes a detour and a dead end. In the August Awake! publication from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a lawyer examines their beliefs. Coming from a Jewish background, the attorney was admittedly not faithful to his religion. Then he married an Anglican woman, who eventually felt the couple should “do something to give him some form of religion”. The lawyer-author was resistant when the “Witnesses” came to the door. He, like many, “always cut them short”, but soon, his wife convinced him to join her in studying with them. Here, essentially, is a quick list of what appealed to him about this new religion:
That’s it! That was enough to convert this Jewish attorney to a completely new belief system. Strangely enough, he cites in the article an exact date mentioned in prophecy, relating these dates to the exact date Jesus began his ministry. This type of meticulous attention to Scripture appealed to this man who studies legal and logical laws and regulations. Yet, he has taken a shortcut. Why does he not apply the same logical mind to the many false tenets of the Jehovah’s Witnesses? Where are the questions about their belief that the soul is not immortal? Where is his scrutiny of their idea that the wicked will not suffer in Hell? Shouldn’t he investigate the claim that there is no Trinity? Why is he not reluctant to believe the earth “will be made into a paradise and populated forever by righteous humans”?* To be fair, the “Witnesses” get some things right, as do most religions, but why not study further? For one who claims to be logical and meticulous, it is illogical to stop short of hearing the full testimony of the Bible. For one who is supposedly ground in facts and evidence, it is unreasonable to pass judgment before all the evidence has been weighed. It is a shortcut that our neighbors and peers take everyday, yielding to personal preferences and entertaining presentations rather than the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You and I must never be satisfied with such, and may we be ever-vigilant to grow in rich knowledge of the Bible! I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:1-4, NASB) * Information taken from “Exposed: Six Myths about Christianity”, a series of articles on the Watchtower website
"A dream is a journey for your mind.
Travel safely." (D. Ed. Hoggatt)
The Bible teaches we can’t be disciples of Christ if we don’t have regular intake of Word of God. When you know Word of God well, you’re going to know will of God (John 8:31f; 2 Tim. 3:14-17; Matt. 22:29). Think about This: Bible study is like a piece of art. The foreground is the New Testament. The background is the Old Testament. The frame is our study and worship. If you knew nothing about the Bible, had never seen one, and were handed a Bible, where would you begin? Would you understand? We sit in pews or in Bible class, and we easily conclude that to get closer to God, we must study and pray, but that’s where our instruction stops. We mustn’t be satisfied with such a simplistic conclusion. The apostles asked Jesus to teach them to pray. Philip asked the eunuch if he understood what he read in Isaiah. Study and prayer are difficult if no connections are made, and it’s difficult to make connections by just reading. That being said, what are some study hints?
We make connections:
From How We Got the Bible, “The Birth of the Bible”, by Neil Lightfoot: The Bible was written in three languages – Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Almost all are in Hebrew. Hebrew is strange to us, written right to left, with sounds that are foreign to ears accustomed to English forms and vocabulary unrelated to English words (See Ps. 119 for sample of Hebrew alphabet.). Aramaic is kin to Hebrew. After exile, Aramaic became common tongue in Palestine. Some of Old Testament is Aramaic instead of Hebrew. Sections include 2 words as a place name in Gen. 31:47; one verse in Jeremiah 10:11; about six chapters in Daniel 2:4-7:28; and several chapters in Ezra (4:8-6:18; 7:12-26). Think about This: Maybe this is why Bible study is hard for some. There is a language barrier – not just Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, but also:
When was the beginning? What was before? Who is God? From where did He come?
The title, Genesis, comes from the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament. The Hebrew title is Bereshit (“in the beginning,” literally, “head”), derived from first word of the Hebrew text. More than half of all human history covered in 50 chapters. Our success in life will depend on how closely we build on God’s foundation. Genesis is the foundation of foundations. Genesis is the most foundational book in Scriptures and is rightly described as the “Book of Beginnings”. Genesis is first book of Law - the first of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible that Moses wrote. This is stated at end of his life: Deut. 31:24-26. Lord (2:4) is a translation of YHWH, the name of God - sometimes Jehovah. We say Lord to avoid confusion with the New Testament where Lord is the word used. Who is referred to as Us (1:26)? Hebrew word for God is elohim. It is a plural noun. They are raw, untrained, and fraught with emotion and preconceived notions about where their lives are going, how they are affected by the culture around them, and the ultimate goals of life. Jesus plucks these 12 men from their ordinary lives, and then must help them unlearn a few things. They must be molded into something greater than who they are when He finds them. In the previous lesson, we considered the idea that these apostles have some work to do when they meet Jesus. We figured out that they lacked certain personal traits that, perhaps, we can relate to: they lacked spiritual understanding, humility, and commitment. But that’s not all. Tonight, we’ll see that they also lacked faith and power. How many times do we recall that Jesus said something like, Oh ye of little FAITH, to His closest followers? In Matthew 8:26, He says to them, “Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?” In Matthew 17:20, He tells them “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.” Similarly, in Luke 17:6, He tells them, “If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; and it would obey you.” They are constantly amazed by His teachings and His miracles. Just when they think they've seen it all, Jesus does something else they couldn’t have imagined he could do. He heals a leper: they are amazed. He heals a paralytic: they are amazed. He calms the waves and the wind: they are amazed. He casts out demons: they are amazed. One might think that they could have at some point seen enough to start figuring things out. After all, the very purpose of miracles was to convince people of His authority - to prove that Jesus was the Son of God walking the earth and to increase faith because of that fact. John 20:30f confirms: “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” So why do they need so much convincing? Read in Hebrews 11, and I’ll restate the question. Verse 6 lets us know that, “[W]ithout faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” The question becomes, Why do I need so much convincing? They lacked spiritual understanding. They lacked humility. They lacked commitment and faith. Then, finally, we have to note that the apostles lacked POWER. They craved power, as we’ve noted before, and they would be less effective without power. Only when the time was right did Jesus gather them, in Matthew 10:1: “Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.” That power - that authority - comes upon them on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. They no longer argued about which of them would be the greatest in the kingdom. Now, the power of the Holy Spirit would work through them to accomplish God’s Plan for the new church. Why should Jesus bother with such a crowd? Our easy answer is because He loves us. He has always loved us since before the creation of our tangible world. Jesus claims, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:16f). John reveals in 1 John 3:16, “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” We see such a transition in the 12 men that Jesus chose for His apostles to build on the foundation of the church. They are ordinary men made extraordinary due to their direct proximity to the Savior of the world and due to the Spirit that compelled them forward. The question is asked: can the same be accomplished through us, today? We don’t have the power to heal the sick, cast out demons, calm the weather, or forgive sins, but can we finally realize that if we allow God to work through us, with the confidence that we have studied and understand His Plan, we can accomplish remarkable things for God. We, obedient, faithful servants, can do His will and bring glory to Him. We go from this place tonight with 2 Peter 3:17f in our hearts: “You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity.” |
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