are whispered, not yelled."
(Unknown)
"Words that soak into your ears
are whispered, not yelled." (Unknown)
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Originally Posted November 17, 2018 When I was in educational classes at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, I was introduced to the traditional lesson line. In order to optimize time and allow for a variety of learning styles, that lesson line required a teacher to plan for every step of a lesson. Each lesson, according to the line, must have a distinct anticipatory set and conclusion, each of which included a clear statement and review of the objectives for the lesson. Even today, some principals and other administrators require teachers to post their objectives or goals on a board for students to read. I absolutely followed that line. However... When I was ready for my principal to make his first sit-down observation in my classroom, I ticked every box on the lesson line. Mr. Shelton was not impressed. After the lesson, I sat in his office and the first thing I remember him telling me was, "That was not a lesson; that was an assignment." I was shocked. I had followed the lesson line. I had told students what we would be doing. At the end, I had told them what we just did. In my opinion, every piece was there. Still, Principal Shelton asked, "Hasn't anyone ever taught you how to put together a lesson?" Uh oh. "I guess not," I answered. And the bearded man took me by the hand and guided me through what he expected to see. At the next observation (He threw out the first.), Shelton saw me take every piece of his advice and actually teach the lesson. My next office visit was quite different. This time, he was the one who was shocked. He was so impressed that I had mastered all of the skills he had given me, and he started to "tweak" me - my teaching, that is. He taught me about scattering questions around the room. He showed me how to make use of overt and covert questioning to include more students. We worked until I knew more and more about asking higher-order questions. Still early in the year, Mr. Shelton challenged me to "play with" the old lesson line. "You're ready," he said. "Now, you can move things around. Don't always tell students what the objective is. Sometimes it's better to let them find it for themselves." So I started to play, move things around, mold lessons to fit my own teaching style. And I found the magic. Finally, I had permission to do things my way - to optimize everything to make it work, instead of forcing myself to follow somebody else's map. I quickly relegated most of the textbooks to a shelf and called them reference material. If we needed to consult them, they were available; otherwise, I would take students to another level and into unknown realms. And they succeeded with the highest test scores and the best behaviors in the school. All without modern technology, I should add. I was reminded of that first year when as I listened to John Antonetti speak at last week's MSTA state convention. In a section of his speech, Antonetti talked about posting objectives at the beginning of a lesson. He likened it to being pulled over by a police officer. "Do you know why I pulled you over?" The question every cop asks when he approaches the driver. Personally, I don't answer that question; I don't want to give him any ideas - just in case I give an answer different from his original reason. Obviously, Antonetti said, the speed limit is posted for us all to see, and yet, we often ignore is. That's the same concept as posting an objective on the board. Yes, we have heard that posting objectives increases understanding, but "dig deeper in the research," he said. "It only helps the Melissa Sues in your class." He had already explained that Melissa Sue represented that prim and proper student in the classroom - the one student who is always there with every answer, every assignment, every point of extra credit. Melissa Sue will always heed the objective and prepare herself for the tasks ahead. But what works for Melissa Sue does not work for Bubba. Bubba is the guy who needs to see something, grab ahold of it, squish it around for a while before learning about it. Posting the objective does little to nothing for the students who sit on Bubba's end of the scale. In fact, rigor, that elusive expectation, only happens when students bring their own meaning to a task or an object. Rigor is not when a teacher spews on and on about the material, but when students speculate, infer, and predict. This is not to say that a teacher should never post objectives, but there is something to consider about when and how to do so. And I realized...Shelton and Antonetti agreed! In fact, Shelton was ahead of his time. He taught me about cognitive rigor and student engagement long before those terms were coined. Much of what I have done for the years in between has been the development of those terms in my classroom. It brings meaning to 29 years of my own professional development. I may not be the best at what I do, but I've made it a point to keep searching for ways to play with my lessons.
I loved the entire process of developing this book. The reading level for this one is at the third grade level, but Out of the Wind was written for everyone. You can still get this book delivered to your front porch when you order it through Amazon.
“An honest man alters his opinion to fit the truth;
a prejudiced man alters the truth to fit his opinion.” (unknown)
It happened again, and none of us is happy about it. It doesn’t even matter that we “got an extra hour of sleep” Saturday night. Did we really get an extra hour of sleep, or did we just stay up an hour later? One extra hour of sleep is a terrible consolation for the pain and suffering that comes in the days that follow. Darkness. An adjustment to our sleep schedules. Our bodies and minds were accustomed to the 24-hour schedule that Daylight Saving Time afforded, and now, we’re still trying to get used to the new time. As we get closer to winter, it’s hard enough to adjust to the shorter and shorter days without the government, or the business community, or whoever it is who lobbies in favor of changing the clocks twice a year. Don’t you think we could keep the same time year-round and still get along just fine?
Now you know that I have the ability to Google for quotes about change. There are many quotes about the subject, by the way, and it takes a lot of time to sort through and find the ones that apply to the situation. There’s also a number of change quotes that pertain to our own changing: they discuss changing our lives and our lifestyles, and most of them emphasize improvement. Better than all of these, however, is the text from Genesis 8:22, which says, “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease.” Those are words uttered by God to Noah some time after the flood. Change is inevitable as long as the earth exists. Seasons. Temperatures. Days. Sunlight. No matter how consistent the patterns of nature and creation, somehow, there is still change. Perhaps that is because, even though the seasons of the earth consistently and annually change, we are also dealing with something else - a Constant. With all of our uncertainty and change, it is the Constant upon which we rely. The Flux of Creation That’s what we are looking at, this afternoon: the firm among the soft, the Certain among the insecure, Constant among the change. Constant is a mathematical term, so let’s approach this, at least in part, mathematically. Take a look at this list of numbers: 9, 17, 33, 57, 89. Can you find a pattern in these numbers? Probably not immediately. It appears that they are constantly changing, shifting. There is really no consistency in this list - no repeating pattern. I love that we have four seasons in Southwest Missouri. I don’t want every day to be the same. The changes make things more interesting. I may not enjoy the flux of spring or fall, the sudden rising and unexpected falling of temperatures, the blustery winds, or the abundance of darkness in the winter, and I know I don’t appreciate the time changes that we have to endure twice a year (Spring forward, fall back), but I do like the variety. There were several young men from China in the exchange program when I was in college. I remember the first time it snowed that winter. It started in the middle of the night. I was awakened not by the snow, but by a half dozen Chinese boys frolicking in the snow outside the dormitory in their underwear. They had never experienced snow. To them, it didn’t matter that there could be ice on the streets or broken power lines. They just saw the snow as amazing and beautiful as it fell in the high spotlight on the pole. How often do I fail to pause and appreciate that instead of offering yearly complaints about the inconvenience and the treachery it can cause. I wouldn’t want to live in a place that doesn’t experience spring and summer. I like for my 24-hour cycles to be a mixture of sunlight and darkness, and it would just be weird to live in a location that is dark for 23 of the 24 hours every day. Those places still go through the cycle of seasons, and they still have much to offer, but my personal preference is for four distinct seasons. We read in Genesis 1:14, “Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and they shall serve as signs and for seasons, and for days and years…” Then in chapter 8, as we already read, God tells Noah, “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease.” Asaph is a talented poet and singer. He is one of the choir leaders in the tabernacle. In the 74th Psalm, Asaph offers a teaching song, a Maskil, that acknowledges the power of God in defeating His enemies. In the middle of his description of destruction, he reminds himself that God also creates and establishes the rules of nature (verses 16f), saying, “Yours is the day, Yours also is the night; You have prepared the light and the sun. You have established all the boundaries of the earth. You have created summer and winter.” Psalm 104 is another example. The psalmist is joyful about God’s amazing creation. There is praise for all that God has done and provided - including verse 19: “He made the moon for the seasons; The sun knows the place of its setting.” The writer says, “You appoint darkness and it becomes night, In which all the animals of the forest prowl about.” How often do we pray to God to recognize His power in creation? We might do better to praise Him more often. This psalm, for example, begins and ends with “Bless the Lord, my soul.” Or maybe when we talk about the seasons, you think of Ecclesiastes. Solomon has lived the life. He can afford anything he wants to buy. He has the most beautiful women at his command, and they’re willing to serve him in every capacity. He has searched for happiness in every nook and cranny. Solomon accomplished many great things - even overseeing the building of the temple in Jerusalem. But in Ecclesiastes, Solomon repeatedly relates the futility of life. Everything he thought would provide him happiness is meaningless. Regarding the seasons, he writes, starting in Ecclesiastes 3:1, “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every matter under heaven - “A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing. A time to search and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; A time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace.” Then, in verse 11: “He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, without the possibility that mankind will find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.” When He spun our planet into existence, He did it for us. Our very environment - the way it reacts to gravity, lunar tides, high and low pressure lines, rising and falling ocean temperatures, and mountainous terrains - our very environment is created to be uncertain and changing. It can be frustrating for anyone listening to the TV weather forecaster or checking the Farmers’ Almanac. Most times we get frustrated with our lack of being able to figure it all out. Sometimes we get upset with not knowing where the next mudslide or wildfire will be or when the next flood or drought will affect our area. Occasionally, we get knocked down altogether when the storms strike. The Flux of Life And if you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not just talking about the weather. The storms and changes in our lives hurl at us faster and more ferociously every day. It would seem that no one in history has ever endured the speed of our lives in the 21st Century. It reminds me of the song Alabama recorded in 1992. The chorus said: I'm in a hurry to get things done Oh, I rush and rush until life's no fun All I really gotta do is live and die But I'm in a hurry and don't know why One of the stanzas went like this: Oh, I hear a voice That says I'm running behind I better pick up my pace It's a race and there ain't No room for someone in second place If we allow it to be, so much is about self and survival these days. Parents have so many different things to consider in raising children today than did our own parents and grandparents. We seem to have different personal security issues than our ancestors. Mental health issues are on the rise. Political tensions, religious persecution, cancel culture, relativism. Solomon rightly professes his own confusion in Ecclesiastes, saying there are times of planting and times of harvesting, times to dance and times to mourn, a time for war and a time for peace, etc. He does us a favor by placing all of life into proper perspective, helping us understand that we all go through seasonal changes from birth to maturity, school to career, work to retirement. We repeat Ecclesiastes 3:11, slower this time: “He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, without the possibility that mankind will find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.” You see, in all of these changes, we (along with Solomon) must look for the Constant. Looking for the Constant It’s like those numbers that are hanging over our heads. They don’t make sense to us. There’s nothing constant about them. No perceptible pattern at all. And it perplexes us. The confusion drives us crazy. There just has to be order to things. There has to be a predictable pattern. There has to be a Constant. But it’s just not there. I always taught my fourth graders to use shark teeth. That’s not a mathematical term; that’s a Hoggattism. We drew shark teeth to connect the numbers, and then we looked for the differences between them in the order that they were displayed. From 9 to 17, we have to add 8. From 17 to 33, we have to add 16. From 33 to 57, there is a difference of 24. To get from there to 89, we add 32. But once again, there is not a constant difference between the numbers. We search and we search, uncovering layer after layer, but we just don’t find any complete security in our answers. These might be our results, but if we turn in these answers to the teacher, we may fail, because the assignment was to find a repeating pattern and we haven’t found it. Here’s a couple more Googled quotes that I found. The first, by Arnold Bennett, says, “Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by discomforts.” Mr. Bennett probably wasn’t thinking about Daylight Saving Time when he said that, but it certainly applies. And the last quote is from Bertolt Brecht: he said, “Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.” That one applies to so much that goes on in our world today. Conclusion and Persuasion The answers just aren’t within our own physical surroundings. There is certainly mystery built into the creation, but until we look to the creator, those mysteries remain elusive to us. I mean, Daylight Saving Time is not the intent of creation; it is entirely manmade. We are left with the desire to find a Constant to drive our lives…and that occurs when we stop Googling quotes about change and search Scripture for Truth instead. Hebrews 13:8 explains it like this: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, and forever.” He is the same. When we fail, he doesn't turn His back on us. He remains faithful to us even when we are unfaithful to Him. When we turn away from Him, seeking our own pleasures and when our own survival worries consume us, God remains with us: He never turns aside or wanders away. And suddenly we see the pattern in the numbers. It took some searching and an extra row of shark teeth, but the creator of the pattern always knew what was there. There is our Constant. 9 17 33 57 89 +8 +16 +24 +32 +8 +8 +8 Jesus doesn’t change. Scripture doesn’t change. God’s creation is on the same trajectory it has been on since before its foundation was poured, and His love does not turn to hatred when obstacles distract us and we fail to place Him upfront. As we confront the seasons of our lives, God is our Constant - He is always there, loving and encouraging us through our confusions.
"Don’t pick a fight with an old man:
if he is too old to fight, he’ll just kill you." (unknown)
With the settings of the theme park, I could easily see GENTRI and other such artists shooting videos there.
We try to guard our data. We don’t like the idea of the government having access to our bank accounts through computer connections. We can’t stand the idea of hackers stealing our identification. I remember when we moved to Joplin in 1995 and hooked into our first internet provider. It was dial-up. Remember dial-up? But once the connection was made, the world was at my fingertips. It didn’t matter that it took a while to open a page, a little bit at a time - unless there was a photo; then it took minutes - not seconds - to load. We soon found out about hackers, and that scared us. We didn’t want them accessing our computers and getting into our information. But when we heard that the whole computer world would reset at midnight on January 1, 2000, some of us couldn’t imagine what was to come. You see, somehow, our computers were not programmed to go from 1999 to 2000. The world’s computers - government, scientific, medical, personal, and otherwise - were going to suddenly have their clocks reset to 1900 instead of 2000. That’s right: our computers would deliver the entire world back to 1900! The computers controlling our gas pumps would start spewing out oats and hay. The cash registers at the store would suddenly start selling candy bars for pennies and nickels, and our retailers would have to eat the profits. The computers at TV stations would go back to delivering news about hurricane flooding in Galveston killing thousands. William McKinley would be re-inaugurated as president. There would be no microwaves. Our cars would stop. The entire economy would certainly crash. From what we heard, the entire world would be plunged into a very difficult life. Like most news of this sort, the Y2K crash turned out to be nothing. At some point, with all of our computers connected to the same internet, we learned about viruses. Viruses could also be transmitted through floppy disks. There was one virus that you have to be impressed with. This particular virus attacked more computers than others, and there was huge cost to repair the damage. The Lloyds of London insurance group estimated that more than 10 percent of all computers in the world were infected by this single virus. You might say there was a virtual pandemic. The name of this virus: the I Love You virus. It remains one of the top ten computer viruses to this day. It didn’t matter that you installed antivirus software on your computer: the I Love You virus worked around that software in a manner that was simply genius. Coming on the heels of the Y2K scare, this worm first appeared in China (No comment!) in the early spring of 2000 and spread quickly around the world in just days. It wasn’t too complicated. In fact, it wasn’t spread much differently than others. These viruses masqueraded as emails from a trusted friend in your contact list. It would just sit there in your email box and wait for you to double click to open it. Opening it would release the program to overwrite the files on your computer. Then it would copy your contact list and send itself to everyone you know, listing you as the sender. So if it worked in the same way as other viruses, why is it at the top of the list and others not? Three little words - I love you - some of the most powerful words in the world. Put those words in the subject line, send an email to your coworker, and see how fast you get a response! What family member wouldn’t want to click to read such a tender and heartfelt sentiment - I love you. It didn’t matter that they were warned in the news; many opened it anyway, because we can’t stand missing out on a love note. Maybe you remember the first time you heard those words in a significant relationship. Maybe you recall the feelings it stirred - the way your heart skipped a beat, the tingling in your fingers, the uncontrollable smile on your face. Something powerful occurs when those words are directed toward you. And when the words are backed up by actions, that energy is electric. Our lives are to be lives of love, and we should never hesitate to say I love you to the people we love and then make it count with our actions. God tells us throughout the Bible that He loves us. He constantly demonstrates that love. Throughout the Old Testament, in spite of needing to establish His authority and repeatedly demonstrate His discipline, God protects His people. In the Old Testament, God gives His people methods by which they can have their sins pushed forward to a promised Messiah. In the New Testament church, we look to a time when God backed up His promises through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. He further reinforces His love by establishing the church on Pentecost. Throughout time, the Holy Spirit has inspired the writing of Scripture as a love note to His church. Our lives are lived, whether we realize it or not, in an atmosphere filled with God’s love. I am intrigued by John referring to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. He doesn’t mean that Jesus thought more of him than His other followers; he is simply in awe that the Savior could possibly love him. There is great humility in his self-identification as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. He writes the book of 1 John for a couple reasons - to expose false teaching and to reassure believers of their salvation through Christ. Listen to this: our salvation and our love for other human beings go hand in hand. Read with me from 1 John 4:7f: “Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” With that verse in mind, think about the person you thought about earlier - that person you find it hard to love. Maybe it’s a coworker, a student, or a relative. Maybe it’s somebody that everybody else seems to have no problem with but you still find it difficult to deal with him or her. It could be a celebrity (Maybe you’re just tired of seeing Taylor Swift at the Chiefs games.). It could be a politician (It could be an entire political party.). For our purposes, maybe it would be better to keep things more personal. Do you have that person in mind? Now, let’s insert that person’s name in 1 John 4:7f: “Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love _____ does not know God, because God is love.” How does that verse hit you now? Now it slices deep within each of us in a new way. You see, loving others must mean that we try to see them more like God sees them. It’s tough to read verse 8 in that way, with that person’s name inserted. Loving God seems easier than loving others. In fact, sometimes even the people we love the most in life can be difficult to love. But the best news I have for you tonight is that God understands. In some ways, we’re really not different from God. How hard is it for Him to give grace to Adam and Eve when they mess up? How hard is it for Him to banish, and not just kill, Cain after he commits the first murder against his brother Abel. How much restraint does it take for God to not just do away with the entire human race when He destroys the earth with a flood - especially knowing that Noah’s descendants will still go on to sin another day? How much does it take for our God to spare anybody who had been exposed to life in Sodom? Abraham has to wheel and deal with God to get Him to restrain His wrath. How hard is it for our God to send His Son to live and suffer death for all people in the world of debauchery that we live in today? I think it’s safe to say that God understands what it’s like for us when we think about a person in our lives who is hard to love. He knows it can be a challenge for us - and that’s why He gives us verses 9f: “By this the love of God was revealed in us, that God has sent His only Son into the world so that we may live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” I know that God sees differently. Remember when Samuel looks for a king to replace Saul, and he says to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God does not see as man sees, since man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Like Samuel, we look at people differently than God does…but is it possible for us to try to see through God’s lens? Would it be all right to ask God for the wisdom to see people as He sees them? Should we try to see more than what we do? Can we possibly recognize their gifts, talents, passions, and strengths? Shouldn’t we look beyond their stature and their personalities and try to see their potential instead? Dare we say that loving others is a test of our relationship with God? Author Anne Lamott wrote, “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” Instead of that, we read the next few verses (1 John 4:11-14): “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we remain in Him and He in us, because He has given to us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.” There is a lot more to say on the subject, but for now let’s read the rest of the chapter (1 John 4:15ff; I’m going to emphasize some of these words as I read: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, we also are in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear [Remember verse 17: “love is perfected in us”.], because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and yet he hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.” Now, we have some work to do in order to live up to that standard. Read 1 John 4 over and over, this week. Meditate on the words. Parse them carefully and get the message from the “disciple whom Jesus loved”. "Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance."
(unknown)
"Hope holds crisis in one hand and joy in the other.
Hope deals soberly and honestly with the worst situation, while persevering joyfully, because hope knows how the story will end." (Wes McAdams) When I saw this on the wall of a school in Southeast Kansas, I had to wonder. My own brain wanted to follow instructions to the letter, but I don't think that would be the intended outcome.
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