An Open Letter to The Alabama Politicians Who Are Ruining Education

Dear Mr. Politician,

I can't remember a time that I did not want to be a teacher; all of that changed today.

Today I read an article explaining that Alabama teachers can expect their long awaited and much deserved raise in the next year or so, BUT they have some things that they are going to have to give up. Ha! Go figure. We teachers are used to this by now, but I would be lying if I said that this doesn't feel like a slap in the face. You're dangling the proverbial carrot in front of our faces, but I, for one, am not going to take this lying down.

I love my students, and I do not teach for the income. But, I do not enjoy feeling undervalued and I downright hate the way this implies that teachers as a whole are not doing their jobs. The problem with education is NOT too little accountability on teachers; the problem is too little accountability on the students and parents.We do not pay dentists based on cavities, we do not pay preachers based on saved souls, and we do not pay politicians based on approval ratings. Why does it make sense to you that we pay teachers based on approval ratings from students, test scores, and unannounced observations?

There are many variables that affect my students' performance in my class, and there is no way that I can control them all. If you want to fix problems in education, let's start in the home. Let's make sure that every student that walks in my room every day has a parent at home that made sure they left their home with a full stomach and the knowledge that someone loves them. Or at the very least, let's have a parent or guardian at home that makes sure that the student actually gets to school. Move accountability for attendance from the school to the parents and actually prosecute for truancy. When the students goes home at the end of the day, let's make sure that their parents or guardians ensure that they do their homework and talk to them about both the academic and social aspects of their school day. Let's let the responsibility for parent-teacher contact rest on the parent. If they need to know what is going on at school with their child, have them call on their free time rather than expect the teachers to make time in their already busy school day to call parents. That's impossible you say? Well I agree, but so is trying to improve education by making educators hate the very job they are called to do.

Let's allow the administration to actually, really punish the kids who do not behave according to the code of conduct. I can't tell you how many times I've had a special education student act horribly in class, violating LRE laws for every regular education student in the room, and my administrator's 'hands were tied' because the kid was receiving special education services. I love special education, but your laws are hurting many of the students that our special education teachers are trying to help. While we're on the topic of special education, let me just add that when I have a student that can't read or write come to my high school classroom, I hate what you've done with education so badly that I almost cannot participate in the charade anymore. This child does not need more legislation that tell us, him, and his parents that he cannot be 'left behind' and that he will 'progress with his regular education counterparts.' This child needs to be taught how to read, not how to solve a quadratic equation. All this talk about keeping kids from falling through the cracks, and here you are pushing them through. Mr. Politician, it is time to stop.

Let's remove graduation ratings and standardized test scores if you're not actually going to use them for student accountability. Sometimes students need to fail, and you need to trust the teachers when the students do fail. I love and care for each student that walks the halls of my school, but sometimes students need a little tough love. I meet each of my students halfway, and I believe with my whole heart and very well-educated brain that we are only hurting every student that we pass because we don't have the 'documentation' to fail them. I bend over backwards to help and teach students every single day, and I will not sit aside and let any politician imply that I do not already do enough for my students.

So, no, Mr. Politician. You've got it wrong. Teachers are not the problem with education, and YOU are NOT the solution. You are never going to fix education by creating more legislation; the only way to fix it is to leave the solution up to us, the very capable, hard working, well and properly educated teachers. If you keep pushing your agenda, I can promise you that the only thing you are going to accomplish is pushing good, loving, talented teachers into other professions and leaving our students to flounder.

Very Sincerely,
An Alabama Educator

Building with G

Since the new year is...well, new, I have been thinking about all of the blessings that we hope God will rain down on us in the coming year. The most notable of these is the fact that we've been blessed with the opportunity to build our forever home! 

I have been looking forward to building my dream home with the man of my dreams since I was a little girl, and I am so excited that we have finally made it to that point in life. Since we married, I have been slightly obsessed over the building process. My poor hubs has had to listen to my plans for our future home every. single. day. for the past three or four years. Lucky for me, he's a trooper, and he listened to me intently just like we were breaking ground in the next few days. He was never as focused on this one dream as me, but I've finally brought him over to my side. He announced very haphazardly on Christmas Eve that we'd be celebrating Christmas next year in our newly built house. 

Because I have focused nearly all of my "spare time" (I'm a teacher. Spare time. Ha!) on the house of my dreams and also because my husband can be likened to a freight train when he has a goal, the ball started rolling pretty quickly. Within a week, we were approved and had our house plans in our hands and the hands of almost all of the appropriate people. 

We have been in three different building supply stores, each at least two times, this weekend. Side note: Home Depot has BY FAR the most helpful people. We went into two different Lowe's stores, and no one ever offered to help us. We have books about cabinetry, books about flooring, books about countertops, books about bathrooms. There are so, so, so many decisions to make. I thought I knew what I wanted until I saw how many options I had. Add Pinterest to all of those tangible options, and I start to lose my mind. 

This home will be our forever home; we will be a growing family, a family with teenagers, empty nesters, and retirees in this home. It's impossible to plan for all of that. I had imagined that building a house would include making a lot of decisions, but I never knew there were this many options for everything. So far, the only decision we've actually made is what house we're building and where we're going to build it. Lord, help us! 

Oh yeah, I've also decided that I really need Joanna Gaines to come make all of my other decisions for me. That would help a lot!  

Finding Peace in my Not So Quiet Time

I have struggled for as long as I can remember to find the time to read my Bible and really be still and listen to God. I'd try different times in the day, but, in the words of my uncle, God's cow always dies. The hour Id try to set aside before I went to bed would be stolen by time with my hubs, time to clean, or time to rock my sweet baby one more time. After years of trying to find a place and time to spend time with Him, I finally decided that I was just going to have to make time. Carve it out of my busy schedule and make it a priority.

Each morning, my alarm clock goes off about thirty minutes before I actually have to wake up, and I drag myself out of bed to sit in my oversized arm chair with my Bible and a cup of coffee so I can listen to what God wants me to hear. I make it a priority and I prepare for it. I know myself and I know that I will not wake up on the first alarm, so I set a second alarm in the kitchen. (Yes, it really is that hard to wake me up.) I'm not all about mornings unless I have a cup of coffee in my hand, so I make sure to set my coffee pot every night before I go to bed. The blessings that I receive from my mornings spent with God are so rewarding that I am happy to sacrifice the half an hour of sleep to do it. 

For the past week, my quiet time has been interrupted and sometimes abruptly halted by a certain little cutie pie. He has been going through a sleep regression (or maybe it's the time change), and he wakes up with the chickens every morning. Sometimes he wakes up before my alarm clock even goes off. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of my bible study. Either way, he's been a hindrance to my ability to be still and meditate on God's word. I'd be lying if I said that this hasn't bothered me. My unfinished business plagues me all day when I have these adorable little interruptions. 

After praying over my new dilemma for a few days, I thought maybe God is trying to teach me something here. 

At first I thought He was definitely trying to teach me patience. I prayed for patience when J was about three months old after I'd had some struggles at work while I was also trying to get a handle on juggling a new school year with an infant. It was only afterwards that I truly understood that God doesn't just give you anything. You have to earn it, and boy did I ever earn patience! So in the first couple of days after I started having a little partner during my Bible study, I just thought He was continuing my lesson in patience. Until, that is, I saw my sweet baby bring his Bible story book to me to look at in my lap while I was reading my Bible. He watched me intently and if I picked up a highlighter to mark a verse, he needed one for his book. If I reached for a pen to annotate, he'd immediately need to jot down a 'note' in the margins of his little book. It was like God was telling me, "He learns by watching, mama, and you are setting a great example."

I broke down in tears. Not from pride, but from shame. I was so ashamed of myself for thinking of his presence in my quiet time as a nuisance when it was actually the most positive influence that I could ever really have on my child. Don't get me wrong, teaching him to survive in his earthly home is pretty important, but teaching him how to have a relationship with his Heavenly Father is the most important

I spent years craving a real relationship with Jesus Christ, never really knowing how to achieve one. Just going through the motions hoping for a miracle. But, I have the opportunity to let my child learn how to have a meaningful relationship with Him by being a good example of how to make God a priority not an afterthought. 

Maybe he will always know what to do.

Maybe he won't ever have to know what it feels like to miss God.

Maybe he won't ever have to wonder what a blessing it is to feel God speak to you. 

And maybe that's all because mama showed him what it meant to put God first. 

Proverbs 22:6

Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.

Holding on Loosely

The sun had just risen on a beautiful south Alabama October day. (This means that it was sunny and 85 for all of you who aren't privy to the average temperatures of our odd climate.) I was getting J up and dressed for his first trip to the zoo and pumping him up with tidbits of information on all he'd see. The lions, the tigers, the bears! Oh my! On the drive, J entertained us all with impersonations of dogs and bears and, everyone's favorite, the monkeys. 

As J and his Pa explored the South American bird exhibit, I caught myself trying not to grab him away for fear that he might touch something germ infested. When the birds got old and our group began moving towards bigger and more carnivorous creatures, I felt that ever present urge to pick J up. To protect him, as if I could do anything more than the twelve foot tall wall could. My daddy, who was very good at fostering independence in his children, could sense it. He was constantly telling me, "Just follow him and see where he goes." As I'm standing ankle deep in playground mulch and wrestling a tantruming toddler who has absolutely no intentions of swinging in the baby swing, my daddy gently reminds me to 'let him go.'

Let him go. 

Isn't that the hardest thing a mother can do? When they learn to walk, we hold their little hands as long as they'll allow. When they start practicing their independence and walking by themselves, we use our own bodies as human forcefields to protect them from bumps and scrapes. We don't want to let them go. We know what's going to happen. They are going to fall. They are going to fail.

As a teacher, I wish more mothers would allow their children to learn to fail, but as a mother, I know it's very hard to chose to let your child make their own mistakes. Lessons learned 'the hard way' are oftentimes the lessons that leave the most lasting impression, but it's a difficult thing to watch your child make mistakes that you know are going to hurt them. We are hardwired to push our children towards success. Failure isn't something that we want to see our children encounter, but we're lying to ourselves if we believe that they will never have to feel what it's like to not be good enough. It will be beneficial to our children if we make it a point to let them learn what it feels like to fail and how to handle the emotions that inevitably follow.

As Christians, we have a responsibility to allow our children to experience failure and teach them to turn to Jesus when what they bring to the table just isn't enough. Children need to know that what they are will never be enough without The One who makes them whole, and isn't that our one most important role as their parent? As my new bible study leader said, "We continually struggle with letting them go, but they're not even really ours to begin with." Our most important responsibility as a parent is to raise our children up in a way that is glorifying to God. Teaching your children to fall at His feet when it seems like their world is falling apart is a great place to start. 

If I'm telling myself the truth, I have had an internal struggle between holding on and letting go for as long as I've been a mother. I am always debating whether I should hold his hand and protect him or let him go and let him explore. In the short time that I've been a parent, I've come to realize that parenthood is about continually letting go and the emotions that come along with it. Each milestone has been a celebration but it's also been marked with tears. From the big milestones like first steps and first haircuts down to the small things like changes in diaper size, a mother's world is a hodgepodge of bittersweet moments. And I'm constantly reminded that these little milestones are going to gradually be replaced with much bigger, and harder to handle, life events like driving, college, and marriage. These moments are like water slipping through cupped hands...you can try to hold on, but eventually your hands will be empty.

We are in a constant state of holding on loosely and always letting go, but we will never have to worry about what happens when we 'Let Go' as long as we teach them to 'Let God.'

James 1:2-4

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 

Our society: Christians are bigots and we accept everything but God.

Reading the news (loosely used) posts
on social media can easily leave you despondent and sad these days. Even when you see posts that should make you happy, like people lifting up Christianity, all you have to do is scroll through the comments for a little while to lose your short lived smile. Case in point, a picture of a GOP Presidential candidate holding up a sign that says 'I am a Christian' quickly got him labeled a 'bigot.' I went from optimistic to tearful in about two seconds flat.

How is he a bigot? Because he's a Christian? Because he has conservative and yes, Christian, views? Do we really live in a world where we aren't allowed to have our own religious views without being labeled? Bigotry is the act of being intolerant of the views of others...not the single act of having an opposing view. Since we're throwing words around, I've got one, too: hypocrite. Hypocrisy is the act of having moral standards or beliefs to which one own's behavior does not conform, and I am sure that calling someone a bigot for simply holding a different view than yours is a prime example of hypocrisy. Simply being a Christian cannot make a person a bigot.

So why the labels? The biggest reason, in my opinion, is that society has a skewed view of Christianity. I think, for the most part, the most vocal non-Christians believe that Christians are arrogant, holier-that-though, bigots. Part of this is human nature. We as humans are naturally sinners and we're worldly, prideful creatures. Non-Christians hear that they are sinners and incapable of ever being 'good enough' and immediately they rebel. The fact so many of the non-Christians with this clouded, negative view of Christianity are very open and vocal with their opinions only compounds the negative impact that they can have on our witness to the world. 

Another (harder to talk about) reason that the world's view of Christians is clouded is that we as Christians have done a poor job of being the body of Christ. We've been complacent, for the most part, and the world has risen up to meet us. Many people are pushed away from Christianity by Christians, the very people that are supposed to be leading others to Christ. For example, I read about how Justin Bieber has discovered Jesus Christ and wants to model his life after Him. As a high school teacher, I see students every day who are trying to model themselves after celebrities,  and I was ecstatic to see one of those celebrities admitting that he needs Jesus and wants to live his life for Him...and then I read the comments. There were so many Christians who were saying things like, "I'll believe it when I see it" or "all he knows is the liberal, love-everything-and-everybody version of Christ." Is that really our job as Christians? To question every new believer's authenticity? I'm sure it's not, and we need to do a better job of being the body of Christ and nurturing new Christians. 

I recently spent some time reading and praying over a few verses in Ephesians explaining how a follower of Christ should live. I was surprised and humbled by many of the guidelines. As many of my readers know, I asked Jesus to come into my heart when I was very young. I lived as a 'Christian' for fifteen years before I realized that I was completely wrong about what it meant to really be a Christian and what it really looks like to live as a Christian. Christianity is not about being perfect, it's about recognizing that you will never be perfect and that you are in desperate need of God's Saving Grace. I think that Christians, as a whole, are doing a poor job of displaying the humility that it takes to carry yourself as a recognized sinner every day. 

What I think this (increasingly non-Christian) society needs to understand is that just because we love someone doesn't mean that we have to accept their sins...and that accepting their sins as 'the way they are' is definitely not loving them. Especially if you are a follower of Jesus Christ. Christ has a love for us that surpasses all knowledge, but he will still deny us in front of The Father if we do not accept Him into our hearts as our personal Lord and Savior. This sets an example for us, I think. We are told to love our neighbors as more important than ourselves, but that means we are to love them enough and so much that we don't sit by and unconcernedly watch them sinning.

And don't even get me started on the 'Christians' who openly condone sinning in the name of 'acceptance.' You can't watch a talk show without seeing sin being openly celebrated and excused by celebrities saying, "If that's what makes him happy, who am I to stand in his way?" Really? Don't you think you are opening yourself up for interpretation there? There are a lot of things that make a lot of people happy that are not okay even by this society's low moral standards. Some people are sexually attracted to animals, so "who are we to stand in his way" if someone wants to marry his shih tzu? Do you see what kind of terrible turns that road can lead you down? Regardless of your religion, society CANNOT keep this up; we have to draw a line somewhere.We need to stop sinning by silence and hiding behind 'don't judge lest ye be judged.' Those verses explain that you must remove your own sin before helping your neighbor to remove his, not that we should ignore our neighbor's sin completely under the guise of 'acceptance.' We also need to stop using God's Grace as an excuse to keep sinning. Yes, God loves you no matter what and yes, he will forgive you an infinite amount of times, BUT you have to genuinely ask got His forgiveness. Perpetually living in sin and occasionally (and casually) asking God to forgive you for those sins misses the mark completely.

Loving a Man with a Servant's Heart

Your grass needs to be cut. There are weeds threatening to take over your patio. The back splash in the kitchen isn't sticking to the wall properly and your coffee bar has been slightly unfinished for the past six months. Your husband has a list of honey-dos a mile long, and he never seems to get a single thing accomplished around the house.

He isn't lazy. Oh no, he's the antithesis of lazy. He's always busy. He almost never gets a spare minute to himself, let alone to spend with you or the kids.

So, what is he doing with all of his time? He's helping. It's what he does.

Does this sound familiar to you? Well congratulations, sister, you have the privilege of loving a man with a servant's heart. It may not be convenient for anyone in your family, but your husband was blessed with the ability to help those in need. It goes deeper than that though, this man wants to help people. He is at his best when he is doing things for others. God blesses each of us with a gift, and this desire to help happens to be his.

I've gone through many emotions loving and learning to live with this man with a servant's heart. We have fought over unfinished projects and cluttered storage sheds. We've argued about uncut grass and unfixed appliances. I've bickered over ungrateful friends who always lean on him but never return the kindness. I've stewed silently in my own anger over the fact that we had to spend yet another afternoon waiting on daddy to finish doing someone else a favor.

I've been neglected. I've been pushed aside. I've been told that my needs are going to have to wait more times than I like to think about.

But I've also felt pride on a level that I didn't know possible. I've felt love grow bigger than life for unassuming reasons that sometimes make me laugh. I've watched my husband work, and I mean really work, until midnight just to get his lawnmower ready and loaded to go help someone cut grass the next day.
My child and I have been dragged out of bed on Saturdays because my husband has to do something for someone. While we're both sleepy eyed and grumpy, he's just as chipper as a song bird because he thrives on helping people. He's the type of person that will literally give you the shirt off of his back and smile while he's doing it.

He never expects payment or repayment; he usually won't accept if it is offered to him. He doesn't even want it. He is content just to know that he has helped someone in need. Whether it's help with some type of work or help with money, he is just happy to help. He is generous in a way that I find inspiring.

It's sad that I haven't understood that until now. We could have saved ourselves a lot of arguments and hurt feelings had I figured this out earlier.

So why the change of heart? I've spent years concentrating on the parts of my husband that I think need to change. (I think that's a practice that I learned from "How to Ruin your Marriage 101") This desire to help people was close to the top of my list. I just couldn't stand the way that people always took advantage of him. I would always ask him, "would he do the same thing for you?" when G was asked a favor. Regardless of the reply, he would always go do whatever it was that was asked of him. Then one day I realized that the way I was living and thinking wasn't glorifying to God. I prayed that Jesus would come into my heart, my whole heart, that he would look into the darkest, dustiest corners and shine the Light in. After this literal change of heart, I started seeing these selfless acts that my husband was compelled to do as God's Work. He might not have been raised in a bible-thumping, pew-jumping household, but he is more Christ-like than me in so many ways.

He sees a need and he fills it. He shows his love for other human beings by just simply doing what God has called him to do with the abilities that God blessed him with. I always talk about how Christians should do a better job of "walking the walk," but I was overlooking one of the best examples of showing Christ's love through actions that I have ever known. He lives in my house with me and I have the blessing of having him as my partner in raising children.

So, we may spend many afternoons waiting on daddy to get finished doing yet another favor. We may have to walk by our unfinished coffee bar ten times a day while G is out working, but it's okay. I'm happy to do it. I wouldn't dare change a thing.

Philippians 2:3-5
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus...

Lord Let Them See You In Me

The last bell had just rung. My students filed out of my room for the last time that day leaving broken pencils and balled up scratch paper in their wake. A familiar thought pushed its way to the forefront of my mind.

What kind of homes do these kids come from?!

I rolled my eyes at their lack of respect and immediately followed behind them to clean everything up. I wouldn't want my morning class to come in to a messy classroom, of course. I am careful to sweep the floor well, not missing any bits of chewed eraser or spiral notebook paper leftovers. As I made it around to the assignments tray, I see that my 

students couldn't even manage to stack their handouts neatly when they turned them back in. Tisk, tisk! And there's that thought again.

What kind of homes do these kids come from?! 

I straightened my papers and started walking back to my desk when I noticed an impolite drawing on a student's desk. I sighed my most irritated sigh and grabbed a Clorox wipe to begin yet another of my duties that isn't exactly written in my job description. As I scrubbed with as much elbow grease as I could muster, that thought snuck back into my mind.

What kind of homes do these kids come from?!

When my room was back into some semblance of order, I sat down at my desk to finish up some last minute chores before I got to go home and love on my own sweet child. Because I'd never share the lives of my students on such a public stage, I will not tell you exactly what happened next, but I will say that God spoke directly to me in a way that still brings tears to my eyes. 

He answered that little question 'What kind of homes do these kids come from?!' And He asked me one of his own, 'What are you going to do to help them?' 

I humbly bowed my head and prayed. 

Dear Lord,

Let them see You in me. Give me the words, invade my thoughts, allow me to show Your love through my actions.

In Jesus' precious and Holy name I pray,

Amen.

As I tidied up my desk to go home for the day, I felt a brand new determination take over my mind. These kids may not all be future engineers or physicists, but they do all have a future and it's my job to guide it. If I have to pick up a few pieces of trash or clean a few inappropriate pictures of my desks in the process, I'll be happy to do it. 

Matthew 5:14-16

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. …