Note to self: accept a bail-out only if prepared to give up freedom

Not much time to post on this breezy Monday in almost-April…but this article in today’s Dallas Morning News certainly got my attention.

If you’re going to take Uncle Sam’s hand-out, you better be prepared to trade in your freedom to make your own decisions.  Even though, technically, we ARE Uncle Sam, I certainly didn’t have anything to do with firing GM’s CEO.  Did you?

If the company had been allowed to fail and enter bankruptcy proceedings (which it may still do despite over 16 billion big ones belonging to the taxpayers), the CEO probably would have been ousted anyway.  It’s the principle of the thing.  Since when does a sitting US President have any say over who is the head honcho at any private company?

Oh, wait a minute.  GM isn’t a private company anymore.

The higher-ups at Ford were smart to just say NO to the bail-out funds.  At least now they can make their own decisions on executive leadership and compensation.

For now.

The Wild Western Wise One

Finally! A moment to study and write. With last week’s spring break coming on the heels of the time change, it’s been an adjustment getting our homeschool back in the groove these past two days. But, I am happy to report, we have overcome and are on the road to wisdom and knowledge!

Speaking of that illustrious road, I promised to write about a different character found in Proverbs. Previously, I read with chagrin and blogged about the characteristics of The Fool. It’s not a complete picture, though, without taking a look at The Fool’s opposite: The Wise. Picture the two characters as the main actors in a Western. The Fool is decked out in a distinctive black hat. He struts around thinking he’s All That. He’s so full of himself that he completely misses every chance God gives him to learn the truth. The Wise, of course, wears the white hat. How does he present himself in our Western? Let’s take a look and see what character traits are found in this Wise character:

• listens and adds to his learning
• gets guidance
• understands proverbs, parables, and riddles (Proverbs 1)

• is not wise in his own eyes
• fears the Lord
• shuns evil
• inherits honor (Proverbs 3)

• is not lazy
• is industrious like the ant (Proverbs 6)

• listens and does not ignore the instructions gleamed from wisdom (Proverbs 8 )

• he loves those who rebuke him and show him the right way
• becomes more wise as he receives instruction
• adds to his learning
• gets understanding through knowledge of the Holy One
• gets wisdom through fearing the Lord
• will have many years
• days are added to his life
• will be rewarded
• avoids the wayward woman (Proverbs 9)

• brings joy to his father
• gathers crops in the summer
• accepts commands
• stores up knowledge
• shows others the way to life (Proverbs 10)

• fools become servants to him
• wins souls (Proverbs 11)

• listens to advice
• his words bring healing (Proverbs 12)

• heeds his father’s instructions
• his teaching is a fountain of life
• walks with the wise and grows wiser (Proverbs 13)

• builds up her house
• his lips protect him
• his crown is his wealth (Proverbs 14)

In our movie pitting the Wise in the white hat against the Fool in the black hat, we see clear distinctions. The first thing I notice is that the Wise has a relationship with the Lord. He carries around a cell phone or something with God’s Word within easy reach! He also must have a circle of wise advisers to whom he listens. He hangs out with people who have wisdom…it’s as if their smartness rubs off on each other. The Wise never reaches a point in his life where he assumes he already knows everything there is to know. I call that getting in a rut. Being a homeschool mom, I get in ruts all the time when I think I know everything there is to know about ________ (fill in the blank) only to discover I actually knew very little. (Take grammar, for example. I used to think I knew it pretty well until I sat in on a Classical Conversations Essentials class and was wowed and humbled by the knowledge of those kids!)

When he messes up and his advisers tell him he’s wrong, he doesn’t respond in anger. He responds in love. This is a biggy for me. Accepting loving criticism is hard, isn’t it? But it is wise to have a soft heart with the understanding that no one is perfect. It is wise to respond in love when someone gently shows you your transgressions. The Wise knows it is very hard to get a clear view of his position from down on the ground, so he takes correction on his tactics and his position from those he trusts who are more removed from the situation. In our Western, they may be perched in the treetops getting a bird’s eye view of the lay of the land. “You are too far west,” they may say. Whereas the Fool would scoff at their attempts to correct his position, the Wise listens…and acts accordingly.

Words of healing are his trademark. He speaks in ways that encourage and build-up others, and the knowledge he shares with other people is a fountain of life. (Who does that sound like? Jesus said He IS the living water! Can’t imagine a more important Wise character than Jesus!) Wherever he goes, he wins souls. He inspires a following. Those of us sitting in the movie theater of life root for the Wise — we want him to win because we instinctively want the one close to the Lord to be the great winner.

I can think of several Wise characters in the Bible: Moses. David. Solomon. Mary. Jesus. I can also think of some who started out making foolish decisions but ended up learning from their mistakes and becoming wise, like Jonah. David. Like me.

Proverbs teaches that achieving wisdom is a journey. We are born foolish creatures. We are born not knowing how to fend for ourselves, but little by little, we learn how to talk, to crawl, to walk, to run. We speak in words, then phrases, then sentences. It is the same with our character. We move from an inability to consider other viewpoints (can you hear your toddler scream, “MINE!” while grasping a sibling’s toy?) to an understanding that it is better to give than to receive. We are on a journey from foolishness to wisdom, and our reward is great. Those of us who have claimed Jesus have already achieved a level of wisdom that was not achieved by any effort of our own but through the call of the Holy Spirit. But that’s not the end of the journey, is it?

When I saw myself in The Fool, I was momentarily discouraged until I realized that God sees the big picture. He sees the tapestry that is my life, and He is working even today to shape it into something extraordinary for His glory. He gently shows me ways in which I am foolish. Although painful, feeling the pain and chagrin is evidence of my stepping closer and closer to wisdom. I am seeing aspects of my character that need tweaking. That is a GOOD thing. Accepting it and internalizing it helps me become Wise.

I will never be THE Wise. That title is for Christ. But I can strive to be a lifelong learner, seeking the road to wisdom.

As for our little Western pitting the Wise against the Fool, we already know the ending to that story (1 Corinthians 15):

But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:

Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?
It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!

With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.

In other words…be wise.

Who Owns You?

This graphic appeared today on FoxNews.com:

May the Lord please grant us mercy!  We reap what we sow (as we learn in Proverbs), and the borrower is servant to the lender.  With so many restrictions on religious freedom in China, our country’s lender, I pray our lawmakers will not spend us into slavery.

But the only One who owns me personally…my heart, my soul, my mind, and my strength…is Jesus Christ.

The Fool in me

I have been slowly reading Ted Tripp’s book, Shepherding a Child’s Heart.  Our homeschooling mom’s group meets once monthly to view a video and discuss aspects of the book and ways to apply what we are learning in our own lives.  I like this “take” on child-rearing because it goes so much deeper than surface-area behavior.  The book discusses ways that parents, using Jesus and God’s word, can look past misbehavior and into their children’s hearts.  Why not just focus on the behavior itself?

That’s what I learned in college.  I remember a class dedicated to different methods of “behavior modification.”  As a teacher, I handed out stickers and compliments and made a big deal out of rewarding good behavior.  The problem with this and most of the behavior “plans” out there is that they focus on the external and only work when the teacher/parent/caregiver is physically present. Kids learn to do the misbehaviors when our backs are turned! We need to teach our kids in such a way that they understand that the LORD is always present and always sees everything.  We want to follow Deuteronomy 6:5-8 –

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

So…how to get from here to there?  I am a practical learner.  I like to have real tools in my toolbag.  It turns out that I’m learning that God’s word has every tool that a parent could possibly need.  My task is to find them, dig them out, apply them to my own life, and then teach them to my daughter.

What do you know about the book of Proverbs?  Growing up, I knew that if I opened my Bible to the middle section, it would be there.  I knew it contained wise sayings, but it hasn’t been until recently — through my study on how to shepherd my daughter’s heart — that I have realized the need to actually live out those wise sayings.  How can I live them out if I don’t know what they say?  How can I write them on the doorframe of my house if I don’t know what they are?

In typical type-A fashion, I’ve decided to do a character-study of the book of Proverbs.  There are characters there, did you know?  There’s the wise man, of course.  And there’s also the wicked man.  And the fool.  And the mocker.

Today I’m going to look at characteristics of what the Bible calls The Fool…so I can, with God’s grace, repent of my foolish ways and incorporate them in my conversations with my daughter.

The Fool

• despises wisdom and discipline (Proverbs 1:7)
• hates knowledge  (Proverbs 1:22)
• his complacency will destroy him (Proverbs 1:32)
• will be shamed (Proverbs 3:35)
• brings grief to his mother (Proverbs 10:1)
• his chattering brings him to ruin (Proverbs 10:8)
• his mouth invites ruin (Proverbs 10:14)
• he spreads slander (Proverbs 10:18)
• he dies because of a lack in judgment (Proverbs 10:21)
• finds pleasure in evil conduct (Proverbs 10:23)
• brings trouble on his family (Proverbs 11:29)
• his own way seems right to him (Proverbs 12:15)
• shows his annoyance at once (Proverbs 12:16)
• proclaims foolishness (Proverbs 12:23)
• detests turning from evil (Proverbs 13:19)
• harms his companions (Proverbs 13:20)
• rips apart her family with her own hands (Proverbs 14:1)
• does not have knowledge on his lips (Proverbs 14:7)
• lies to himself about his own ways (Proverbs 14:8)
• mocks at making amends for sin (Proverbs 14:9)
• is hotheaded and restless (Proverbs 14:16)
• is quick-tempered (Proverbs 14:17

There are so many gems here just in the first fourteen chapters of Proverbs!  I can see themes running through several of the chapters.  For example, Chapter 1-3 seem to dwell on the “head” workings of the fool.  In his heart, he hates wisdom of any kind…why?  Perhaps because he wants to go his own way.  If his own way happens to be unwise, he doesn’t want to hear it.  Does that sound familiar?  It does to me in my own life.  For example, wisdom told me several months ago that it was time to say good-bye to my dog, Shiner.  But I was a fool about him.  It was my duty to take care of him, and I let my own love for him and desire to have him around get in the way of what was best for him. It hurts to say this, but I do think he really was suffering.  I can’t bear to see the photos we took of him on his last days because the strain of pain is easier to see now that we’re removed from the situation.

Proverbs 10 talks about the foot-in-mouth syndrome.  The Fool talks.  A lot.  His talk is ugly and slanderous sometimes.  Sometimes it’s just silly and untrue and just flat-out, well, foolish. I hate to admit it, but there are times that I am this fool.  I see it with much chagrin when I overhear my daughter repeating some of the comments I have made about so-and-so politician or government official.  There is a difference between wisely DOING and foolishly running and complaining at the mouth. Yikes.  I confess I resemble this Fool too much!  I need Jesus to help me renew my mind AND my speech.

A know-it-all syndrome inhabits the Fool of Proverbs 12. Ever had a conversation with someone that became distinctly one-sided as she went on and on about her expertise in the field, and if you happened to disagree with her, she rolled her eyes or otherwise showed you scorn?  I’m afraid many of our elected officials fall into this category.  Those who cling to the “party line” without regard to right or wrong…those who are unwilling to listen to the other side.  The scientists who black-list other scientists (even Nobel-Prize winning ones) when they acknowledge the existence of an Intelligent Creator are embodiments of the Proverbs 12 Fool.  I confess that when it comes to education, I am sometimes The Fool.  Newlyweds fighting over the “correct” way to load the dishwasher or fold socks are guilty of becoming Fools.

The children in chapel at my daughter’s private school had a favorite song with lyrics that warned against the follies of The Fool as found in Proverbs 14.  They went something like this:

Be quick, quick, quick to listen
Quick, quick, quick to hear.
Quick, quick, quick to listen
Quick pick up those ears!

But be sloooww to speak…
Be sure you know what to say..
Be slooowww to speak…
That’s the righteous way

It’s important (and fun) to note that God gave us 2 ears but only 1 mouth for a reason!  I’ve been The Fool in Proverbs 14 before.  Some days I just get angry, short-tempered, and annoyed.  Little things get under my skin and make me lash out with angry words.  I’ve been known to slam a cabinet door or two in my day!  I don’t like to be hot-headed or quick-tempered.  I’d like to blame it on PMS (and actually there is some truth there), but still…God gave me these hormones and will give me the control I need to keep my temper in check, even on “those” days!  (Lord, you know how much I need you to renew me and my mind on those days when I hurt so bad I can hardly function…thank YOU for being so merciful because I sure do need it!!)

The scary part about The Fool in Proverbs 14 is that she actually rips apart her own household.  The Hebrew word used for “household” means a house, but it also means an established family unit.  We moms have such a responsibility to keep the peace, don’t we?  Ever heard the saying:

When Mamma ain’t happy, ain’t NOBODY happy?

That’s because we hold the key to our family’s hearts.  Through our words, our gestures, and our actions, we can reinforce our family relationships or tear them down with our own hands.  The word used in Hebrew for “tear down” also means to utterly destroy.  The thing about it is, many times we deceive ourselves into thinking that our outbursts are necessary and good.  We think that our kids will REALLY pay attention this time if we show them just how angry they’ve made us.  So we go to extremes and act out in anger rather than in wisdom.  Maybe we ground them for an entire month for something that really wasn’t that bad but that got under our skin.  Or maybe we resort to emotional damage and wall them off and shut them out.  If they can’t behave, then we won’t be available emotionally or be there for them when they need a hug.  Have you ever done that?  Or worse, said something that implied you wished you didn’t have a family?  Those kinds of reactions to misbehavior teach our kids how to be Fools themselves.

Wow.  There’s so much to learn here, and I haven’t even made it through the whole book of Proverbs yet.

There is hope for us, though, through the renewing of our minds by the Holy Spirit.  For every proverb about The Fool we find in Proverbs, there is a contrasting one about The Wise.  My next post will delve into the habits and thoughts and characteristics of the wise.

All this convicting information from Proverbs tells me that I NEED to be renewed.  Over and Over, by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Do you?

Check out this song by NewWorldSon.  It’s a live recording, so the quality isn’t as great as I’d like, but it was enough to make me want to get an album!

Itching Ears Want To Hear

Texas state Representative Joe Deshotel wants to use taxpayer money to pay kids who make good grades in school.  Not every kid, of course.  Just the ones attending low-performing schools.  He proposed to use stimulus money to shell out $50 per kid per A for the “core” subjects — English, math, science and social studies.  Students who make Bs would get $35 per grade and those who make Cs would get a mere $20.  (see story here).  Hmm.  Maybe I should go back to high school!  What ever happened to earning an education?

It’s just another case of the ABCs and greenbacks flying out the window.  Our intrepid leaders continue to believe that throwing more money at the dragon will somehow magically induce kids to perform well in school.

What they are forgetting is that a person’s success has more to do with internal motivations than external ones.  Why do I personally strive to do my best in everything I set my hand to?  Granted, I have “Type-A” personality characteristics, but the motivation goes deeper than that.  It goes back to what I am learning on my faith journey, and it is what I am struggling to teach my ten year old from Colossians 3:

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism.

Also in education news today is another mark of a disturbing trend among school districts to effectively nullify the importance of homework — and honesty.  Plano ISD is considering two separate rules that would prohibit a teacher from assigning a grade of “zero” to middle school students who do not complete their homework.  Homework will be accepted at any time in the school year, and homework grades will no longer be applied to final grades on report cards.  A second rule applies to students who are caught cheating.  Currently, students who cheat are automatically given a “zero” for the assignment.  The new rules require teachers to give these cheating kids another chance.

And how, exactly, is this “real-life?”  How is this godly?  In the words of Jesus from Luke 16:

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

we find that children who are essentially rewarded for being dishonest with “just a little cheating” will learn to become dishonest with the things that matter.  I wonder if the biggest Ponzi-scheme cheater Bernard Madoff had teachers who let him off the hook when he cheated in class?  Now he does get a second chance…if he lives another 150 years.

All this woeful education news makes me happy that I homeschool — but for how long will I be allowed that freedom?  A state judge in North Carolina is in the process of ruling that a woman’s homeschooled children must be put in public school.  Why?  It seems her husband, who initiated a divorce with marital unfaithfulness, wants his children to learn science from a worldly point of view.  His wife, who has been successfully homeschooling (her kids are 2 years ahead of their peers) for four years uses the Bible as her ultimate teacher’s guide.  The judge stated in an oral ruling that the kids must be placed in public schools in order to satisfy the father’s desire for them to learn evolution rather than creation science.  As Spunky Homeschool reported yesterday, why not let the father teach his kids science and let his ex-wife continue to homeschool them?  Haven’t they been through enough upheaval through the misery of a divorce without forcing them into classrooms where they will be bored stiff (assuming the public schools will do what they usually do and stick them in classes with their same-age-group rather than on their ability levels)?

Another article in today’s paper makes me feel that I’m living in Nazi Germany rather than Texas.  Several school districts in my area have begun aggressively filing truancy charges against parents and students when students have what they deem are too many absences.  Some parents whose children have special health needs have kept them home at times — and the district decided to file charges against them for doing so.  (see story here).  The moral of this story for me is to avoid public schools like the plague.  Parents who send their kids to state schools are freely giving away their rights to direct their own children’s education, and, in some cases, their health management.  The bottom line is: if  you don’t want the state to tell you how to raise your kids, school them at home or in a private school.  We are becoming more Orwellian every day.

Be alert for the enemy in these days.  He’s on the prowl, slowing turning what is biblically right into secular wrong, and what is biblically wrong into secular right.  As we learn in 2 Timothy 4:

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

Today’s itching ears want to hear that morality is a matter of opinion.  The fact that state legislators are resorting to bribery to keep kids on the right track is a big clue that as a society, we are utterly lost.  We need the Savior more than ever.

ABCs flying out the window

Now, granted. I am not a lawyer. I am not a senator and am especially not the president of a country.

However, I am an American educator. I even have the credentials to prove it. Yup. I’ve been to the grand old university and learned lots of useless facts and figures. The very best training I received was on-the-job. I read everything there was in print about managing classroom behavior and educational theory…but I didn’t have a clue how to hold the interest and attention of a rowdy group of six year olds. The teacher books didn’t tell me what to do when a six year old boy gets angry at another student and throws his hard plastic pencil box across the room, narrowly missing the head of another. They didn’t tell me how to handle a kiddo who routinely threw huge tantrums, kicking and screaming anybody and everybody who came near. (Here’s a hint: evacuate the classroom and try to remove his shoes without getting kicked.) The “book” also didn’t say anything at all about kids who ask to go to the bathroom and then sneak outside to let the air out of their teacher’s car tires.

President Obama came out swinging yesterday at American education. We’re lagging behind other country’s children in education. I’ve been reading David Barton’s Four Centuries of American Education.  (from which much of the material in this blog is gleamed) It’s clear to me that our President is right that we are falling behind. What he didn’t mention is that we are lagging behind our OWN achievement. Take a look at this mental math question for elementary students which was published in a math textbook dated 1877:

On a farm, there are 60 animals — horses, cows, and sheep; for each horse there are 3 cows, and for each cow there are 2 sheep; how many animals of each kind?

Could you figure that out today, even as an adult, without using pencil and paper? How about this one from an 8th grade exit exam in Kansas (must be passed to enter high school):

What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?

I couldn’t answer either of those questions without looking them up…despite the fact that I graduated from college! Perhaps America textbook publishers ought to go back to their earliest editions if they want to improve the minds of our children.

President Obama — who is not an educator — believes the the way we improve education is to make school days and the school year longer.

“We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day. That calendar may have once made sense, but today, it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. Our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea. That is no way to prepare them for a 21st century economy.”

Hm. I wonder if he’d still think that if he spent a week substituting in a kindergarten classroom?

Over a hundred years ago, kids who misbehaved in school went to the woodshed with the teacher. Or they were kicked out and not invited to come back. Public education was a privilege…not a right. Kids who didn’t obey weren’t allowed to continue, or they were made to sit in the corner with a “dunce” hat. Imagine the outrage of the ACLU if a teacher dared ostracize and ridicule a student in that manner today. And the biggest difference between education then and now is really simple: God.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”
Proverbs 1:7

That proverb and other verses from scripture were routinely featured prominently through PUBLIC school textbooks. McGuffey Readers had selections from the Bible as well as lessons with titles such as “The Character of Jesus Christ,” “Solomon’s Wise Choice,” and “The Goodness of God.” In 1844, Daniel Webster argued before the US Supreme Court that religious instruction in public schools is essential. He argued:

When little children were brought into the presence of the Son of God, His disciples proposed to send them away, but Jesus said, “Suffer little children to come unto Me! (Matthew 19:14) Unto Me…and that injunction is of perpetual obligation; it addresses itself today with the same earnestness and the same authority which attended its first utterance to the Christian world. It is in force everywhere and at all times; it extends to the ends of the earth, it will reach to the end of time always and everywhere sounding in the ears of men with an authority which nothing can supersede. “Suffer little children to come unto Me.”

WOW! Can you imagine someone arguing that before today’s Supreme Court? How did the court rule in Vidal vs. Girard’s Executors? I’m flabbergasted to be living in the same country as the one which in 1844 released this unanimous decision about religion in public education:

Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament, without note or comment, be read and taught as a Divine revelation in the [school] — its general precepts expounded…and its glorious principles of morality inculcated?….Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament?”

As recently as the 1950s, our Supreme Court ruled again in favor of allowing religion in state schools, saying, in Zorach vs. Clauson,

When the State encourages religious instruction, or cooperates with religious authorities by adjusting the schedule of public events to sectarian needs, it follows the best of our traditions….To hold that it may not would be to find in the Constitution a requirement that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups. That would be preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe…We find no such Constitutional requirement.”

Yet in 1962 the tide began to turn distinctly anti-religious. This same court that a hundred years ago noted that the Bible teaches the “purest principles of morality” now ruled that:

• Voluntary prayer is forbidden
• Scripture can’t be used
• Religious electives are illegal
• Took the Bible out of school libraries
• Remove the Ten Commandments from schools
• Schools must cover religious artwork
• Exclude religious content from student papers
• …and on and on.

To a Bible-believer who knows that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge — literally — it comes as no surprise that standardized test scores and morality has slunk lower and lower each year since 1962 — the very year the court began excluding God from the classroom.

Unless and until students are taught to respect authority, they will keep doing anything and everything to get out of work. Schools replaced the Bible’s teachings with “Codes of Conduct” and “Creeds” which change from year to year depending on which rules parents complain about the most. The Bible, however, does not change. Its teachings stay the same…it teaches us that when we respect (another word for fear) the Lord, we gain knowledge as our reward. Kids who aren’t exposed to God’s word can’t possibly respect Him or anyone else in a godly way.

Want to know why I homeschool? One of the biggest reasons is because I do not want my child exposed to the disrespectful behavior of most public school kids in America today.

Nearly three weeks ago, my daughter broke her arm. We rode in an ambulance. During the ride, she engaged the EMT in conversation and told a few jokes. I could tell she was nervous because she was so chatty. When we arrived at Children’s Hospital, the EMT asked me,

Do you homeschool?”

I told him that we did and asked him how he knew.

She doesn’t have the same public-school glazed-over look,”

he replied. After thanking him for the safe transport, I treasured up those words. Here is a professional who interacts with children on a daily basis who is able to deduce simply by my daughter’s behavior that she is schooled at home.

Does that mean that those kids who must attend public schools are doomed to a less-than-excellent education?

Not necessarily. I believe the answer lies NOT in extending the school day or the school year. The answer is in finding creative ways to achieve effective discipline in the classroom, in the hallways, in the lunchroom, on the playground, in the office…not just students, either! Parents, too, need to be ready to back up the teacher when she reports that junior is being disruptive in class instead of engaging in the blame game. Most teachers are not “out to get” your child — we love kids and want to see them achieve their fullest potential…but the classroom setting requires certain standards before learning can take place.

A teacher who is constantly redirecting off-task and disruptive behavior has fewer and fewer hours and minutes to actually, um, teach. If Junior knows that he will be held accountable at home for his behavior in the classroom, then he will be more likely to behave. Parents who are believers need to really emphasize to their kids that they are under their teachers’ authority. If your kids attend school, start insisting on better discipline. Observe a class and see how the children interact with each other and with their teachers. If you see something that is disrespectful, make a note of it and then take it up with the teacher later (out of earshot of the kids, of course).

Insanity from Miriam Webster includes this definition:

extreme folly or unreasonableness; something utterly foolish or unreasonable

It would be, in my educator’s opinion, utterly foolish — yes, insane — to send kids to school for longer hours and a longer school year with the intent to improve education. That would just give our kids more time to learn bad behaviors from each other! Until teachers and schools get a handle on the discipline issue, learning will keep on flying out the window.

Life, the universe, (homeschooling, the economy) and everything

I think it’s been over a week since my last post.  Life has been crazy with a multitude of adjustments.  My daughter did not have to have surgery on her arm, but she did have to have a new cast, which induced lots of tears pouring and steam pouring out of ears — and that’s just with me!  The new-cast-process ended with another x-ray and a nurse practitioner shouting out to us as they were herding us out that “the bones might have shifted a bit but I think they’re okay.”

I literally had a sleepless night, worrying that the bones had in fact shifted too far apart and that she’d later need surgery.  My husband and I were both basket cases, and our daughter was in some serious pain after getting the new cast (with no pain medication offered, I might add).  So I scheduled an appointment with the orthopedic clinic at Children’s Medical Center Legacy for a second opinion.  It’s the same practice…different clinic.  Seriously, if you live in the DFW area and need an orthopedic clinic, go to Children’s Medical Center Legacy.  The facilities are brighter and cleaner, but more importantly, the staff treats its patients like people rather than like cattle being herded down the prairie.  I have to extend kudos to the wonderful doctors and nurse practitioners and cast technicians at the Plano location.  It turns out that her bones did, in fact, shift, and she wasn’t imagining things when she cried out that she felt the bones moving in her arm.  But the shift was in a good direction, not a bad one.

Now our lives are settling back into a routine.  We’ve made lots of accommodations, and I’ve been in the thick of everything as I serve as my daughter’s hand, writing down things that she can’t.  We are doing her spelling words and language arts on the computer now so that she can type them.  Why didn’t I think of this before?  It’s so much easier!

That is the beauty of homeschooling.  I am praying every day that the Lord will preserve our freedoms in this regard.  I know my daughter is thriving with one-on-one attention.  I also know that not every mom or dad out there is “cut out” to homeschool.  It takes discipline.  It takes a parent willing to view education as a lifetime endeavor.  It takes someone willing to sacrifice time and money.  Every year, $8000 of our money goes to someone else’s kid because we choose not to enroll our child in public school.  That is a huge sacrifice when you think about it — but it is so very worth it!

We are studying the Great Depression.  The parallels between then and now are eerie.  I am not running around saying we’re going to tank like we did back then, but I do see that the pendulum has swung in the big government direction once again.  America elected FDR because they wanted change.  And he brought it.  He tried lots of different experiments, things that had not been done before.  Some were successful and some were not, but at least he tried.  Many in America, however, were disillusioned because they hung their very existence on FDR’s ability to wave a magic wand and save them.  But it took time to get out of the hole.  The main thing America needed, though, was a leader to step up and tell them it would be okay.  FDR did that…he convinced Americans that nothing REAL had changed.  They were the same people.  They had the same vast natural resources.  The same intelligence and ingenuity…

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

Isn’t that so applicable today?  Sometimes I wish we didn’t have the internet and access to news 24/7.  Lately I haven’t even been watching it because all I see every day is expert after expert predicting more gloom and doom.  I see people waiting in job fair lines, and my heart aches, and before I know it, I grow fearful that someone I know and love will be hit with unemployment.

But you know what?  That’s okay.  We can house more people in our home if we ever needed to.  We are planting a garden this spring.  But most of all, I remember that Jesus warned us not to get too attached to things of this world.  They ARE passing away.  What is money, anyway?  Truly it has no intrinsic value above that which we place on it.  It is a tool that we use to purchase the supplies we need to live on.

I’ve been reading Epicenter,  by Joel Rosenberg.  It’s a non-fiction book that focuses on events in the Middle East and how they are seemingly lining up with prophesies in Ezekiel.  Very curious things.  Jesus told us to be ever watchful…yet he himself did not know when God would send him back.

In light of the recent story about Americans losing their religion, I hope — for their sakes — that He keeps his hand on the hold button awhile longer.  My heart aches for those who are standing in the unemployment lines with no faith in the One who could save them, if they’d only let him in their hearts…because our current president is NOT their savior or mine.  Only Jesus is.