THE RIGHT THING TO DO: Devotion for May 27 2012 (Children’s Day)

Text: Ephesians 6:1 – Children obey your parents as the Lord wants, because this is the right thing to do (New Century Version).

There is a difference between obeying and honouring. To obey means to do as we have been told while to honour means to respect and love. The bible did not commanded children to disobey God in obeying their parents. The bible did not ask adult children to be subservient to domineering parents. Children are to obey while under their parents’ care, but the responsibility to honour parents is for life. The fifth commandment is the only commandment with a promise (Ephesians 6:2) which says, “Honour your father and mother”.

Today is Children’s Day, a day to highlight the values of children, admonish them and challenge them for the future responsibilities that awaits them. Obedience is what God demands from our children in things lawful. This comes from the foundation a child receives. Value orientation for our children is very essential if they must obey us. Here Paul says it is the right thing to do. There is the type of obedience that God wants from children. This is obedience in all things lawful. When we do things unlawful, we should not expect our children to obey us. We must be their mentor and example.

There are benefits in obeying our parents and punishment for disobeying (Ephesians 6:2 & 3 and Ephesians 5:6). We should know that our parents as stated here are not only our biological parents, but also our elders and teachers. When we obey our parents, God will bless us and our parents too will bless us. Remember that the blessings from God are in the mouth of the elders Genesis 27:1 – 4 and Genesis 48:11 – 16.

Food For Thought: Obedience is one of the marks of true Christianity

Prayer Points:

1) Thank God for the gift of children

2) Pray for your children and other children

3) Ask God for spirit of obedience in your children.

Knowledge has value. Let me say it another way. What you know may be valuable to someone else. Other people may wish to purchase what you know for their work or their hobby. 

Why would people want to pay for something they can get online? Because finding the right combination of lessons, or technique for teaching the lessons may not be readily available. There are those who have a gift for teaching. There are others who have knowledge, but couldn’t teach it under any circumstances, because they do not have the gift of explaining things. 

There is a website that allows teachers to sell lesson plans. It is called Teachers Pay Teachers. There is an article about this website at: http://news.yahoo.com/kindergarten-teacher-earns-700-000-selling-lesson-plans-200139239.html. 

This article talks about how many of the people who make the lessons are making money, and other details. Most of the lessons sell from $5 to $10 each, but according to the article, whole schools are purchasing these lesson plans, not simply the teachers themselves. 

Finding out what schools need may be key to developing lesson plans for them. Specific and targeted groups, such as special education, remedial classes, translation/language plans, advanced lessons, etc. may be niches that need more attention. 

It seems also, that vocational schools should not be left out. Much of what is needed should come from those who have experience in those fields, and perhaps the “teacher” certificates would not be as important. Contacting local schools in your area might be a good place to start.

If you are a good writer, you already are in a good position to write lesson plans. Go to the link above first as it gives some information about who is selling lesson plans. Then go to Teachers Pay Teachers at: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/. The site is fabulous.

Our education system has no theoretical reason to fail; we’ve poured billions of dollars into it, harvested some of the best teachers our communities have to offer, and risen parental awareness. On paper, our education system shouldn’t be failing at all. But it is – our test scores fall far behind our competing countries’ test scores -, and the problem isn’t visible on paper, leaving some of us in wonder.

At essence, the problem is this: our education system has become too grade-centric. Teachers and students alike care not for the subject of their textbooks, but instead for the grades on their report cards. Each year’s classes no longer represent learning opportunities and topical enrichment, they represent numbers; digits that will either boost or weaken a GPA.

Teachers, for one, are paid based on their students’ performance. If students don’t do well, the teacher won’t do well, either. To ensure the continuity of his job, the average teacher would rather spoon feed materials to his students (eg test reviews that are basically the test, allowance of “cheat sheets,” excessive extra credit opportunities) than risk his students flunking or barely passing. I know this to be true because I sit through it everyday as do my friends from other states.

Students are just as bad. They oftentimes face immediate consequences at home for bad grades, and, to avoid this, go to extreme measures to compensate. Here lies the roots of Adderall abuse, report card plagiarism, late night and into morning cram sessions, stress, depression, and countless other ill affects.

All of this is part of a diversion tactic in both teachers and students. They focus not on the given subject, but on the grade they get by “doing well” in that subject, and, consequentially, look for ways to get around the subject and directly to that “done well” grade. This is why teachers spoon-feed their students, and this is why students pop pills like there’s no tomorrow. Nobody cares about the subject anymore, they care about the number, but how can one do well in a subject when he has no passion for it? 

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem with our education system. How to fix it? Lessen the importance of the grade. Find other ways to “measure” a student’s ability.

Naturally, the individual teacher may find this hard to do. He does, after all, have to abide by the rules imposed by his superiors. In this manner, reform will come only from the top. But the individual teacher can help, simply by changing the attitude of his class. That is key. Find ways to make the students less interested in their grades and more interested in the topic, and then both parties will find the grades rising, as if by magic.

I am by no means a clever person but I like to think I am able to absorb - up to now at any rate - what has in the past and what presently is going on around me and the community in which I live.  What does in fact surprise me is the manner in which many people automatically assume the easiest explanation to what appears to be a situation or problem is the correct answer or solution.  For instance if a man walks past a window and the window suddenly breaks which could be for a veriety of reasons such an event can happen, onlookers from a short distance away will automatically assume that the the man walking past the window has had something to do with it.  The fact this man on hearing the crash then out of fear or shock started to run off quickly from the scene does not mean that he had anything to do with the breakage of the window.  More than likely he ran off out of shock and for fear he was going to be injured by the fragmenting flying glass.  Police call this circumstantial evidence or in certain cases, some courts might accept this scenario as ‘evidence of opinion’.

This is a responsibility that people who investigate accidents or incidents such as this have to be extremely careful and assess all possible aspects of the situation before coming to a conclusion as to what in fact has happened.  In an aspect of finding out of a ’who did what’ or ‘who said this or that’ situation.   Parents with several children know that they have to be like police detectives to a point and just because one of their children who, for example, hate animals or is a jealous individual cannot be automatically blamed for kicking the cat or dog when the animal reacts in a violent manner to an incident that can be heard only from an adjoining or upstairs room.  Children could react withan anti social manner or attitute becaiuse of some form of deep rooted or inner form of insecurity.  Again how many times have falsely made accusations against a sibling has been made because of a previous incident or disagreement between them has been made.  Their own  easiest answer I suppose is to go to their parents with falsely made accusations in order to ‘get their own back’ for what they saw in their own minds as wrongly having been done to them, said or happened to them on a previous occasion.  Children, as a lot of us know from experience can be excellent actors and very convincing to adults who even in this advanced modern day and age naivelybelieve that children don’t lie or make things up like this.  BEWARE because these days the sound of pound notes ringing from the criminal compensation funds tills etc ring very loudly in their ears when new clothing, a bicycle, game or other article for personal use, entertainment or activity needs to be acquired at the time, with these adult attitudes getting money quickly in this manner at the time appears to be a quick and easy way in which to get it.  Living in times of hardship as we seem to be doing today where the priority of financial gain exceeds other important issues is tempting and at time can be  very dangerous to others as well as creating victims of criminal injustices which can and does have long term devastating effects on very many people and their families.

The main issue is that as adults we have to be far more responsible with regard to the manner in which children are influenced.  There always has been that danger of children ending up mixing with the wrong sort of person or in the wrong environment that will influence or offer the ‘quick and easy way’ to get what they want by the quickest and easiest means – and not necessarily by legal means either.  Whether children are academically, physically or psychologically gifted or not does NOT mean they have to be bullied by older people to find what they feel or think the child should or should not be doing.  The best way for a young person to learn about life is by our own examples of how we react in the world at large to others and also by their own experiences and in their own time.  Being there to be a guide and support is entirely essential but different from using strong bullying tactics and not allowing young people to progress in their own way in their own time.  We as adults may well have made mistakes in our lives – many mistakes having a serious and devastating effect on other people but we should not overlook the fact that there are abilities and a scope to successfully achieve in matters positively with everyone no matter how, what or where the background is.  There is a right way and a wrong way to do things as there are good and bad individuals.  Wealth. opulance or an environmental background are certainly no different to that equation.  I have met many wealthy people in my time and they are not in many psychological aspects successful or happy by any means.  Wealth is a good thing to have and a good goal to aim for but it can and very often does take away the true aspect of correct attitudes, outlooks on life and actions correctly. 

One only has to read an array of autobiographies to see what in fact is achievable despite all the negative and poor backgrounds experienced in one’s life.  Sociologists and psychiatrists may have what they think at times are the correct answers but at the end of the day it is up to the individual to seek this out for themselves the answers to their individual purposes and roles in life.  Adults – parents, teachers, care workers and other child bureaucratic officials must accept and be able to see their own faults before influencing children or their charges and telling them what in their personal opinion is right or wrong with their lives.  Every young person is an individual who has the right to seek their own path in life.  If they choose the wrong path then their OWN experience is the only teacher that will have any long lasting influence or affect on their futures – NOT our own past histories or experiences.  No two people are alike.  This perhaps is a common mistake we all tend to make at times.  Police fall into this trap when coming across crimes that need to be investigated think that in many cases their M.O. (Method of Operation) is identical.  This to a point may be the case but human nature being what it is will ALWAYS show that there is an individuality somewhere along the line that can be found once it is identified.  I suppose this is what good policing and detective work is about.  Parents and teachers also have at times got to be like good detectives within their own home or work situations as well.  

Leslie Lewis      

Seiritsu Gakuen Junior & Senior High School 日本語: 成立学園中学校・高等学校 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Senior High School students are expected to continue their studies as university after they finish high school. They are expected to succeed after being tested. It is not easy to pass the entrance examination to state university or institutes.

Students who are going to a university are advised to take an intensive academic course before they start studying. Years ago families with wealth and high social status were the ones whose children got academic education. So children were likely to follow in their parent’s footsteps. Doctors’ and professors’ children were likely to gain university education as their parents did. But today there is an increased opportunity for the talented students to receive a better education regardless of their social or economic background. All bright students may have university education. Anybody has a chance to get it.

State public schools are run by the government. Headmasters, teachers and administative staff of state public schools are civil servants. The government provides money and set certain rules. Private schools are run by a school board or school committee.

Local citizens organize the school-board members who usually serve without pay. The duties of the board are dealing with all matters that will improve the education of children and the teaching condition for the professional staff or teachers. They are enganged in paticular profession. They  manage the school building programme, the maintenance of buildings and the salaries for teachers.

Now, education in Indonesia takes another forms, except, the formal education, there is informal education which goes on in other settings. People are being educated all the time, learning from others and learning by themselves.

The new model envisages the student learning his lessons at home with the help of a computer and solving all problems in the classroom with the assistance of the teacher, if required.

This new model has already been accepted by some states in the USA and is likely to be adopted in other countries soon.

This new model, ushered inadvertently by one Salman Khan of Bangladesh residing in the USA and actively supported by Google and Melinda & Bill Gates foundation, is gaining popularity fast.

Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and working in Silicon Valley was helping his teenage cousin in Bangladesh with algebra over the telephone. When he found the time difference between the two countries inconvenient, Salman Khan had devised a method of putting his lesson in YouTube, and his cousin used to learn at his convenience. This worked to the advantage of both parties. Soon, Khan posted a number of lessons- an amazing library of online lectures, which could be used by any student interested. When the lessons became immensely popular, Google noticed the immense potential of using YouTube as an effective tool to spread education via the web and encouraged him by providing a grant of $2 billion. Bill gates also had seen the advantages and pitched in with another $2 billion. With these funds, Khan had started an academy and roped in professional teachers on a wide spectrum of subjects. Today, Khan Academy teaches several subjects from basic to advanced levels. The greatest advantage of these lessons is most of these videos can be downloaded and kept for use later.

New Model.

Image via CrunchBase

Salman Khan, famous for the Khan Academy, speaking at TED 2011. Cropped from the original. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Salman Khan, famous for the Khan Academy, speaking at TED 2011. Cropped from the original. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today, the students can learn any subject sitting in the comfort of their homes and at any time of their choice, go back and forth in the lessons as they like. They can learn at the rate they like and attend to solving problems with the assistance of the teacher at school or college.

This new paradigm is gaining wide acceptance in several parts of the world. Today Salman Khan has been rated by TIME magazine as fourth among the 100 most influential people in the world today, and he has been hailed as a ‘world class tutor of the digital age’.

Incidentally, TIME magazine of this week has an article about Salman Khan written by none other than Bill Gates himself. For more details about Salman Khan and his academy kindly see www.wikepedia.com.  The details about his academy may be seen at www.khan.org.

The problem doesn’t just stop with children not being toilet trained.  School staff say that even the most basic life skills are lacking in many school age children.  Some are unable to change their clothes for gym classes or indeed take off and put on coats unaided.

A lot of teachers say that parents these days don’t train their children because they’d rather pass the buck and feel it is an “education” issue and so should be dealt with by teachers.  Other teachers feel that parents are too busy with their own lives to spend the necessary time teaching their children these basic skills.

A poll has recently taken place in the UK by Education and Resources for Improving Childhood Continence and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers whereby 850 primary school teachers were targeted.  Of those 850 teachers, around 66% of them said there had been an increase in the number of pupils wetting or soiling themselves throughout school hours, and an incredible 71% working with kindergarten children (aged 3-5) had noticed an increase.  In fact, some schools even felt the need to set up parenting workshops to teach mums and dads how to toilet train their kids!

Of the teachers that were taking part in the poll, one said that there were three incontinent children in his/her classroom and it was necessary for nappies to be changed sometimes up to nine times a day.  Another said that with disposable nappies becoming more absorbent children don’t feel uncomfortable so they don’t feel any need to hold back when nature calls!  Others commented that, in general, children were becoming less independent and needed help with the most basic tasks.

Back in the 1960s when I was born, it was recommended that children should be potty trained as soon as they could sit up relatively unsupported.  Parents across the UK were encouraged by GPs and midwives to place a potty on a towel on their laps and then the child should be placed on the potty facing the adult.  Each time the child managed to go to the toilet then he or she should be rewarded with smiles, cuddles, kisses and kind words!  Once the child was strong enough to support him/herself safely then the potty should be moved onto the floor but still the child should receive encouragement.  Eventually the child should learn that it’s good to use a potty.

Once the child reached an age where it could communicate, it was slowly introduced to communicating in simple language that it needed to go to the toilet.  My mother assures me that both my sister and I were fully potty trained and out of nappies before we were 18 months old.  We obviously had the odd accident but, on the whole, we were pretty clean.

Of course, back in the 1960s, most mothers wanted to wean their kids off the nappy trail because they were the terry towelling type which had to be soaked in a bleachy solution in laundry buckets which were fitted with lids so that the smell of the dirty nappies and/or the bleach was restricted, and then the nappies were washed properly and dried almost on a daily basis.  Changing them wasn’t terribly easy either – holding onto a baby’s constantly moving body whilst  juggling nappy and safety pins and, at the same time, ensuring the nappy wasn’t too loose or too tight!

My mother always maintained though that she got into a daily routine when it came to nappy washing and she took pride in seeing a long line of sparklingly white nappies hanging on her linen line!

Today of course, there’s no washing necessary and no difficulty with folding the nappies and safety pinning them.  Modern disposable nappies can be velcroed around the baby or, as the child becomes older, these nappies are replaced with elasticated water proof underpants, so there’s no real incentive for parents to train their kids in toilet habits.

However, the government here has recognised that the disposable nappy is a major problem on our waste disposal sites.  Unfortunately, we’re not only over populating our planet but we’re destroying it by polluting the land with nappies.

This lackadaisical attitude to parenting it seems is spreading into other areas of social/life skills.  Hence the inability for some children to dress themselves properly, speak or write clearly or respect their environment or other humans. 

My smallish village is a prime example.  Parents, as soon as they’re able, seem to want to foist their kids onto grandparents or shove them into nursery school and then, when the children are at home, they send them outside to “play with their friends”, paying little heed to where the children are.  So often my partner and I and our various childless neighbours (both young and old) have seen “packs” of small children running around unattended.  They have no road sense (thankfully our roads here are extremely quiet traffic-wise), and because there are no parents around to tell them when they’re overstepping what’s socially acceptable, they’re throwing rubbish into the street, chasing cats, bullying the smaller kids on the block, kicking balls into people’s cars and windows and running amok in front gardens.  I’ve even caught small children picking the flowers from under my front window!

I suspect many responsible parents out there are now yelling at me “why don’t you tell the children off” or “why don’t you tell the parents”?  I’ve learned my lesson – several  years ago I told a small gang of boys (aged around 7) to try and avoid my windows and flower beds when they were chucking their cycles down and playing football.  I wasn’t unkind or abrupt, but just asked them politely.  They sulkily picked up their bikes and football and, having hurled abuse at me, went off.  Within the hour I had an angry father knocking on my door asking me what right I had to tell “Josh” to buzz off.  The father wasn’t prepared to listen to my version of events, preferring to rely on the evidence put forward by a seven year old child. 

Now, some six or seven years later, the families of those boys are constantly being visited by our boys in blue (police!) as they’ve progressed their unsociable behaviour and are becoming involved in fights, under age drinking, bullying, vandalism (including setting light to a field of wheat belonging to our local farmer!) and generally any misdemeanour you can think of!

So, parents beware, without your guidance kids can easily go off the rails … and this guidance starts with the basics, such as potty training!

Latino Children Play Swing (Photo credit: epSos.de)

Here’s what the spokesman for the New York City Educational Department said about banning these words. “It allows our students to complete practice exams without distractions.” Do you wonder why these words are distractions? The answer is: “Birthday” Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate them. “Pepperoni” Junk food. “Dinosaur” Not everyone accepts the theory of evolution.

“Halloween” Too pagan. “Divorce” Upsetting to a child whose parents have divorced. “Disease” Someone in the family might have a disease. “Slavery” Not good for children to know about. “Home computers” Some children can’t afford a home computer. One of the words Florida banned was “Hurricane” and California banned the word “weed”

You cannot shield children from the world they live in. Children should be allowed to learn to manage in their environment. The world does not stop at their convenience. If children are raised to expect to never be upset, what’s going to happen to them when they go out into the real world? What does the school systems think they are protecting children from? Why not let children know that everybody isn’t just alike, everyone doesn’t believe the world was created in a week, or that some people do eat pepperoni? We all live in different enviornments and we don’t all believe the same things. Isn’t it more important to teach children everything possible about the world around them and teach them how to navigate it?

You only have to look at test scores to see how low our schools have fallen off track. Ask the average high school student questions that a middle school student could answer a quarter century ago and they can’t give you a correct answer. It’s amazing that schools worry about ordinary words upsetting students when the whole education system is plummeting.

HOW TO DEAL WITH THEM

1. Well, if you’re still reading this, you clearly don’t like a teacher. So step one in dealing with them is quite simple: Let it be known that you don’t like them.

HOW TO DO THIS

Put your feet up on the seat in front of you and yawn. A LOT. Then, disregard all of her advice.

Don’t do your work. Let it go. If the teacher is old, tell them off because they lost it. Tell her every time that she tries to call on you that you don’t know the answer to that question because she is a terrible teacher

Make her feel like and idiot because she is one. And if you don’t mind getting a detention or something, you can really go far on this one

SO, in conclusion to this section, dealing with a teacher who gives you a lot of problems due to her immense amount of stupidity you must act like a bitch and tell her off to make sure that she stops and to get on her nerves.

HOW TO TURN THE TABLES

Teach them a lesson instead of them teaching you, because really, that’s no fun now is it?

                Tell her that’s she’s wrong even when she’s right. Prove your point in a way that is stupidly realistic, so that she falls for it. If the rest of the people in the class don’t like her either, they’ll go along with you, and you’re golden. From that point on, make sure that she continues to give your far-fetched version of the answer for the rest of the year when she refers to the subject.

                You leave when you want to, as long as the rest of the class goes to. Like, for example, my school has CAPTS so the schedule was a two hour delay schedule. For three days the Spanish teacher let us out on the freshmen lunch schedule: Ten minutes early. The last day, she changed the time to put the right one down. So, naturally we needed to change it. Eight people later, we didn’t get caught, the time didn’t get changed, but she still let us out early. Well, no not really. But she told us that we didn’t need to do anything for the next ten minutes because we were already packed up.

Just a side comment or two….. First of all, a few kids went to Spain for a school trip and the people in Spain that actually spoke Spanish; yes they said that they weren’t talking Spanish they were talking French. On top of that, a few papers were never corrected from Spanish class. Apparently our 80 year old teacher went flying around a corner and they flew right out of the window: Road rage?

In the next article:

How to piss them off

I’m taking suggestions for other sub-categories (comment with your idea, and I’ll probably go with it)

During 1978 whilst working in Coventry I was employed at the ‘Old Fire Station’  in  the Town Centre, on a Foundation Course, on a part-time basis for a period of 8 weeks teaching Woodwork to a class of English youth. 

My relationship with them was so good that when they heard I was leaving I was very pleasantly surprised by gifts which were given to me, brought from the pocket money of these youngsters. 

Sadly I had to leave the teaching post, as there were not enough pupils to make the class worthwhile, we had thirteen pupils when I left but there were two teachers. 

A speech was made by one of them expressing appreciation for the skills I taught them and my patience and understanding shown to them.  

I understood from the teachers at the ‘Old Fire Station ‘ this was the first time any teacher had been shown such appreciation in this manner. 

I found great satisfaction and enjoyment helping the boys and I was treated with complete respect.