"Lord, God, Father in highest heaven, I need a job. Please, Lord, if it be pleasing to You, grant me a good job. Lord, as well, You know that I am an impatient man. If it isn't too much to ask, in the name of Jesus, grant me patience. And make it fast."
I prayed this about 6 years ago after I had left Disney. I'm an artist and designer, and I thought God knew I meant I wanted a design job. And, of course, He did know that. But He knows better than I do what I really want and need. And He likes to (make?) two birds with one stone, so to speak.
In the movie, Evan Almightly, "God" (Morgan Freeman) asks Joan (Lauren Graham), Evan's wife, "When someone prays for patience, do you think you God just makes them patient, or gives them opportunities to be patient?"
Anyway, a job and patience is for what I prayed. And the Lord, in His infinite wisdom, and incomparable humour, made me a kindergarten teacher.
I had never thought of myself as a teacher. It changed my life. How I saw kids, how I reacted with them, dealt with difficult situations, how better to control myself as well as how to discipline and instruct them. And I did learn patience. At least a good deal more than I had previously. Once, in telling my father that I had been praying for patience, I remember him saying, "That usually takes a lifetime to learn," to which I responded, "I don't think I have the patience for that."
This post isn't really about patience though. It is about teaching and, in particular, child-rearing. I must refer to Dave, a much more seasoned and far better teacher than I, for views coming from the educator's side. It has struck me as very interesting the modern approach to child-care, who claims what responsibility (and where it stops) as well as the effects of, what seems to me, post-modern and relativistic theory on the mind of all three, child, parent and educator.
The BBC has a report here on teachers being abused by students and their parents. It says that up to 40 per cent of teachers had been abused by either a student's parent or guardian. Many times, children around the age of 5 or 6 have commited heinous acts (ibid). What is happening to our kids?
"Parents," would be my answer.
What happened to the old addage, "It takes the community to raise the child?" Do parents think it okay to give all responsibilty to raising the children they birth to teachers, yet bite back when they exercise said responsiblity? Here in Japan, luckily, I had to deal with one student and her mother like that in two years, but I got the impression that that was really rare. What is it like in America, England and Australia now? Can anyone give thoughts? Is this, as I figure, a result of relative thinking, modern child-care, Dr. Spock or what?
I don't know about other parent's (not outside our own church community, at any rate) but we have one rule in our house: Obey Mom and Dad. Disobey us, you get spanked. No warnings (not anymore) and not hard. Just enough to impart, "listen."
And it works. But I also have told my daughter, when she stays with Grandma, or anyone, she must do what they say as though I said it. If she feels uncomfortable with something, tell me, but to obey unless she knows it goes against God's rules (she is a little young yet to get that, but she is getting there). And we have very little trouble at all. Now anyway.
Anyone got any other thoughts? What is the deal with all the violence from immature students and their immature parents?
2 comments:
Oh, James! You hit upon a touchy subject here! When I was a student teacher a couple of years ago, one of the more seasoned veterans told me that a child threw a chair at her! On her first day! Now, admittedly, she was in one of the rougher schools, but this is Brisbane, not L.A.! How many of you out there would have even DREAMED of doing that at school when you were kids? Not me! My dad would have spanked me so hard I wouldn't have been able to sit down for a week! And he'd have been right to do so!
We hear at lot in the education industry about how kids are different today to how they were even 10 or 15 years ago. So we have to change our teaching styles. Gotta do things differently. Can’t make them just sit down and learn anymore – its gotta be fun and interesting, and every lesson’s gotta be a production complete with dancing monkeys! (Maybe I exaggerate a bit, but still...) But I ask you - are kids really different? Biologically, they are the same. The human race hasn't evolved in the last 50 years to the point where today's kids are actually different to kids back then. No, kids are the same. What's changed is our culture. What's changed is what we expect of kids and what we allow them to get away with. We make excuses for them, which my grandparents didn't do for my mum and dad. Kids have learning disorders like ADD (which I think actually stands for Acute Discipline Disorder) etc and so we excuse their behaviour rather than making them shape up into people who take responsibility for themselves. And parents are expecting us teachers to make their kids study. Hmmm...I see your child for one hour a day. He’s with you all night. Whose responsibility is this, really?
One of the first things a child teaches him/herself to do is point. The pointing finger is also one of the last habits to break and breaks all the harder with old age.
When responsibilities are handed out, the finger points out. When benefits are reaped, they turn inwards. Woe is the dread bane of man: himself.
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