Flexibility - Changing Plans With Short Notice

I have a friend whose favorite saying is "Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be broken."

I live in North Carolina, and this week, all the talk has been about Hurricane Florence.  While Raleigh is far enough inland to rarely be dramatically affected, that doesn't stop everyone from preparing.  Stores were quickly out of bread and bottled water.  People who have never grilled before rushed to Home Depot for grills and propane tanks in case we were without power for a few days.  The entire shelf of charcoal at Harris Teeter was empty.

I am single and content with the peanut butter and crackers in my house.  I filled a few pitchers with water and tea.  My preparation issues were almost entirely related to school.  On Tuesday afternoon, it was announced that we should have a half-day on Thursday and no school on Friday.  We were in the midst of achievement testing, so that required some reconfiguring.  I had also planned to tape some physics students to an outside door on Wednesday, but the rain delayed that for a week.

What do you do with 1 and a half days and a long weekend you hadn't planned for?  Think about what is essential.  Is there something you have planned that would have been good but isn't really needed?  You can delete that from your plan?  Is there something that is marginally better if it takes a whole class period but can be compressed into a half period without much loss?  Do that.    Is there something you could assign them to read for homework?  That'll make your use of class time upon returning to class more effective.  Is there something you planned to teach in a time-consuming way that could be handled more efficiently with direct instruction or a video?  That'll work.

None of these is the ideal because there isn't a way to make a sudden time cut ideal.  (Your original plan probably was the best way.)  They are, however, the best way to move forward and not waste time just because you weren't expecting the change.

If you work in a school longer than a month, you will encounter unexpected schedule changes.  Even the best thought out plans get changed by weather, a guest speaker who gets scheduled or dropped at the last minute, changes to standardized testing, or a pep rally you forgot was coming.  If you don't have in your mind what is most essential, you will either end up overloading your students or wasting their time, neither of which is acceptable.

Can Any Good Thing Come From Nazareth?

The inscription on the Statue of Liberty reads, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"  For 241 years, our country has been a place where people came to make a better life for themselves and their families, as Emma Lazarus' lovely poem memorializes.  We have taken in those who needed help, due in no small part to our Judeo-Christian roots and Biblical commands to take care of the poor and take in the refugee.

A week ago, President Trump's comment on people from Haiti and many African countries reflected that he wants to change that culture.  He wants to make immigration policy based on "merit."  When he said that he wanted more people from places like Norway, he didn't just mean that he wanted more white people (although, seriously, could he have chosen a whiter place?) but that he wanted people with something to offer.  If he passed his ideal policy, America would no longer be the friend that helps you clean up your house after a flood.  America would be the friend that helps you move only if you helped him and are willing to buy him dinner afterward.  Everyone has that friend, but no one likes him.  

I have come to expect this from President Trump, so it is difficult to be disappointed in him.  What I am disappointed by are the number of people that I know and love, people who claim to love Jesus and want to follow His example, who defend this attitude.  I have friends who immediately posted about the long history of presidents using foul language.  While true, I don't know when adults decided that something was acceptable as long as other people had done it too.  I have friends who were quick to sidestep the issue by complaining that the media isn't reporting on rising stock market or companies who are bringing jobs back.  Again, these things are true, but how does doing one thing right make another thing less reprehensible?  I have friends who jumped totally on board with the Norway portion of his comments, exclaiming how glad they are to "finally" have a president who wanted to bring people here who could help us.  I think these are the people who bother me the most because it shows that they share his "America first" attitude and are proud to abandon any concept of our melting pot history in the name of cold, hard greed.  Some of you that are reading this are offended by this statement, and I'm fine with that; but if you love Jesus, let me ask you to set aside your offense for just a minute and consider something about Jesus.

Jesus was born in poverty and adopted by a working tradesman.  His parents fled with him to Egypt as refugees from a king that was paranoid and unstable.  He grew up in Nazareth, a town of around 500 people.  It may have had one public bath at the time of Jesus earthly ministry.  It is seldom mentioned in the historical record outside of scripture, from which most people infer that it was considered too trivial a place to mention.  This appears to be supported by the statement of the not yet disciple, Nathaniel to Phillip, when he said, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?"  To borrow the phrase of President Trump, Nazareth was a "s#*!hole country."  Jesus offered no skill that would cause people to think He had merit.  He was exactly the kind of person President Trump's policies seek to exclude.  How many people missed the Messiah because of their expectations, their prejudice, and their self-centered attitudes?  How many people would have preferred that their Messiah come from the ancient equivalent of Norway?  

William Holman Hunt - Nazareth.jpg." Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. 23 Mar 2017, 18:37 UTC. 22 Jan 2018

My blog is supposed to be about education, and so far this post has been political and religious meddling.  So, here is my application to the classroom, at least the Christian school classroom.  We must teach our kids that EVERY person on this planet, no matter where they are from, is a creation of God who carries His image.  We must teach them that EVERY person on this planet, no matter what their skill level, was created with a unique purpose.  We must teach them that EVERY person is a fallen sinner in need of a savior (yes, everyone, including me and you).  God doesn't have an America first policy; He so loved the world that He sent His Son.  If we are going to view people the way God views them, we must love the world.

The kids we teach will soon vote.  One day, some of them will be responsible for making immigration policy.  We owe it to the future to teach them now to view people the way God does.  Viewing people as God views them will not make immigration policy less complex; there will always be more need than resources.  Viewing people as God views them will not even make immigration policy easier; difficult decisions will always have to be made about how to allocate resources.  These are thorny issues that deserve thoughtful discussion.  Viewing people as God views them, however, should make those discussions more compassionate.  Start those discussions in YOUR classroom.

Statue of Liberty Poem - "The New Colossus." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 18 Jan. 2018. Web. 22 Jan. 2018.

Elements of Successful Innovation - Part 4 - Common, Simple, and Reliable Technology

In recent weeks, I have taken a tweet from Jon Bergman in which he posted a list of elements schools need for successful classroom flipping and modified to apply to any innovation in the classroom.  In this post, I combine three of them because they are all about your school's technology.

There was a time when you could innovate without reliance on technology, but I'm not sure that is possible anymore.  Even if the project or program you want to start in your classroom or school isn't specifically about tech, your students will be using tech to do it.  The biology and anatomy teacher next door to me had to interesting projects last year that we not, on their face, tech projects.  In his 9th-grade biology class, students were assigned to grow food plants, with the goal of reaching 1500 calories by the time they were finished.  They had to track water usage, minerals added, temperature changes, etc.  Given that there is nothing more old school than growing food, you might not think technology is an issue here.  It was, however, a huge part of their research, and those who didn't pay proper attention to the credibility of their sources killed their plants by mixing a lot of Epsom salt to their soil.  (They didn't realize it was good for some plants and not others and that there is a limit to how much they should put in.)  His anatomy class plans a crime scene in which all kinds of evidence is collected.  Other students then ask questions of the group members, which play the roles of suspects, witnesses, and detectives.  Again, this doesn't seem techy up front, and it may not have to be, but it is so much easier for students to print photos, edit them to make the scene, print fingerprints, etc.  Realizing that your students bring their knowledge of technology to any experience means your school needs to have good tech for any innovation you plan.

Common Technology - I understand that this is a controversial topic.  Many schools have gone to a bring your own device model because it is less expensive for the school.  I get that, and it is certainly better than not having any technology, but I don't think it is ideal.  First, it increases the likelihood of a socio-economic achievement gap.  Students who can afford to bring in better devices will have an advantage.  Also, the teacher will spend a lot of time trying to figure out what each student has at their disposal.  When GRACE began one-to-one, we had every student carrying a MacBook.  Soon, they will all be carrying something else, but they will all have the same devices with the same programs.  It means that I don't have to troubleshoot every kind of device when a student can't log into something.  I can assign a video, knowing that all students have a movie editing program.  I can provide a challenge, knowing that the students have access to all the same filtering.

Simple Technology - "Simple" doesn't have to mean cheap, but it does have to mean user-friendly.  There is a learning curve when you implement a new tool.  That is to be expected, but if the new tool is so frustrating to use that it causes students to give up, you are using the wrong tool for your situation.  People say, "Photoshop it," like that is an easy thing to do.  It isn't.  Unless you are teaching a digital media class or an art class that has a unit on digital image manipulation, you probably don't need it.  I teach yearbook, and I don't use it because the extent of my need is cropping, brightening, and the occasional color correction.  Your students need access to the tool that best fits their need, not necessarily the most high-end tool.

Reliable Technology - This is the big one.  No matter how good your tech is, it means nothing when it doesn't work.  Some hiccups are to be expected.  We have had a couple of days when Time Warner was having a blackout.  Those times should be rare, and we are blessed to have an administration that is willing to invest in more than having the technology but making it easy for students and teachers.  If you are going to hand out hundreds of computers, you can't be using the same wifi you did when only your teachers were using it.  Invest in a strong signal speed and access points.  Again, if it is so frustrating that your people want to give up, they will just revert back to pencil and paper.  (By the way, on those days when we were having access problems, my kids were stunned to discover that I could still teach with a white board.)

I had a class in college in which our equipment never worked.  Our professor would come into the lab and give us instruction, then go back to his office while we carried it out.  We would get started, only to find out the machine didn't work.  After troubleshooting for improperly connected circuits and other issues this type of equipment could have, we would go to the professor and tell him.  He asked the same troubleshooting questions we did.  When we gave him answers that indicated we had tried everything, he sent us back to the dorm.  One day I looked at the syllabus for that class and saw that troubleshooting equipment was one of the objectives.  We met that objective; but sadly, I think it was the only objective we met.  Not actually getting to experience the experiments in that lab was frustrating.  When you innovate, you owe it to your students to make it a learning experience, not frustrate them with an inability to achieve learning because your technology is confusing, complicated, or unreliable.

Do The Next Thing

Elisabeth Elliott is known for being the wife of Jim Elliott and for her authorship of Through Gates of Splendour, Passion and Purity, and many other books about living the Christian life through the most difficult of circumstances.  My strongest memory of her, however, will always be the time I heard her speak in person.  A group of friends and I took a road trip from Tulsa, OK to Little Rock, AR to see her speak at a church.  During the speech, she spoke little of the grand moves we make in life and much of the mundane - feeding your children, doing laundry, etc.  This was interesting for me as a college freshman, even though she was discussing things I had not experienced.  It is rare to hear a speaker talk about regular, everyday worship acts rather than the big stuff, especially someone who has experienced as much big stuff as she as.  At the end of the night, there was a question and answers time, in which someone asked what to do when they felt overwhelmed by how much they had to do.  Every college student in the audience perked up their ears, expecting profound advice on how to give your worries over to God.  Her advice was this, "Do the next thing.  Since it isn't possible to do everything at once and sitting there thinking about it just makes even less time, do the next thing."  I went back to my dorm room that night and printed, "Do the Next Thing" on a sheet of paper.  It hung above my desk for four years, and it is still in my mind today.

This is a time of year when I have a lot on my plate.  Our school does a lot of activities at the end of the year because everyone wants to do their thing for the last time.  There are senior night games, final concerts for band and chorus, and that one last time a club will get to meet.  There are NHS inductions, senior dinners, and of course, graduation.  As the yearbook teacher, I am involved in most of these to varying degrees.  Whether I am there to take pictures at the senior game or enjoy a strings concert, I am there.  In preparation for the senior dinner, my staff and I make posters with each senior's photo and the logo of their college/military/job choice.  This takes a fair amount of time, and some of the students don't make their choices until the day before the dinner.  I also speak at this dinner, so it is important to write the speech.  The yearbook staff also constructs the senior slide show for graduation, which incorporates music, photos, and quotes from each teacher.  Pulling all of that together takes time and must be copied onto a jump drive for each student so it can be included with the gift they will receive at graduation, a Bible which all of the teachers have written in.  Oh yeah, add to the list that I need to go sign the Bibles.  We hold a fine arts pep rally for the day of yearbook distribution, and that is a big day.  Every year, I forget something, like filling out the event request so that the IT department will know what I need (note to self:  do that today). We are changing the way we do that event this year due to the explosive growth of our student body, so I'm still trying to figure out how to deliver all the books between rallies.  This is all in addition to the regular teacher duties and exam writing and blog posting and faculty meetings and lunch duties.

Please understand that I am not complaining about ANY of this.  They are some of my favorite parts of the job and a big part of what makes GRACE so special.  It's just a lot of stuff in a short amount of time, and it can get overwhelming.  You have times like that too.  It may not be the same stuff, but it we all experience times when we have too much to do and not enough time to do it (or at least, it feels that way).    Let me expand a just a little on the advice of Elisabeth Elliott.

1.  Do the next thing.  I'm going to start with that because it is so powerful in its practicality.  As long as you aren't doing anything, you have the same amount of stuff to do.  Let this be the time when the urgent rules and do whatever is due next.
2.  Start whatever you can as early as you can.  I cannot start working on the senior slide show in August, but I can start it in March.  Doing a few students a day throughout the month of April is much less daunting than doing it all in May.
3.  Do whatever you can whenever you can.  This seems like the same advice as #2, but it isn't.  There are times when I am sitting in the car, waiting to meet my parents for dinner.  This is a good time to work on the slide show.  If I have ten minutes before my next class, I can cut out a few college logos for the posters.  During achievement tests, I stole the Bible pages (don't tell anybody because I wasn't supposed to do that) and signed them during the Language Mechanics test.  I am writing this blog post while subbing for another teacher who is on a field trip.  Making use of any time you have to do small things helps them not add up to big things.
4.  Remind yourself that you won't die.  This time period happened last year and the year before that (and for me, the ten years before that), and I'm not dead yet.  Exactly zero death certificates have read, "Cause of death: too much to do and not enough time to do it in."  Keep doing it, and you will eventually get a weekend to sleep in an extra hour.
5.  Decide what is important.  This can be tough because we often convince ourselves that it is all critical.  Maybe it all is, and maybe it isn't.  For each thing, decide not only if it is important but at what level.  It is very important to me that I speak at the senior dinner, but do I need to speak about five students and give each of them a personalized gift - probably not.  This year, I have chosen to speak about two.  It is important for me to write in every student's Bible, but they don't all need to be a long and drawn out message.  The fine arts pep rally matters, but the power point may not need to be as cute and "on-theme" as I usually make it.  We do some of this to ourselves, and it isn't always necessary.

Judge For Yourself

There are two professions in which fads are most prevalent, fashion and education.  It is obvious in fashion as there are visible and recognizable from season to season.  It is even necessary to the survival of the industry.  

In education, the fads are a bit more subtle as they take longer to implement and stick around for several years.  They are not, however, necessary to the survival of education and may even be harmful to the students on which they are tried.  Not all fads are bad, of course, but it is important to recognize one when you see it and then (and this is important, people) use your professional judgment.  

When I began teaching eighteen years ago, I wondered why my freshmen couldn't spell the simplest words.  For two years, I taught fourteen and fifteen-year-olds who could not spell words like definite or intelligent.  When I asked them what the problem was, they informed me that they had been instructed using the inventive spelling method.    For those blessedly unfamiliar with this "pedagogy," inventive spelling is "the practice of spelling unfamiliar words by making an educated guess as to the correct spelling based on the writer's existing phonetic knowledge." (grammar.yourdictionary.com) The hope is that the student will eventually learn to spell the words correctly by absorption.  It doesn't work, and I can't imagine why anyone thought it would, but my students were subjected to it for three years of elementary school.  These students are now in their early thirties and, based on their facebook pages, they still struggle to spell words correctly.  

My first two semesters of college, I took Calculus I and II - sort of.  I was part of an experimental curriculum, called Discovering Calculus.  The book, which was an anorexic 90 pages long, did not have formulas in it.  We, as college students, were supposed to figure out the formulas by intuition.  The logic behind this approach came from years of students knowing how to perform calculus equations without really understanding them.  While I understand that issue, I do know that students who passed those class could do the calculus they learned while I still cannot.  There's a reason it took from the beginning of time until Isaac Newton for mankind to have calculus.  Every student in my class went to a used bookstore and bought a real calculus book so that we could survive this class.  

Now that I have taught for nearly two decades, I am left to ask myself where the professional judgment was in these teachers.  Was there really an elementary school teacher who truly thought second graders would eventually figure out the spelling of words when the English language is fraught with exceptions to phonics?  My calculus professors were not first-year teachers.  They knew how to teach calculus to physics and engineering majors because they had done it for many years (one of them for decades).  What made them think this would work?  My guess is that in both cases, the people in the classroom didn't have a choice.  They probably had it handed down to them by their administration because someone convinced those people to adopt the latest educational fad.  

Those schools no longer teach inventive spelling or discovering calculus because it proved to be ineffective.  If this were the fashion industry, that might not be a big deal.  We all get to look back at our bow blouses and banana clips with nothing more than a blushing head shake.  This is not true, however, in education.  These fads are experiments, and the guinea pigs are our students.  It is dangerous to try every fad in education without serious thought.

Lest you think that I want our classrooms to stay stuck in the model of two hundred years ago, let me quickly dispel that notion.  I teach enthusiastically in a one-to-one school, and my students learn through the use of internet research, show their learning through video construction, and reflect on their learning through blogging.  They collaborate on projects and review using every online tool I can find.  I have digital textbooks, have flipped lessons, and use youtube so much that I don't know how I taught without it.  There is nothing about me that resists the use of technology.  HOWEVER, (and it is a big however), if a teacher is using technology for the sake of using technology, they are using technology wrong.  

You owe it to your students to analyze your own pedagogy.  The educational value of teachers lies in our judgment as trained professionals.  Anyone can deliver information, but it takes an educator to decide on what to teach (and what not to teach) as well as the best way to teach, reinforce, and assess learning.  When a new fad comes along in education, it may actually be a great new way to teach something, but keep in mind that it may not be.  Ask yourself the following questions:

- Does the new way offer brain engagement in a way that the old way does not?
- Does the new way take away from brain development that the old way offers?
- Is there value to the new tool for more than one curriculum point?
- If the new way doesn't work, what long-term effect will it have on students?
- Does the new way teach a skill or thinking process that students will need in the future?

Sometimes, the new way is the best way, and sometimes it is not.  My students blog because I decided that they would benefit from weekly reflection, that I could expose them to content there wasn't time for in class, and that I could ask them to empathize by using appropriate prompts.  My professional judgment was that these were important enough goals to make grading seventy blogs a week worth it.  My students make videos because script-writing forces them to put learning in their own words, but they do not make stop-action videos (unless they choose it) because I find little educational value to justify the time it takes.  My students have collaborative projects because it is my professional judgment that much non-academic learning happens when people work together.  My students also have solo projects because I believe that there must be times when students create on their own.  The common element in each of these situations is that I do not just passively adopt the newest fad method or technological tool.  I don't just ride the educational pendulum.  Rather, I employ all my training and experience to make the right decision for my classroom.  

Just as importantly, I am fortunate enough to have an administration that allows me to do so.  

Goal Matching

January and February are scary and exciting months for high school seniors.  Most of them will receive either their acceptance or rejection letter from the colleges they have applied to in the next few weeks.  (If you are over forty, you are probably thinking it is too early for that, but what we used to call "early acceptance" is now when the majority of students get accepted.  Yeah, we're old.)  There's a lot of celebrating for those who are accepted, with congratulations on Twitter and pictures of acceptance letters on Instagram.  For those who are rejected by their top choices, there are conversations about what to do next.  For some, their top choice is their only choice; so not getting in feels like the end of the world.

I teach at a school where nearly everyone goes to college, so there are a lot of conversations with both seniors and juniors as they contemplate their options.  I have recently found myself having the same conversation multiple times.  It goes something like this:

Student:  I'm not sure I can get into UNC (or some other highly competitive, very expensive school).
Me:  Is there another school that offers what you want to study?
Student: Yeah, but I don't think I can get a job if I go there.
Me:  Have you checked into what those school's placement percentages are?  It's hard to believe that everyone who majors in (student's field of study) there can't get a job.
Student:  No, but I heard UNC is the best for that.
Me:  Where are you thinking about working?  Do they insist on a UNC degree for that?
Student:  I don't know.  I just figured . . . trails off as they realize they haven't done their research.
Me:  You know, I went to ORU.
Student:  I've never heard of that.
Me:  See.  I went to a school you've never heard of, and I've never had a problem getting a job.

The number of times I have had this conversation reveals a belief among students that they must go to the highest end, most competitive, or most expensive university in order to work in their chosen field.  There may be 400 other schools that offer programs in their interests, but they limit themselves to the most difficult one to achieve because of that belief.  The thought has never occurred to them that those 400 schools wouldn't exist if their students didn't get jobs.

Let's get some perspective.  If you want to work at one of those high-end New York law firms that only higher Harvard graduates, then you have to go to Harvard.  If you just want to practice law, there are 205 schools that are approved by the American Bar Association.  You can even find the employment placement stats for all of those schools on the ABA website.  There are almost two thousand accredited nursing schools in the United States, but I have students who insist on putting themselves through the process at UNC-Charlotte because they truly believe it is the only way.  I spent a little time online attempting to find a place that would only hire a nurse trained at UNC-Charlotte, and I was unable to find one.  I do, however, know quite a few working nurses who graduated from Wake Tech's Nursing program.

The key is to match your plans to your goals.  When you visit a college, ask a lot of questions.  I mean, a lot of questions - that's what the guide is there for.  If you are just thinking, "These are pretty buildings," when you make your decision, you aren't going to make the smartest choice.  Some colleges cost as much as buying a house, and you might spend thirty years trying to pay off your student loan debt (Which, by the way, you should pay because you decided to go there and get a degree.  Stop insisting that the college forgive your debt.  They provided a product for a price you agreed to.  They don't owe you anything now; you owe them.  Sorry, soap box.)  There's a pretty good chance that, unless your goals are really extreme, you can go to a much less expensive school and reach your goals without having to live on rice and beans for the first twenty years of adulthood.  You aren't getting married.  You're allowed to change schools.  You will probably change majors because most people do.  If you find your identity in your school, that's idolatry; and you should flee from it.

The best advice I can give (aside from pray for wisdom) is to broaden your scope.  You may discover that there is a school you haven't considered yet where you would absolutely thrive.

Standards AND Compassion

For some reason, I was thinking about college today.  I was thinking about an argument I had with a woman in my Educational Psychology class.  The professor had been talking about different types of learners  and the stuff that kids had on their minds while trying to learn.  She had been talking about modifications.  She had been talking about including multicultural stuff in lessons.  I was losing my mind until I just couldn't take it anymore without raising my hand.  "When are we supposed to teach them science and math and stuff?" I asked.  "How is physics different if a student is from another country?"

Now, before you unfriend me, listen.  I was 19.  I had always been a driven student.  I had chosen education because I loved physics and wanted to help other people love physics.  In my mind, all of this focus on the "other stuff" seemed to have nothing to do with the reasons I had majored in this.   It seemed like coddling students and lowering standards.  Another student in the class, a mom of about 50, started talking to me about her child and the problems she had learning.  At that point, I couldn't hear mitigating factors because my own mind was already locked in on the point I was making.  We were supposed to teach them a certain number of things, and all this stuff was going to interfere with it.  We left class that day with me thinking she cared nothing about learning and her thinking I cared nothing about children.

We were both wrong, but we were both locked into one argument at that point.  I was an idealist, and she was a mother, and neither of use was able to see ANYTHING from the other person's point of view.  We both went home (me to the dorm and her to her child) to people who affirmed only our own point of view.  My friends completely agreed with my assessment that I could teach you standards without caring how you feel about them, and her kids completely agreed that she should drop teaching material whenever a student felt a feeling.  We both seemed to think that a teacher can care about standards OR compassion, but not both.  We were both wrong.

I have now been teaching for eighteen years, and I am a bit more realistic than I used to be.  I am also more committed to high standards than I ever was in school.  Here are some reasons why.

First, I took a class in the Education of Exceptional Individuals, taught by a teacher with only one arm.  She gave me a perspective on physical disabilities that I had never had, but she also opened my eyes to the frustration and tension that a student with learning differences could feel.  She never encouraged us to lower our expectations, only to change our methods.  I would properly credit this professor if I could remember her name.  While I can't remember her name, I definitely remember what she taught me.

Second, I student taught.  All the arguments I had in classes were based in theory.  The luxury of theory is that it is always idealistic.  I learned that when I took applied thermodynamics.  Everything I had learned in the introductory class worked perfectly.  Then, I had to start dealing with real machines that had moving parts, subject to friction and entropy.  That changed things.  ORU places their education majors in two places of 7 weeks each with the hope that they will be exposed to two different environment.  I was in two very similar schools in the Tulsa area, both mostly white, mostly middle to high socioeconomic families, and both well known for being good schools.  My advisor was concerned that I wouldn't have varied exposure.  As it turned out, her concerns were not reality.  I could not have had two more different experiences.   I started in the class of Patrick Bell, a man who believed strongly in standards but had no compassion.  He played tricks on me, like hiding tests or making sure I was in the wrong place during a fire drill, in the name of teaching me about the real world.  He wouldn't allow students to touch his desk or use a different color pen than he wanted.  They learned physics and chemistry, but they also learned to be a little less human in the pursuit of knowledge.  My second placement was with Lisa Achterkirk, a very pregnant woman who taught basic skills physical science to students with IEP's.  She did not hold many academic standards as important, but she cared very deeply about her students and knew a lot about them.  Assessing what the kids had learned was the last thing on her priority list, but she made sure they enjoyed whatever science they learned.  This is really when I learned the dangers inherent in both extremes and discovered that my course would be plotted somewhere in the middle.

I have now taught for 18 years, and I have been with students during a lot of events.  I was in class during Columbine.  I was teaching on 9/11.  I have taught during a shooting threat.  I was in class the day after a student in our school died and the day they found out their favorite teacher had cancer.  I taught kids the day after their best friend was expelled.  I was teaching when we went to war in Iraq and during four presidential elections.  My students and I experienced the nearly fatal accident of a teacher at a pep rally together.  All of these things affect their learning.

Most importantly, I have now taught over a thousand kids.  They aren't theoretical like they were when I was 19.  They are flesh, mind, emotion, hormone, and spirit.  I have watched a student have a seizure in my class and had a student I couldn't wake up because of their medication.  I've taught freshman girls who had babies and boys who spent the weekend in jail.  I have been cussed at by students as many times as I have been hugged by them.  I have taught when my own heart was broken and when theirs were.

The reason my classmate and I were both wrong was the word OR.  We thought we could be either committed to standards OR filled with compassion.  We can live in the world of AND.  We can hold to standards AND have compassion.  The word compassion means "to suffer with."  When a student fails to live up to the standards of a test or project and they are upset about it, I can feel upset with them.  That doesn't mean that I turn around and give them an A they didn't earn.  It means that I tell them how upset I would be if I were them while I pat their back.  When a student is super-stressed because they have too many things on their plate, I can let them turn one assignment in tomorrow without lowering standards.  Keep your standards high AND feel the things your students are feeling.

I Just Can't Do This to My Vote

My blog is usually about education.  Be warned:  This one is not.  This post is political and inflammatory (and long).  Keep reading if you wish, but you have been warned.

On the morning of my 18th birthday, I was sitting at the library door when it opened.  I wanted the first thing I did that day to be registering to vote.  I had been following elections with great interest since I was twelve, and I couldn't wait to have this privilege of free people.  I registered as a Republican because that was the party that best represented my values and my understanding of American history.  I have voted in almost every election, large and small, ever since.  The few I have sat out were local elections in which I did not feel I had done enough research to make a responsible choice.   My vote was too important to me to just go in and guess or put it next to anyone with an R by their name.

Eight years ago, I took my precious, shiny vote and dulled it just a bit.  I didn't want John McCain to be the Republican nominee, and I didn't particularly want him to be President.  He was too liberal for my taste.  However, I did respect his resumé as a long term United States Senator and his ability to work with others.  I had great respect for his war service and the endurance displayed during his years as a POW.  While he would not have been my first choice, I felt good enough about him and bad enough about then Senator Obama to cast my vote.  I left the booth that day feeling a bit sad that I had voted against someone rather than for someone, but my conscience was clear.

Four years ago, my treasured vote took another hit.  Again, I would not have chosen Mitt Romney as the nominee for my party.  A Republican that gets elected in Massachusetts cannot be that conservative.  I also didn't want to vote for a Mormon.  However, after four years of President Obama, I felt that it was important to try to stop his reelection.  I did not feel very good about myself as I left the voting booth that day.  My vote was not just a little dulled; it was rather dented.

In the four years since, I have felt my vote more personally than ever before.  I have come to strongly feel my vote as an approval of policies and of people.  I have also come to believe that I will be judged by God, not only for what I do, but for what I approve of.  It is for that reason that I cannot walk into a voting both with my vote and put it down for either of the two major party candidates this November.  While I am impressed with her resumé, I have never approved of Mrs. Clinton's policies.  She believes the right to an abortion is God given, while I believe it is murder.  There isn't really a middle ground to be found there.  She believes that a large and involved government is the solution to social issues while I believe government should be as limited as it can possibly be.  I cannot approve of most of what she has approved of over the past couple of decades.

If you are thinking that since I am not a Clinton supporter that I must be a Trump supporter, you are thinking incorrectly.  I have never been more horrified by a Republican candidate (or possibly that of any party) than I am by Donald Trump.  I am embarrassed that my party has nominated him.  I can't elaborate on all of my reasons as there are dozens; and I can't imagine that you would want to read all of them, but I'll elaborate on a few.

He says that the Bible is his "favorite book," but he then turns around and reveals his complete lack of knowledge of its contents.  When asked if he has ever asked God for forgiveness, Trump replied, "I'm not sure I have ever asked God's forgiveness. I don't bring God into that picture."  It may be time to open your favorite book and read about the need every person has for God's forgiveness.  Reporters have tried to give him a chance to clarify his statements on forgiveness, and he just doubled down on his ignorance, saying, "I will be asking for forgiveness, but hopefully I won’t have to be asking for much forgiveness."  He believes he has lived a life that doesn't require forgiveness, which according to his favorite book means "the truth is not in him."  Beyond his gaffes involving misquotes and mispronunciations of scripture, he has minimized the sacrament of the Lord's supper, saying, "When I go to church and when I drink my little wine and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of forgiveness. I do that as often as I can because I feel cleansed. I say let's go on and let's make it right."  People in the audience laughed at this image.  The fact that he thinks this is a funny statement underscores his lack of understanding of the Christian faith.


Donald Trump has left two wives for younger women.  He was married to Ivana for fifteen years when he had an affair with twenty three year old Marla Maples.  He divorced Ivana and quickly married Marla, who he remained married to for only six years.  In the time between his marriage to Marla and his marriage to Melania, he played around a lot.  He even called his risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease his "personal Vietnam."  While conducting an interview in support of then President Bill Clinton, Trump was asked whether he would run for public office, he said, “Can you imagine how controversial I’d be? You think about him with the women. How about me with the women?”  This is a man that clearly places no value on his marriage vows.  What makes us think he will care any more about his oath of office?


Note:  The above paragraphs were written several weeks ago, before the release of the footage him discussing his sexual assaults on women.  Let's be clear; that's what we are talking about.  This isn't "boys will be boys locker room talk."  At the age of 59 with two daughters, he laughingly admitted to walking in on unclothed women at the Miss Universe pageant just because he could and to grabbing, groping, and kissing women whether they wanted him to or not.  Saying that he can get away with this because he's a star tells you what he thinks of himself and the women he objectifies.  The number of my Facebook friends who are posting that this is okay because of Bill Clinton is horrifying.  "What I did wasn't wrong because he did it too" isn't reasoning I would accept from my 8th graders, and I'm betting you wouldn't accept it from your kids, either.  Offended isn't the right word for how I feel because I'm not angry; I'm sickened.  I feel gross when I think about how he must look at women, as a collection of genitalia that exists for his enjoyment.  

There are people who immediately jump to say we have to vote for Donald Trump because of the Supreme Court.  Believe me when I tell you I would understand that argument with just about any other Republican candidate.  I do not believe, however, that Donald Trump could name one of the people on his list of potential nominees.  I don't think he knows their names, much less their beliefs or qualifications.  I believe that someone on his staff gave him the list and told him that he could get the pro-lifers with it.  It kills me to think that could actually work.  Do you really believe someone who has changed parties five times since 1987 has strong pro-life beliefs?  Do you really believe there will be even one less abortion under his administration than anyone else's?  


As I finish this post, I am watching the second presidential debate.  I also watched the first one and the first 20 minutes of the vice presidential debate (I fell asleep in my chair because it was a school day).  None of these have improved my view of Donald Trump.  The debates have done little more than show how childish he is, confronting the moderator like middle schooler.  They haven't improved my opinion of Hillary Clinton enough to get past our social and economic policy differences.  If anything, they are just disappointing spectacles.

If you have actually gotten this far, you may actually care what I am going to do.  The assumption that I must vote for one of them seems built into the conversation, but I just can't.  My vote means too much to me.  My students have told me to write in Spongebob, and I have told them they aren't getting it.  If my vote means too much to me to lay it down for either of these candidates, I'm not going in and making a joke with it either.  Interviews with Gary Johnson have convinced me that he is not an option.  Neither is Jill Stein.  So, I started searching.  I have read more candidates' web pages in the last few months than in the entire rest of my life.  I have indeed found someone I can approve of.  I know he won't win because there aren't enough people who know his name.  I don't even know if he will be on the ballot in NC.  I believe, however, after reading every page of his website, that he is the only candidate my conscience will allow me to vote for; so I will write him in if he isn't on the ballot.  His name is Mike Smith.  If you are a social and economic conservative and just don't know what to do, I encourage you to check out his site.  

I know there are some who will say this is a vote for Hillary.  I reject the premise that not voting for one is a vote for the other.  That's like saying if I eat a hamburger, it means I ate pizza because it wasn't a salad.  It just doesn't make sense.  

This Answer Made it Worth It

My last post referenced trying new things and analyzing their results.  Since then, I have spent the week grading a physics project.  It is my second attempt in physics at a Challenge Based Learning project (CBL).  The challenge is this.  You live in an area that gets electricity inconsistently.  I gave them some examples of places in the world with power shedding, namely Haiti, Zambia, and South Africa.  You want to keep a few things at your home powered - your refrigerator, perhaps some fans for blowing off malaria-carrying insects.  What can you do, at your house, to keep these things running?

The idea behind Challenge Based Learning is that students must address the challenge, developing their skills in creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking.  They are not given a pre-determined solution and told to build it according to a teacher thought out rubric.  They must come up with an answer by thinking through the associated issues.  This provides the opportunity for students to step up to the plate and do something real, but it also provides them with the opportunity to fail.  If the challenge is worthwhile, it is certainly not something that can be accomplished with one day's work, even a good all nighter.  This type of project forces them to rise to the occasion or fail; there is no in between.  It also requires a serious lack of intervention from the teacher.  If I step in and bail them out, they do not meet the challenge.  This is incredibly difficult for teachers as we are trained to help.

Watching the kids progress through this project had its highs and lows.  Their initial brainstorming sessions produced more viable ideas than we had the entire year before, so I felt like we were off to a good start.  I gave them some work days in class.  While they worked, I listened to them.   Listening to student conversations when they don't know you are listening is better entertainment than most movies.  I listened as students talked about solar power and wind.  I pointed out the limitations of those options, suggesting that perhaps a fuel powered solution might be easier, and they insisted on alternative energy.  They've been a bit brainwashed about fossil fuels, but it was their challenge to meet, not mine.  I heard one group talk about a hand crank generator that they already had.  Later, I asked them if they thought that was realistic at someone's home.  After all, you aren't going to have someone stay up all night cranking the generator.  I heard another group talking about soccer and basketball and fantasy football.  These are juniors and seniors, so it is the time for them to learn the consequences of wasting class time.  I let them keep talking, knowing they would likely not meet the challenge.  This is a difficult thing as a teacher, but I believe it is important as a life skill.  See my post from last year on not helping.  Constantly rescuing kids from their irresponsibility will never teach them to be responsible.

One group used its time well; so even though their solution to the problem wasn't what I would do, they gained more knowledge than any other group.  They built a small wind turbine and did a little math about how that would scale up in the real world.  I wish they had done something more universal and that they could have answered more feasibility questions, but they had done a lot of thinking and got a good understanding of the difficulties of electricity production.  They did understand that when the wind wasn't blowing, they would need a back up for the back up and spent a little bit of time talking about battery usage.  They didn't really develop that idea, but at least they had it.  The hand-crank generator group had the problems I knew they would have.  Some of them learned less than others, and I wish they had explored other solutions.  Both of these groups had models that did produce a little electricity, not truly addressing the challenge but at least getting something out of it.

The group that spent all their time in class talking about sports brought in a presentation about hydroelectric dams.  I stopped them and said, "How could you use this at your house?"    I invited adults in the school to come ask questions as well.  One of them said, "You do know these cost billions of dollars to build, right?  That's why there aren't many of them out there."  Another adult pointed out that you would have to live near a river that you were allowed to block.  Then, they showed me their model.  It is made of a cork on a barbecue skewer, sitting in a plastic bottle.  When water runs over it, it spins.  Notice that I didn't say it produces electricity; it doesn't.  

One of the methods I use to grade this type of project is through reflective questions.  I ask them about how they communicated, collaborated, problem solved, and dealt with timeline interruptions.  I have them explain what their role is the group and what they learned, not only about electricity production but also about doing projects.  I ask them what grade they would give themselves.  This is actually a very long reflection form.  I thought the water group would understand that they had not risen to the occasion from the feedback they were getting on the day of the presentation, but they didn't.  All of them said they were proud of their product and would give themselves either a high B or a low A.  Only one owned up to wasting the work days I gave them.  Their answers were so inconsistent with reality that this project became difficult to grade.

Then, near the end of the alphabet, I read the following answer.

This answer made the rest of the grading difficulty (and the inevitable pushback I will get from grading them correctly) worth it.  This student didn't just learn about electricity.  She learned gratitude for living in a first world country, where she doesn't have to think about this outside of a school project.  When she plugs things in, she will take a moment to thank God for allowing us to use the laws of physics.  A few years from now, when she hears political candidates debate about alternative energy sources, she will have information by which to judge their spin.  Every teacher needs an answer like this one every now and then.  It is the reason I will do this project again.   This answer made it worth it.

What If It Doesn't Work?

GRACE Christian School is committed to trying new things in our student's education.  We don't want kids to have the same thing over and over just because it is the way we have always done it.  We don't want them to do something just because it is the way we did it.  We also know that just because there is a new idea, it isn't always the right one.  We analyze before we implement.  If we believe that there is a valid reason to use something in our classrooms, we use it.  If there isn't, the fact that it is new isn't a good enough reason to do it.

Sometimes those things work; and we do them again, continuing to improve them.  Sometimes, they don't work.  What do we do then?

The answer is "It depends."  I know that isn't the most satisfying answer, but it is true.  It depends on why the project or lesson didn't work.  Teaching is all about analysis.  We analyze curriculum, test questions, and the work of students.  We should use the same kind of analysis on ourselves.  If you don't know where to start with the analysis of a failed project, start with these questions.

1.  Are The Objectives Important?
I teach science, so I get sent videos of every cool experiment that has ever been put on YouTube, from Mentos in Coke to rice on speakers.  Many of them are very interesting thngs that should be done in my classroom because they are excellent demonstrations of a the scientific principles that are in my curriculum.  Others are just fun to watch.  If it is just fun to watch, post it to social media or share it with students by e-mail.  It is good for them to see that you enjoy your material outside of class, too.  If the project or demonstration doesn't apply to an objective, don't take up your class time with it.  Your class time is a precious and limited resource; it deserves to be preserved.

2.  Were the Expectations Clear to You?
The first time I did a free choice project, I knew that students would need some expectations of how they would be graded.  Even with all the choices they had about topic and methods, I had to decided what was important to me ahead of time.  In a Challenge Based Learning Project, you aren't supposed to go in with preconceptions about the outcome.  However, there are some things you really expect.  I want at least a working model in mine, but some teachers might want a full sized, fully functioning invention.  It isn't fair to assign the project at all if I don't know at least those types of things.

3.  Were the Objectives and Expectations Clearly Communicated to Your Students?
Once you know what you want, it is important that your students are clear on what you want.  Since students aren't mind readers, they can't know your expectations unless you tell them.  They haven't spent ten years with this topic and don't necessarily know what objectives are.  I write the objective on the board every day so that they get used to what that means.  On projects, I put the educational objective on the instructions sheet.  It gives many students the same security that having the name of a city on a map would give you.

4.  Did I Include Enough Accountability BEFORE the End?
I have found this to be primary reason something doesn't work.  Assigning something and then not mentioning again until the due date just doesn't work.  Most of us experienced that in college.  Even in my adult life, I rarely have no accountability for the work being done along the way.  If an outside of class project is going to take more than one week from the time you assign it until it is due, you should set up checkpoints.  If it a small project, this could be as simple as saying, "Tell me what you have accomplished so far."  If it is a large project (20% Time projects are all year, my free choice is three months, my CBL is two months), you are going to want some specifics.  Have them lay out a timeline.  Ask them questions related to that.  Have them keep a blog in which they justify what they have done each week.  There may be a week where they couldn't work on the project much.  That's okay and even appropriate, but they should explain why.  What interfered, and how did they work around it to get back on schedule.  Wow, if that's not an important life skill, I don't know what is.

5.  Were the Right Tools Used?
When GRACE first started its one to one program, I was very strict about the platforms projects should be made in.  If I assigned a podcast, I wanted it done with Garage Band and not iMovie.  This frustrated my students, but there was a reason.  I wanted them to have a breadth of tools at their disposal.  Unless forced to do otherwise, we will all just do the thing we are most comfortable doing.  Once we got a comfortable with a variety of tools, I started giving them choices of platforms.  Now, five years into the program, I tell them to judge which tool is best for what they want to accomplish.  A keynote is great for straight information, but it doesn't work if you need to see something demonstrated.  Choosing the best tool is also one of my educational objectives.  The younger the students, the more you should narrow their choice.  By the time they are juniors and seniors, they should be able to make that judgement.

If there is improvement on the second year of a project, I go through the analytical process again.  If there isn't, this may not be the right project for my class.  It is okay to dump it and replace it with something else.

Together - Not the Same

This week, I have been on an accreditation visiting team.  That means I got to help evaluate and affirm a Christian school that is seeking the renewal of their accreditation.  In the training documents, the following statement is highlighted.

"There is no one type of school. Nor is there just one approach to teaching and learning. Yet regardless of a school’s size, location, philosophy or education model, it benefits from intensive, ongoing diagnostic reviews of its work, carried out by knowledgeable, well-trained, independent reviewers."

Around the same time I began this training, a commercial started airing on television.  For the life of me, I can't figure out what it has to do with Android products (The first time I saw it, I thought it was going to be a PSA about tolerance or bullying or something), but I like the ad itself.  Also, I may be strange, but I like the song he is playing where all the keys are the same as well.  I guess I just like the rhythm.  

These two things made me think of how glad I am that GRACE is not the only school or the only type of school.  Because people are different, their educational needs are certainly different.  While I don't think I could have handled the Montessori approach when I was in school, I have no doubt that there are those who thrive in that type of school.  My school's athletic rival is a very strict classical school.  While I COULD NOT teach there because the structure is too much for me, there are students who absolutely need that structure in order to feel secure.  The school we are evaluating is a very small community, but their people are fully supportive of each other and their students on every level.  I observed some classes that I didn't want to leave. 

 Christian schools have many things in common.  We all want to see spiritual growth and development in students as they make the transition from childhood faith in their parent's church to their own relationship with Christ.  We all want to see students educated in such a way that they can pursue whatever path God has for them.  We all want to mentor our students in citizenship, a lifelong love of learning, and just decision making.  

While all the Christian schools in the world have these things in common, they approach meeting these goals in hundreds of different ways.  Some of them focus heavily on their academic programs while others place a higher priority on student / teacher relationships.  Some are heavily STEM while others place a high priority on their fine arts programs.  Some schools try to meet the needs of all types of students while others enroll only students whose needs they are already capable of meeting.  No one Christian school can accomplish God's plan by itself.  When parents are looking at Christian schools, it is important that they know what matters to them.  Most schools will cover the true essentials, so parents should also look for the school that is a "good fit" for their child.  

As Christian schools, we are together; but we are not the same.  We are all heading in the same direction.  We are just driving different cars.

Tyranny of the Urgent

Some time ago, I heard someone warn against living under "Tyranny of the Urgent."  This made a massive impact on me, and I have tried to remain aware of it ever since.  Some things are urgent without being important, but many more things are important without being urgent.  MOST of the time, we should be focusing on the important.  I think this important for every person, but it is of critical importance for teachers.

There are a lot of urgent things on a teacher's plate.  Lesson plans are due on Monday, and exams must be done by a certain time.  Grades are due so that report cards can go out when they are scheduled to, and it is important to give timely feedback on written work.  It can be easy to get caught up in spending much of your time on things that seem urgent at the moment and even those that truly are.  MOST of the time, however, we need to keep our eye on the bigger picture.  If those lesson plans are submitted a day late because you were focused on something that matters more, your administrator will understand.  If they don't, you either have a habit of turning in late lesson plans or you need a different administrator.

The conversation you have with a student about their future career may not be urgent.  It isn't "due" tomorrow.  The extra help you give a student to help them understand something may not be on your schedule, but it is the important way you show a student you care.  That timely feedback you are trying to give is only worthwhile if it is meaningful feedback.  If there is a choice between giving back generic feedback tomorrow or meaningful feedback the next day, take the extra day.

I'm not saying this is an easy thing to do, but there are ways to make it easier.  You know all the advice we give to students about organizing their time and projects.  That advice is just as true for us. If we don't start working on the lesson plans that are due on Monday until Sunday afternoon, they will most certainly seem urgent.  If, however, we start working on those lesson plans the Tuesday before they are due, we will find them easy to put down when a student asks to talk.  If the exam we are writing is tomorrow, we won't be able to close the computer when a kid comes in with questions about that exam.  Getting a yearbook done doesn't happen in one day; it requires months of planning for photography, planning pages, and meeting intermediate deadlines.  It is important on my staff that every student is pictured at least three times, but that doesn't happen if we wait until the day pages are due to tag those pictures.  Tagging isn't urgent, but if the coverage goal is important, it must be done.  That means planning ahead and working as you go.  Again, you may recognize this advice from your own instructions to students.

It also helps if you know what is important to you.  You need to put some thought into this because if you leave it to decide in the moment, you will succumb to the urgent every time.  What is critically important to one teacher may only be mildly important to another.  Knowing what you find important will make you more likely to recognize it when you need it.

You may have noticed that I have twice capitalized the word MOST.  MOST of the time, you should  be focused on the important rather than the urgent.  It is equally important, however, to give yourself occassional permission to give in to the urgent.  For me, there are two weeks of every year that I allow myself to put off grading and finishing my lesson plans because the things that are urgent in that week must happen during that week.  Spirit Week is the most notable example of that.  I must take pictures, hundreds of them, on two different campuses every day of that week.  This means that my planning periods are taken up in going from class to class, driving to the other campus, processing those pictures, and uploading them to Jostens.  During that week, my students give project presentations, watch relevant videos, or spend time collaborating on a project.  That frees me from grading and lesson planning during that week, allowing me to give in to the urgent.  The other week is the week before the final yearbook deadline.  My students may take a test during that week, but they will not get them returned that week because I must meet my yearbook deadline.  Since I have developed credibility with them during the rest of the year, my students are usually pretty forgiving that they don't get things back as fast they would like during that one week.

If you spend most of your time focusing on the important, the few times when you do have to succumb to the urgent won't seem quite so tragic.

Don't Make Big Decisions When You Are Angry

Disclaimer:  All posts on this blog are the opinions of the author.  They are not approved by anyone and should not be read as representing anyone other than herself.

Every teacher has done it.  We responded very quickly to an e-mail from a parent.  The e-mail made us angry, and we felt we had to respond right away.  Responding when angry is the fastest way to make a situation worse.  It is when you say the thing you wouldn't have aid if you had taken a moment to think about it.  It is when your inhibitions are the lowest.  Since inhibition is another word for wisdom, you make the foolish choices when you are angry.  In a couple of faculty meetings per year, we are reminded that we shouldn't hit send when we are angry.  We should talk it through with another teacher and have them read our response before sending.

This same concept should apply outside of teaching and e-mail.  It should apply to all of our lives.  We should not make big decisions when we are angry.

Now, I am going to stop blogging and start meddling.  This concept should also apply to your vote.  Given that it is really important to use wisdom in voting, it is a bad idea to decide based on anger.  My family is split right now when it comes to the Republican primary.  My dad defends Donald Trump every chance he gets, while my mother and I are frightened that this could actually happen.  Mom and I are for Rubio, but we will both accept any nominee that is NOT Donald Trump.  My dad, on the other hand, feels that people are tired of politicians and that it is time for someone who is not a politician.  Forget the fact that you wouldn't apply this logic to any other profession.  You would never hear someone say, "I am tired of surgeons thinking they are gods, so I think it is time for someone who is not a surgeon to perform my cardiac bypass."  My Granny recently posed the question as to why Trump was doing so unexpectedly well, and my dad proudly said, "It is because people are angry with the politicians."  My response was, "Yes, and people always make great decisions when they are angry."

I get why people are angry.  I really do.  Between Supreme Court rulings and the Bruce Jenner hoopla, last year was rough for social conservatives.  I know that; I am one.  That doesn't mean I am ready to hand over the most important job on the planet to any angry guy without thinking through whether or not he actually represents your values.  A few examples:
- If you are upset about gay marriage, it is probably because you are concerned about the fall of the Biblical definition of marriage.  Does it make sense, then, to vote for the guy who has been married three times just because he also opposes gay marriage?  Does he actually represent your values?  Do you care that he doesn't just because you are angry?
- If you are angry about the current administration's lack of willingness to use the words "radical Islam" when describing terrorism, it may initially appeal to you that this candidate wants to keep out the Muslims.  Can you still say he represents your values when he says they should be killed with bullets dipped in pig's blood?  Is this something you would say, or do you just cheer for the anger because you are angry?
- If you are angry about illegal immigrants, it sounds good to hear Donald Trump talk about building a wall; but in your anger, have you taken the time to recognize the number of jobs Mr. Trump has sent to Mexico and China?  Is that really what you have in mind, or are you just angry?

Trump gets a lot of unwarranted credit for "telling it like it is."  People who say that are not listening.  He says whatever the angry people in front of him want him to say.  When he is speaking to Christians, he "quotes" scripture, hoping we won't notice that he misquotes it.  I recently said this to someone, who said, "Well, everyone does that."  I agree, but he is getting credit for NOT doing it WHLE DOING IT.  I just don't understand.

If you are a Republican, I beg you to consider your primary vote carefully.  Don't let your anger rule your decisions.  If you think through things dispassionately and still believe Donald Trump represents what you want in an office with the authority to appoint Supreme Court justices, launch nuclear weapons, and act as "Comforter in Chief" when a disaster happens, then your vote is yours to do with what you will.  If, however, you are going to vote out of anger, I ask you not to "hit send" as teachers are reminded.  Your vote is too important to make it an outlet for your emotional state.