Miss Connie's Comments
With a Tweet and a Status Update I live my life
by Connie Cooper on 06/04/13
It's finally lunch time. As "Amen" is uttered in our blessing students race from the classroom. They bottleneck at the doorway, and there are exclamations of "Hey!", "Move", or "Ouch!" as they force their way through. Each face unconcerned with the force slowing their momentum but ardently looking to spot the object that has made its way into the palm of their hand, escaping from the dark dungeon of a pocket where it has been banished during classroom hours - though a few especially sneaky ones have peered out during lulls in activity or had clandestine meetings when the teacher appears to remain unaware.
What is this mad rush? A desire to get to lunch? Not on your life. It's the rush to get on their phone and into the cyber world. The few hours of class time seem impossible and for some has been impossible to be "unplugged".
This isn't a rant against technology. What it is is a musing about the change we are seeing in the future generation. My job as a teacher is more than getting them to put the correct answers on a test. A nation who creates students like that is merely creating workers for the government machine. The masses who perform a task but ask no questions because the privileged few who care about them know what's best for them. My job is to teach students to think. That's right, think. Why is that so hard?
I think I stumbled on part of the answer during a review for one of our history exams. I asked a question that had no right or wrong answer. It asked for an opinion. One of my best students had a twisted look on her face. I asked what was wrong. I rephrased the question with more of a prompt. The look remained. Finally, I asked, "How can I help?" She said, "Just tell me what to write. Tell me what you want me to say." I tried to explain that I wanted her opinion. She was adament. "I don't know what you want!" I then gently walked here away from the overwhelming desire to say what was acceptable and toward considering the question.
What happened? In a culture that is constantly sending quips and comments and forwarding content, contemplation and true self-confidence are slipping away. This student is a typical and extremely confident person, but when asked to express a personal opinion became crippled. A funny pic or witty quip or status update fly from her phone and make here seemingly well adjusted, but I found that she has the same infection spreading across the nation as students lose the ability for sustained focus and intelligent discussion. Just read most comments sections. They quickly devolve into name calling and accusations.
Nobody really cares about my status. I accept that. Most people just listen on the surface to my opinion as they form ways to blast their cliche`s and show their own "coolness". How I pray that we can regain the incredible discipline of "argument" - no, not screaming or name calling - but informational discourse of opposing opinions. The ancient Greeks spent hours listening to the arguments of people they disagreed with so that they could better form their own opinion or change it if it was wrong, NOT just to try to make their opponent look ignorant.
Let's pray we adults can encourage our students to think; to develop factual eloquent opinions; to worry more about what is right than what others think; to listen, not because truth is relative, but because it can be discovered through learning. I pray God helps me make life more than a tweet or a status update.
Mama's Take on Prov. 22:6
by Connie Cooper on 07/29/10
My precious Godly mother passed away in February.
I have been using her Bible for my study and found this verse written in the leaves, once in the back and once in the front.
"Train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old he will not depart from it.\"
Next to this in the back she wrote, "What you leave IN your children should concern you more than what you leave TO them." 1. Instruction 2. Discipline 3. Example
What an incredibly wise woman! Oh, that I can do the same with my students.
