In Gennesaret

Is it going to rain on us? Again? Seriously, again ?? What up with all this rain, Jesus? -       Chill out, mutt. The dog is flitting about in the back of the car, giddy with excitement. And yes, I realize that he probably should be in the crate while we’re traveling, but people . . . he hates the crate. I love the dog. I don’t have the heart. He’ll lay down soon enough. -       In two miles, turn right on route 87 . Thank you, ma’am. My GPS lady has a British accent. I have no idea how that happened, but I love her. I’ve named her Dame Maggie. Lead on, m’lady. -       The wildflowers are mostly gone. Sigh . We’re making this drive a couple weeks late this year, and the flower show is past its prime.        -   The world turned upside do-o-own . . . The eldest is confusing this song with “My Shot”. Wait, what?!? CHILD! Fifteen years ago, I would have taken that as a cue to create a curriculum for her around...

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles . . .” I teach English to Chinese children. It’s with a company called VIPKIDS, and it’s kind of a side-gig for me. Sweet kids, easy work, flexible schedule, and good pay. Wins all around. One of the units I frequently teach is “Animals and Their Bodies”. Birds have wings. Horses have hooves. Tigers have claws. (“Hooves” and “claws” – you’d be surprised how difficult those are to pronounce correctly.) This unit also includes verbs of motion: Crabs crawl . Snakes slither . Kangaroos hop . Horses gallop . Doing classes over a screen with young, easily distracted children who don’t know the language well requires a lot of props (glad I kept the girls’ tub of animal toys), a lot of body language (I’ve knocked more than one item off of the bookshelf behind me), a lot of sound effects (“Boing . . rawr!! . . . ssssslitherrrrr”), and a stinkin’ lot of energy at five in the morning. It’s a...

This morning, the pastor said he read that 20-30% of church-goers who stopped attending church because of the pandemic will not be going back. Wow. That’s a big chunk of people. And that’s not related to the decline in religious activity that was already happening across the country. You heard that recent statistic, right? For the first time in American history, the number of people claiming membership in a church, synagogue, or mosque has dropped below 50%. I’ve heard a lot of people raising the battle cry about this. The pandemic is changing everything anyway: now is the time for the church to step up and reform itself! To become more relevant to the world! To enter the twenty-first century! To get all Woke and stuff! Yes . . . but, no. I mean, there is definitely brokenness in The Church. Change needs to happen, but not change like I think they are implying. I’m afraid this new push to reform will simply mean we try to get more “hip”. (Or whatever the current term is now -...

If you’re a homeschooler or some other such weirdo living on the edges of traditional education in America, you may have heard of John Taylor Gatto. He was named New York State Teacher of the Year in 1991 and immediately joined the speaker circuit to lambaste the American educational system. It makes our young people emotionally and intellectually dependent, he claims. It establishes in them fixed habits of response to authority – it trains them to accept a menial role in society and never question things. Right now, I’m reading a book of his that I found on my shelf last week, and I’m finding it frustrating. Partly because he seems to keep saying the same things over and over. Partly because I suspect a lot of what he is saying over and over is true. And mostly because I feel kind of helpless to do anything about it. Back when I was fresh-faced, newly certified, and confident I could change the world from my little classroom, I taught English for a few years at Hutchinson High Sch...

I teach Middle School English. This is a joy and a curse. Last weekend, I posted lesson plans through the last day of this school year. It is finished. This is joy. But as I scan these plans, I realize I have six different set of essays or drafts of essays coming in during the next two weeks that I will need to read and grade . . . plus about thirty written responses to independent reading assignments . . . plus three classes worth of semester tests which include essay questions analyzing a literary passage. And this drives me to curse. Why do I do this? Why? Why do I schedule so much work to come in at one time, at the end of the semester when I have a hard deadline to get it all graded? What am I thinking? Why don’t I spread it out more? Well, Gwen, you can’t spread it out much more because these are all summative assessments, basically. They are demonstrating what the students have learned as the semester closes, so you have to wait until the close of the semester. The pro...