To the Auburn Family

Dear Auburn Family,

I love Auburn. I grew up going to football games; my mom has a picture of me as a baby in a shirt that proudly states “of course I’m going to Auburn.” While at Auburn I was a Student Recruiter, a Camp War Eagle Counselor, and was involved in SGA. I cried when Auburn won the National Championship. I love Auburn. I need to say that as much as possible, because I also need to say that it’s time we recognize that we as an Auburn family must do better.

I graduated from Auburn in 2009, and joined Teach for America, which sent me to Helena, AR where I have been working and teaching ever since. I brought my love and passion for Auburn into my classroom, and all of my students have known me as “that crazy teacher who is obsessed with Auburn.” I talk about Auburn so often that when a group of my students were asked at a college fair to name five Ivy League schools, they all included Auburn. I have taken three different groups of eighth grade students to tour Auburn, each year buying them Auburn gear. I watched as many of them dreamed about sitting in classes in the Haley Center and standing on the steps of Cater Hall to hear their names called for their student organization of choice. Each year these trips bring me great joy, but recently I’ve started to become frustrated by the reality of my students’ ability to get into and pay for an education at the University I love so much.

Recently a video has made the rounds in the Auburn community of a classroom full of second graders reciting the Auburn creed, singing the fight song, and reciting facts about Auburn that many in my graduating class probably could not have recalled. I watched this video with love, admiration, and hope for the future of my Alma Mater. However, this video has sparked another emotion in me that has been festering over the past few years: frustration. The college counselor at my school has a habit of bringing my Auburn euphoria back down to Earth as she reminds me of the less than stellar job Auburn does of bringing in low-income students and students of color. Each time I try to steer one of my kids in the direction of Auburn, our counselor reminds me of the fact that Auburn is not doing enough for minority students from low-income communities.

Here are some of the sobering statistics. Seven percent of Auburn’s student population is black and only thirteen percent of freshman receive Pell Grants. Pell grants are awarded based on need, and the percentage of students who receive Pell Grants serves as an indicator for how many low-income students the university is serving. Auburn’s thirteen percent puts us in the bottom five percent in the country, and because of this Auburn has been labeled an “engine of inequality.” I work at KIPP, a national network of over 150 free, open-enrollment, college-preparatory public schools dedicated to preparing students in underserved communities for success in college and life. Out of 162 schools, we currently only have one KIPPster enrolled in Auburn, and only twenty-one have ever been accepted. The average net cost for attending Auburn after grants have been applied is $17,014. That cost is too high for far too many of our students. These numbers are disheartening, exasperating, and should not be considered acceptable.

I need my Alma Mater to do a better job of serving our students. I need to know that I am not presenting an illusion to my students when I take them to tour Auburn. I need to know that when I talk passionately about how much I love my school, I am presenting a realistic option for the students we serve. The Auburn I know and love can do better. The video I referenced earlier has been posted to the Auburn Tigers Facebook page, and it has elicited quite the response. I am so happy the Auburn family is excited to see the young students on that video talk about their love for Auburn. However, if statistics hold, approximately one student in that class would actually be able to attend Auburn. If we cannot work together to improve these statistics, we are not being fair to the kids in that video or any of the kids from low-income communities across our country. We cannot just look at kids espousing their love for Auburn and say “how cute,” when the reality of attending Auburn is so far out of reach for so many of our students. I am calling on the Auburn family to do better for students in underserved communities. Call the financial aid office. Write the President. Give money that is designated for students in need. We can all do better, and we must. War Eagle!

Levi Rogers

Class of 2009

privileged empathy

i have found that i blog much less when i am teaching. 

now usually this is where i would go into a lengthy tirade about how tiring teaching is, how hard i work, how many hours i pour into trying to give my kids a decent education, but that has gotten old.

yes this job is hard. yes i work a lot. yes its exhausting, but that’s the point. this job is hard because we are facing the difficult reality of education inequality. 

despite what some of the wonderfully good hearted folks in the education reform movement might want to suggest, education inequality is not magically being fixed by some recent college graduates working really hard in poverty stricken areas for a couple of years. (sure, we may be making a dent, but we are far from "fixing" anything)

i have been consistently reminded throughout this semester that despite my hard work, despite my hours, despite my passion and desire to work for my kids, i do not face the same realities as many of my students. 

this semester has been tough. 

teachers have quit, friends have been robbed, kids have not passed tests, practice benchmark scores have been lousy, i have been sick, and i have worked too much. but this is nothing compared to the reality that so many of my students face on a daily basis. 

we who come to teach in communities like helena, we whine about how hard it is, how difficult the kids can be, how much we have to work, but so many of us have options once we have had enough. 

we have the option to leave, to start over, to try something else. 

i have that option. 

i went to an average high school in which my parents pushed me to make the best grades i could, applied to my school of choice, made grades that were good enough to get into this "elite" cohort of new teachers, and got a job straight out of undergrad. but if any of this were to fall through, i had a safety net. 

if i decided tomorrow that i had had enough, that i was working to hard and wanted to quit, i would still have options. i would still have opportunities. 

this is not the reality of so many of my students. they face a much more difficult road. the structures, systems, and systemic barriers that my students face were not present in my upbringing. 

my road was easier than theirs. 

despite how challenging my current job is, my road is still easier than theirs. 

i spent so much of my first few years in the classroom feeling like i was really “in the trenches” with my students. while i was, while i am, the reality is that i have the opportunity to step out of those trenches. my students don’t always have that. 

i think some of us in the education reform movement need to face a reality check at times. we are not truly living our students lives. 

we enter them, we hope that we can make a positive impact, but most of us don’t face their realities. 

over this thanksgiving break i am reminded and thankful for all that i have been given. i am reminded that i have been blessed with a myriad of socio-economic advantages over so many in our world. 

i have no choice but to try to do something with this, to try to give, to try to work for those whose have not been afforded the same opportunities. 

i am reminded that this work will be hard. it is hard. but let us never confuse hard work done out of privileged empathy with the reality of living life in the margins of our society. 

no time for restlessness

i spent most of last year restless.

i would run around from classes at candler to the boys and girls club to kipp ways academy in atl to the transitional homeless shelter in which i worked just trying to do something that felt meaningful and important. 

i was so antsy and jittery all the time that i thought something was wrong with me. 

i went to the doctor and they told me i just needed to stop drinking so much coffee. (oh and that i was a bit adhd, but that’s hardly a surprise.) 

i had all this pent up energy that i needed to expel upon something. 

well... i certainly do not have that problem anymore. 

running a grade, managing teachers, enrolling students, teaching three blocks of algebra, amending schedules, managing a bus, lesson plans, feedback on lesson plans, one-on-ones, etc... all of that is a pretty effective means to use all of that pent up energy. 

this job leaves little room for restlessness, and that is exactly why i love being here. 

now granted, we’re still in the happy-go-lucky early stages of things, but i’m enjoying that stage as much as i possibly can. 

it has been exhilarating to step back into a world that requires me to use all of my energy, vision, passion, and creativity. i am exhausted by the end of the day, but i like it that way. 

it seems that my existential crises and questions seem to take a back seat when i am in the classroom. all that seems to matter are the students in front of me who need to learn how to do some math. i find that i thrive in situations in which there isn’t a lot of time to step back and methodically think through every possible action because decisions need to be made quickly, lest the children decide its their turn to run the classroom. i’ve realized just how much i love and need a job that is fast-paced and demanding. this one meets that criteria. 

managing adults is its own beast... i’m working on that one. luckily, i have a killer 8th grade team, and we have had a very solid start to the year. the 8th graders are mostly calm, which is not something one can usually say about 8th graders. 

my students’ math teacher last year did some bang up work, and they are coming to me with a strong math foundation, which makes me want to work even harder to get them on a college ready trajectory. we still have a long way to go, but we are currently working through saxon like some beasts. 

one child told me the other day that my class was boring. i did not like that, but i remembered that my job is not to entertain the children but to teach them. sometimes in student speak... boring is synonymous with focused and productive. i am ok with both of those. boring is much better than crunk. i remember in the past hearing "we get crunk up in mr. rogers class," which meant they drove me crazy and ran me right on over. no more children. no more. however, i’m sure i could liven it up a bit. i’m working on it. 

en fin, its good to be back in the classroom. its good to be back in helena. there is no longer any time for restlessness, and i am ok with that.

no excuses and when debates fall short

over the past couple of days i have found myself ranting via facebook about education reform, policy, and the legitimacy of the “no excuses” charter school model. my ranting on facebook should surprise no one, but i thought i would shift my rants to the blogosphere. 

as many of you may know, some of the work we do at kipp is fairly controversial and often finds its way into left/right debates on education reform and education policy. kipp and other schools who operate by a “no excuses” model claim that poverty is not an "excuse" for teachers and students to use in allowing students to achieve less than what they are able. i don’t remember when i bought in so heavily to the kipp model, but apparently it has happened. i think this past year away from helena and kipp just made it worse.

over the past year at candler, i have gained an abundance of knowledge about the societal injustices and structural issues that lead to poverty in our country. i’ve read about and been infuriated by the ways in which our society privileges individuals based on race, gender, familial history, and zip code. i’ve become more aware of the ways in which this privilege has lead to extreme income inequality, which threatens the future of our nation.

and after reading, researching, and discovering anew information about these societal injustices, i find myself working in an organization that some argue is not adequately addressing these problems. (see those arguments here and here) one of these articles claims that poverty is an “excellent excuse” arguing, "mountains upon mountains of data show dramatic correlations between family income and educational performance, as well as other cognitive indicators." the argument then flows that poverty is the problem, and education is not necessarily the solution. a further argument (articulated by my good friend zach) states that claiming poverty is not an "excuse" places the burden of crushing poverty on the students as opposed to the structural and societal factors which have led to students’ plight.

my first reaction to reading these articles and arguments was to wonder if they were right. i thought to myself, “maybe schools like kipp are not a good solution, maybe i should spend my time and energy elsewhere.” 

then i remember the statistical and anecdotal evidence that has shown me students living in poverty CAN learn and achieve at the same level as their higher income peers. i am reminded that the point of the "no excuses" model is not to shift blame onto students, but to say to students, "expecting less of you because you live in poverty is implicitly agreeing with the societal idea that you are incapable of achieving what higher income students can achieve.” i am reminded that while it is immensely important for me to be aware of the structural issues that have led to students’ plight, the student sitting in my classroom simply needs to be cared for, and that means holding them to the high expectations of which they are capable. 

because while these debates are important, they fall short when they become disconnected from the lives of students. 

students who are capable of achieving incredible things if we learn to expect great things from them. 

students who have assets, gifts, skills, innovative thoughts, aspirations, dreams, and abilities if we seek them out and help them realize their potential. 

students who sometimes need a little extra love, and inwardly are aware that loving them often means holding them accountable.

students who have dealt with things i can’t even begin to imagine, but who nonetheless sit in a classroom hoping to find themselves engaged, hoping to walk out of the classroom with knowledge that will empower them to take ownership of their future.

students who can be difficult, bull-headed, worrisome, frustrating, infuriating, and wonderful all at the same time. 

it is for these students, our students, that i teach. i don’t always do it well, but at this point i am just itching to try it again.

first year in seminary

i’ve avoided writing this since school finished because i just don’t know what to say. 

i know i’ll resort to my pretentious, buck the system, rob bell wannabe, refusal to use capital letters in my post, but aside from that, what am i going to say? 

long story short... i have been considering seminary for the past five years, i went for a year, and now i’m going back to teach algebra 1 in helena, arkansas. 

how did all of that come about? that’s a question i am still trying to answer for myself. 

i came into this whole seminary business a bit unsure about what i was doing. i thought i wanted to work in a church for about five minutes and then quickly realized that was not my path. 

i then spent a lot of time asking the question, "so what is it i am doing here?" the fact that i could not form an adequate answer to that question made for a pretty challenging first semester. 

this difficulty was compounded by the fact that i was taking classes in which i was constantly engaging in the social injustices and societal ills that run rampant in our society while so many of us go about our daily lives and sip on our lattes. i was fired up, ready to change the world, i missed my students, and i ran back to helena every possible chance i got. 

i was ready to fix to world. right now. 

i like to claim that i calmed down second semester, but that is not true. i spent the months of january and february planning out the rest of my life and just exactly how i was going to fix the world. i was looking for the perfect church or non-profit to serve in my second year so that i could simultaneously solve poverty in atlanta and transform everything about the church. 

i had a hard time finding that placement. 

in the midst of all that i got a phone call from a good friend from helena informing me that she would be taking over the school in which i worked last year. she requested that i come back and join the school’s leadership team. 

here i was, in the midst of attempting to find a placement where i could make a real and substantial difference in people’s lives, and i got a phone call offering me an opportunity to do just that. 

so i said yes.

then i said no.

then i said, well maybe.

then i said yes again. 

(i think this process likely continued a few times over, as those of you who know me well can attest)

so, here i am, taking a year off from seminary. 

i know that statistics and probability says that i will not return to seminary, but i don’t really like to let statistics tell me what to do. all i know is that i am grateful for the opportunity to come back to a place that is dear to my heart and work with kids who i care about deeply. 

now back to this “saving the world” business. it wasn’t until i was working on my final sermon for my preaching class that i realized my high-and-mighty desire to fix everyone and everything was a bit problematic. 

this urge to fix poverty, people, and all the world's issues is problematic for several reasons, all of which i won't discuss here, but allow me to give a small sample. 

my final sermon was based on a text in the gospel of mark when Jesus (yeah, that’s right Jesus gets capitalized ;) ) casts out a demon. 

here is a small excerpt... 

“Because friends the good news of the gospel, the good news of the resurrection, is that injustice can be overcome.

Evil and death do not get the last word and healing is available, but friends it does not come solely through us.

Healing comes from the risen Lord and the second we start thinking its up to us to save the world we’ve missed the truth of this gospel we proclaim. 

Because who is it that casts out demons anyway?

It wasn’t the disciples. It certainly is not me. But I hope you will join me in continuing to fight against those demons in our society today and continuing to pray.”

i cannot fix the world. i will not fix the world. but i will find a place where injustice and pain are real and i will fight those ills knowing that i do not do it alone. 

it took a year of seminary for me to learn that its not up to me to save the world, but that in no way diminishes the need for me to try.

i’d say that’s a pretty good lesson.

Standing with the Gun Lobby

This is a letter I wrote to the editor of a couple of newspapers in Arkansas concerning Senator Mark Pryor's vote on universal background checks.


Senator Pryor,

I am writing to voice my extreme disapproval toward your vote against the Machin-Toomey bill.

In the wake of the horror that was Newton, we listened to the President stand up and speak about the need to come together and and take meaningful action.

I was hesitatingly optimistic that you all could get something done.

The gun lobby a wielded its immense political power in order to ensure that issues like a limit on high capacity magazines and a ban on assault rifles did not even make it to the floor for a vote. All that was left was a single, common sense law, that I was convinced Congress could pass.

I thought it should not be difficult for Congress to pass legislation supported by 90% of the American people.

I was wrong.

Background checks are common sense. 84% of your Arkansas constituents agree with me, yet you decided to stand with the NRA's Washington lobby. In the wake of your vote, criminals will continue to have easier access to guns without having to navigate their way through the background check system. Thirty three Americans will continue to be murdered with guns every day. This legislation would not have eliminated gun violence, but it would have been a step.

Now, as opposed to taking steps forward in memory of those who have lost their lives, we remain stagnent. We remain caught in the grip of the gun lobbyists who have a choke hold on our government.

I am ashamed of the Senate. I am ashamed of your vote, and I will do what I can to elect representatives who will vote in line with their constituents and not gun lobbyists. You not only defied those in Arkansas, you defied your party. In doing so, you stopped common sense legislation from passing.

I hope the 84% of Arkansas citizens who you ignored with your vote will stand against you in the next election cycle. I hope we will put someone in office who is unafraid to cast votes that save lives and not political careers.

Levi Rogers

perplexed by easter

luke 24: 6 - 12 

“he isn’t here - he’s been raised! don’t you remember? while you were still in galilee he told you that the son of man must be handed over into the hands of sinners, and be crucified, and rise again on the third day. and they remembered his words. they went back, away form the tomb, and told all this to the eleven and all the others. it was mary magdalene, joanna, and mary the wife of james, and the others with them. they said this to the apostles; and the message seemed to them just stupid; useless talk, and they didn’t believe them. peter, though, got up and ran to the tomb. he stooped down and saw only the grave-cloths. he went back home, perplexed at what had happened.”

perplexed

perplexed is usually not a word i associate with easter. when i think easter, i usually think joyful, excited, relief, praise, etc. none of these words describe the reaction of the first disciples. 

peter was perplexed. 

i kind of like that. i think we might need to claim a sense of being perplexed by this whole thing. 

those who, like me, have been going to church sense they were born might forget to take time to think about how absurd this story we are celebrating is... 

so this guy died, like dead... legit dead, and then came back to life and that is supposed to be meaningful for me and i am supposed to be celebrating it? “yes sir, you bet. praise the Lord, hallelujah!!” we might answer without missing a beat.

but maybe we could instead take just a minute to slow down and say... what? 

i think when we are too quick to jump to the “yes sir, praise the Lord hallelujah!” we miss a chance to be confounded.  i don’t know that this  story is supposed to be so easily internalized, watered down, and blindly accepted. i think maybe on easter sunday we might take a second to marvel at the overwhelming, illogical nature of the story. 

i am coming to worship this morning with an attitude of being a little perplexed. sure, i’ve heard this story my whole life, but come on.. its madness. 

and i think that is the point. 

in luke’s resurrection story we find ourselves - showing up confused, unbelieving, not getting it, but unable to let go of the power of the story. the story of resurrection is not supposed to fit neatly into our categories and worldview. it is, rather, intended to disrupt our entire way of viewing the world. 

that is not something that should come easily or quickly. 

easter should not be an end, but rather a new beginning, one which cannot come without a bit of sitting, bewildered by the madness of this story. i hope we can see today as beginning of a new story...

a story that might be a little crazy, but one on which we continue to ponder. 

a story that gives light to our lives in ways that don’t always make sense. 

a story into which we seek to live, not always knowing what that means in a world of chaos and confusion. 

today we praise the power of that story. we celebrate the fact that we believe it gives us life. we rejoice in the truth that “Christ the Lord is risen today. alleluia. amen” 

however, let us not loose sight of the baffling nature of that proclamation. 

prophetic sequesters and bad examples

... and i thought the fiscal cliff was bad. 

i am tempted to just write a blog post bemoaning the unfathomably ridiculous nature of this sequester, but many have already successfully taken to that endeavor. ie here and here. 

this thing was designed to be so bad that the white house and congress would be forced to come to a deal. yet somehow we have reached a point in american politics that even indiscriminate, senseless, deep, hack job style budget cuts are not enough to allow for the political grand bargaining for which we all long. (at least in theory... we want to “cut spending” but oppose cuts to each specific area... except foreign aid of course. smh)

 oh how i could continue my frustration with this whole thing. 

republicans in the house say the whole thing was the white house’s idea (what i’ve read says it did originate with lew, so they seem to be right there.) 

democrats (and noble prize winning economists) argue that austerity is not the solution; europe seems to agree.

republicans are arguing against revenues, “you got what you wanted with the cliff,” they complain. (true, but come on $400,000 is not middle class, we still have a 16 trillion dollar debt, and mcconell is still saying “read my lips, no new revenues?”) 

how on earth someone could be arguing against a deal and for completely senseless, across the board cuts is simply beyond me. the statistics of this are overwhelming: $30,000 teachers loosing jobs, 70,000 kids may not get head start, over 100,000 people are displaced from low-income housing, and mcconell has the audacity to get up and say “no new revenues” because we taxed people rolling in over 400,000 in january? sequester cuts the bad with the good, but we're just going to take it because revenues are off the table? wake up folks. 

look its easy to tell which side of the debate i fall on, but the “debate” seems to be flawed in and of itself. 

in talking about this nasty little predicament our country has found itself in, the president of my university made a suggestion that we come together and find some common ground. 

sounded like a good idea until he chose to use the most degrading example of political compromise possible. 

there is absolutely no excuse for his choice of example. it was horrible and infuriating. he should not have said it, and i think he probably needs to just stop talking for a little while. 

what's additionally frustrating about this is that, he was actually trying to make a good point. due to his choice of example, he utterly failed to make his argument, and his point was justifiably overshadowed by his awful example. 

in hopes of not-affirming, but attempting to reconfigure his argument... allow me to suggest a couple of non-horrifying ways to say what i hope he was trying to say. 

with the dire stakes of this sequester, both sides are digging their heals in the ground and spewing out the same rhetoric we’ve heard for years. 

we need fresh voices in this conversation. 

in my preaching class we’ve talked out how certain modes of reality cloud out the possibility of a “vertical dimension”. 

an example of a vertical dimension might be the truth and reconciliation commission brought about by president mandela and desmond tutu (hey.... there’s a good example for your piece president wagnor!!!) 

these vertical dimensions are realities, solutions, positive steps forward that we miss when we dig so deeply into our ideologies that the entire political process becomes little more that dragging people begrudgingly closer to one side or the other. 

like this... 

i just drew this online. i am proud of it. you get the point? its like we are arguing from one side or the other, trying to get one another to come a little closer to our side, when there is another reality possible if we’d get off that damn line.

i think this is what wagnor was trying to say, unsuccessfully. he should have just drawn a picture. he needs to hire me. 

here’s another good example that seems more appropriate than the president's...

some of the prophets in the old testament seemed to have been dealing with similar realities. 

the very nature of hope for the exiles in babylon seemed unthinkable. 

the israelites had seen the destruction of their land, been forcibly removed from their homes, and wondered if Yahweh could still be present in a foreign place. 

then along come prophets like isaiah, who were running around telling the israelites that there was still hope in the midst of the chaos of their current predicament. 

theologian walter bureggeman discusses this hope in the prophetic imagination, “the hope that must be spoken is hope rooted in the assurance that God does not quit even when the evidence warrants his quitting... the prophets were not changing external politics but reclaiming Israel’s imagination.” 

the prophetic voices cried out that God was still moving and present even in the midst of what seemed like hopeless destruction, frustration, chaos, and despair. 

perhaps we need some prophetic voices today to call us all to a higher level of thinking, remove us from the confines of gridlock, reclaim our imagination, think creatively about new possibilities, and hope for a new way forward. 

“Remember not the former things, 

nor consider the things of old. 

Behold, I am doing a new thing; 

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” 

Isaiah 43:18 - 19 

inequality

i read an interesting npr article the other day. i seem to be doing that more and more these days. 

this article got me to thinking. i also seem to be doing a lot of that recently. 

here is the article. 

to save those who do not feel like reading, it details the extreme inequality in the wealthiest county in the united states. 

in this county there is a deep divide between two different worlds: an exorbitantly wealthy greenwich and the a desperately impoverished bridgeport. the inequality described in this county is not an anomaly, it is pervasive in our country. 

it is this type of inequality that is perhaps the largest moral, spiritual, and economic issue of our time. 

the inequality in the united states is among the most extreme in the world: see our gini coefficient

the financial crisis and ensuing recession seem to only have made these matters worse. 

the article encapsulates the real problem of this inequality in a few short sentences. 

here’s the excerpt. 

“The idea that Greenwich residents should feel somehow responsible, or even concerned, about the plight of 145,000 people in Bridgeport strikes many as odd — if not absurd.

"I don't think of it at all," said Karen Schiff, a well-dressed young woman heading home from the Greenwich train station from her job in New York. "I don't think I've ever even met someone from there. Maybe I drove through, I don't know."

"Funny thing is that lady probably meets someone from Bridgeport every day," a resident from Bridgeport said. Turning toward Greenwich Avenue, with its Baccarat jewelry shop, Apple store and dozens of expensive boutiques, she said, "I used to ride in from Bridgeport with the people who work in those stores every day. As long as we go home at night, I guess, it's OK. It's like we're invisible."

what a great glimpse into a huge part of this problem.

we can have all the debates we want about the efficacy of welfare, non-profits, charity, and education reform. 

we can talk in circles about what works, what doesn’t, what makes people better off, and what continues cycles of poverty. 

but at the end of the day, this seems to sum it up. 

i am assuming that many of those reading this post are far closer to greenwich than bridgeport, and far too often we take the attitude of the karen schiff. we don't see. 

we have become blinded. 

we do all we can to make sure those who represent the unpleasantness of poverty do exactly what the article says, “go home at night.” 

this cannot be ok. there are countless ways to begin to combat inequality, but before we can start, we have to open our eyes. 

we have to see. we have to stop pretending that these realities do not exist. 

the realities are there. this is not just an issue for the hood, the backwoods, the ghetto, the slums, the swamps, the boonies, or the sticks. this reality is manifest in the wealthiest county in our country. it is all around us if we have eyes to see. 

in atlanta, helena, savannah, boston, new york, auburn, birmingham, mobile, philadelphia, chicago, nashville, knoxville, and huntsville... inequality is there. 

our gates, suburbs, and barriers might not keep us secluded from this reality forever. 

yesterday, the president echoed one of my favorite quotes by the reverend doctor king that applies directly to this issue, “our individual freedoms are inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.” also see, "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." 

i firmly believe the future of our economy, morality, spirituality, and vitality rest on our response to the growing issue of income inequality. 

we may choose to combat this problem in a variety of ways, but once we have seen the reality of inequality we cannot unsee. the only question becomes how will we respond. 

“how do we respond?”

it is my hope that more and more of us can sit with that question, let it penetrate our being, and answer accordingly. 

peace. 

just can't leave.

over the break my mother grounded me from helena. 

that’s right, twenty-six years old, and i got grounded. the beneficial part of serving a grounding sentence by your parents when you are 26 is that you don’t actually have to serve it. 

mother grounded me from helena at christmas, but i went back anyway. 

i was grounded because my mother would like for me to finish school, a reasonable request. the problem is that when i go back to helena, i always want to stay. 

the children, they just pull at my heartstrings. 

oh the joy of returning to these ridiculous, restless, hilarious, awesome, attitudinal, beautiful children. 

the KIPP school i worked at last year is currently short staffed, so i have been filling in as the math teacher for the past three weeks or so. it has reminded me of all the joys and frustrations of being a teacher. 

joys: hanging out with one of my favorite students on her birthday, co-planning a punishment strategy for a poor report card with a parent, convincing another parent not to pull her child from KIPP, having mrs. sanders yell at me/dishing it back, dinners with friends/students, philosophical discussions about education reform, tutoring until 6:30 on a friday followed by frozen pizza/coors light/sleep, do-now music, the letter "r" in inexplicable places in words (ie - mursic, compruter, refurse), teaching two-step equations and slope-intercept form, reminding a classroom full of students that “they are some bothersome little suckers,” over the top speeches about the woes of talking during independent practice, and watching students succeed. 

frustrations: attitudinal children, the general stress of a school day, hearing the frustrations of teachers working hard while not feeling successful, witnessing a lack of sustainability lead to negative outcomes for kids, feeling pressured to teach in a uniform way, and watching students feel unsuccessful. 

its a crazy world in helena, arkansas, but its a world i love. 

over the semester, i often felt frustrated by constantly reading about the urgency of tackling injustice without actually “doing” much. the past few weeks have been a needed  anecdote to my restlessness. 

while i wasn’t teaching i read two books that helped shape my thoughts on future plans and future hopes... 

1.) how children succeed - paul tough - all about our societal obsession with intelligence as the key lever that will lead to positive outcomes in students’ lives. tough highlights seven character traits that may be better predictors of success than IQ (grit, curiosity, optimism, social intelligence, gratitude, zest, and self-control.) the KIPP network is attempting to inundate these character traits into its curriculum, but its a tough battle. 

haha - “tough” battle. get it?

2.) toxic charity - bob lupton - deals with the inadequacies and fallacies in charities, churches, non-profits, etc. we think we are helping - but are we actually? lupton started an organization in atlanta (focused community strategies) that i am going to try to work for this summer. 

overall, its been a good break. i’ve missed this place and these children much more than i realized. it’s going to be difficult to step away again, but i know ATL is where i need to be at the moment. also i sort of have a feeling i'll be back sometime soon (sorry cinge.) 

i’ve got some good classes lined up next semester, including an awesome sounding preaching class. one of my fellow seminarians convinced me to drop my (eventually) required historical theology for this elective. it should be good, although i’m sure my students would say the last thing i need is a class on how to do more preaching. 

“mr. rogers’ always be preaching.” 

yes i do children, and hopefully the best sermons are to come.