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.