Thursday, April 10, 2008

Are You There God? It's Me, Sam...


So I recently read Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret? by Judy Blume. I liked this book a lot. It was so cute! My favorite part, however, was the way Margaret talked with God. She was raised in a house where neither of her parents believed in one particular religion, and to her Sundays were for going on vacation or working on the house with her family. Margaret, however, believes that God is there and that he talks to her. She always just tells him what is in her heart. It reminds me of the scripture that talks about being childlike in our faith: "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3:19). Margaret talks to God about everything, from how grateful she is for her loving family to how much she wishes to grow up and hit puberty. I think it would be wonderful if everyone had such a personal and faithful belief in Heavenly Father. If we were all able to just sit down and say, "Hey Father, my day really sucked, let me tell you about it..." it wouldn't improve how much He knows us, but how much more would we know Him. Quite a bit, I'm willing to say. Maybe we should stop focusing on the things we need and start just having a conversation with our Father in Heaven. I'm not suggesting that we begin to be too familiar to the point of irreverence, but I think that making our prayers more like a conversation rather than a list of bullet points could boost not only our relationship with our Heavenly Father, but also our testimony of prayer and communication with the Eternal God of Heaven.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Addendum

I would like to add to my previous post that this is not during school time. We have a few periods throughout the day where my aids and I work one on one with students. At this time, we quite often have students who are waiting for peer tutors to go to mainstream classes, students who are waiting for a bus to go to vocational training, and students who aren't able to go to mainstream classes due to illnesses, absence of peer tutors, or tests in mainstream. I really do make lesson plans and have scheduled activities. I just don't perform for students who are just sitting around waiting for things, especially when I am working with other students on actual academic pursuits.

I'm Bored...

If I have to hear the words "I'm bored" one more time this week I think I'm going to scream. When did I become an entertainer? I have several students who will just sit and tell me they're bored. I then suggest several different activities, but they shoot all of them down. Less than a minute after I tell them to find something to do, they tell me they are bored again! I have puzzles, a basket of possible art projects/word searches/etc; computer games, books to read, games to play. Why do kids these days need to be entertained? My job is to teach, but if kids aren't willing to get off their butts to go get a puzzle (which they can do once they have returned to their butts) then why should I be the one who has to come up with something for them to do? AAAAAAARGH!