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Education time kids. Here in New Jersey, our new Governor has put a man in charge of the Department of Education who was an active opponent of it. Brett Schundler was in favor of charter schools, even opening one here in Hudson County.

It’s a school whose doors are now scheduled to close due to not meeting educational standards.

Whoops.

The buzzwords here in Jersey have been “merit pay”. Paying teachers in accordance with their student’s performances on standardized tests. Sounds great huh?

Unless you are my friend since college. We’ll call her Teacher X.

At the beginning of this year, Teacher X was called into her Principal’s office for a litle sit down chat. “Teacher X, ” said the Principal, “you really have to get your student’s test scores up.” He’s referencing the standardized test scores by which the state and Feds measure aptitude of students.

Teacher X was in shock. She’d just won teacher of the year in her school. She’d been recruited for her job by this very district and Principal due to the excellence with which she applies her education. Students and teachers in her town love and request her.  What was wrong with her student’s test scores?

Teacher X teaches special education.

Her students include those whose physical and/or mental challenges make it difficult to learn at the same schedule and in the same rhythm as their peers. This is why they’re placed into special ed in the first place. She’s taught kids with autism, bipolar disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, learning disabilities, you name it. She’s even had refugees in her class with no English and trauma therapy pasts.

And she’s taught them all.

Teacher X’s kids by definition aren’t going to test the same as kids without their challenges in their age group. This is no fault of the kids, their parents, or teacher X. They will test better than if they’d received no early services. But many of them will need additional supports for quite some time to meet their peer group’s testing thresholds.

If teachers are paid based upon their kids’ test scores, how is a good teacher like Teacher X paid? This is someone who purposely sought out the most challenging of students. She’d be punished for it, that’s how.

My teen is in the honors program at her school.  She had to test into it and apply at the grade school level to get in.  Should her teachers, (who already were assigned to the highest testers in the school) get paid more because they had the political pull to get into that program? Should they be paid more because she’s gifted and loves education and her parents have pushed it since she was a toddler? Heck, why don’t they cut me a check for making their job easy?

This is the point, merit pay sounds great on its face. It rewards those who have a greater output which benefits the company. BUt kids aren’t widgets. They aren’t coming out the same from the same mold. This is the problem, what about the kid who tanks their tests because they’re angry at the world or hate their teacher? What about the kid who aces it because they already came in gifted? And what happens to the kids who are trying their best with the talents God gave them but are still a little behind?

Merit pay as it is described now will encourage teachers and schools to seek out the kids who already can and abandon those who are want to learn but may be struggling. In the end, it’s the kids that lose out.

There has to be a better system, or a fair system in place before it’s across the board merit. If we want to pay teachers like we pay office workers, we’d better come up with a system where Teacher X isn’t abused and my smart kid isn’t used.

It’s always interesting to think about how I get from one thought to another.  At least it’s interesting to me.

Typically, in my prayer time I start with adoration and praise.  To me, adoration is telling God how great He IS.  It has nothing to do with what he has done, but just who he IS.  I have a list of His attributes and names that I use to help me.  Praise, on the other hand, is about what he has done or the blessings he has given; salvation, a loving home, working in the lives of our children who need to be walking with Him.

So, today, I was kind of jumping back and forth between supplication, confession, and adoration.  One of the words that jumped out at me in my list was “dayspring.”  So, as I often do when a word or phrase catches my attention, I jumped in my e-Sword and did a search.  I keep several versions on my PC.  e-Sword is a great resource which I highly recommend if you are interested in doing in-depth Bible study.

In the KJV, there are two scriptures that refer to dayspring.  One is in Job and the other is Luke 1:78 where Zechariah is prophesying after John the Baptist was born.  He was praising the Lord for the promised Messiah whose birth was now imminent and for John’s role in preparing the way.

And I wondered what it would have been like to know, when my boys were born, what God’s specific plan was for their lives.  Zecharias and Elizabeth knew, based on God’s revelation to Zecharias, what John’s role was to be.  They knew from the beginning that God wanted him to prepare the way of the Lord.  Their son had been selected to announce the impending coming of the Messiah that had been promised for centuries.

So, how does that impact how you raise a child?   Would you be more serious about teaching the Bible in your home?   Would you pray more about his/her development spiritually?  Would you be able to give better counsel as they entered teenage or early adult years?

My children are raised.  It’s easy to look back and second-guess all the things I could have done differently.  No value there.  But my grandchildren are young and there are a lot of opportunities ahead to impact them for the Lord. 

Whether you are raising your children or contemplating your impact on your grandchildren, the fact is you probably don’t know what God’s plan for them is specifically.  But you know God’s plan for them generally:

1.  To know Him personally

2.  To honor and glorify Him in all they do

So, do you pray for God’s will to be accomplished in each of their lives?  Do you pray about what YOUR role is in helping them know and do God’s will?  Do you spend the TIME needed to ensure God’s will is done?  Do you talk about your Exous?

Lord, help me begin immediately to change the behaviors that keep me from doing these things to maximize my on my grandchildren.

What a joy to watch my daughter pray for the entire congregation this morning at church.  She specifically prayed for the parents of the church to step up and “parent” their children.  For Moms and Dads to be leaders and to have the resolve to do what is right.  She prayed for parents of traditional families, blended families and for single parents.  Sandra and I were both in tears when she was done.

After the service, I asked her why she chose to pray for parents.  Her response was one I’ll never forget; “I figured I need to be on board with the conviction that this family shares for parents.”  Wow!  Sandra and I work so hard on our family’s unity.  We talk in class about “dynamic family unity” and how our children need to have a greater love for the family than for themselves.  How they should be willing to sacrifice their own agenda for the agenda of the family.  The Carter 5 Family has dynamic unity.  Kelli is an example of the results when parents are resolved to develop the hearts and minds of their children to sacrifice themselves for the good of the family.

God has done a remarkable work in Kelli and the coolest thing is that he’s not done.  He is creating an incredible young woman who seeks His heart and who desires to serve Him.  I am so proud of her!

Welcome to the epoch of the remake. Where blockbusters come from retread ideas of the 1980’s. And geeks, say goodbye to your childhood.

As a child, my mother was a single parent with a nerdy kid. She took us to the movies often, in fact, my entertainment magazines were the guide posts for my Saturdays for years. Movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark. Ghostbusters. The Empire Strikes Back.  Gremlins. Goonies. Clash of the Titans.

Fast forward to 2010 and there are big screen remakes in the works for Ghostbusters, Arthur, Police Academy. Theaters will soon be showing remakes of the Karate Kid and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Movies like Transformers and G.I. Joe were on-screen last year, not to mention the upcoming A-Team film.

Really?

Let me say for the record something Hollywood doesn’t seem to understand. Just because you can make something look better doesn’t mean you can make it more significant.

Again, I am for freedom of speech and expression. Film like this should most certainly be made if people so choose to pay for them. But I’d love a little entertainment that I have never imagined before. Here’s a few reasons why.

1. Nostalgia.

You know, as I strolled through the toy store with my son yesterday, I noticed a prominent item I’d never seen in any toy store in a long time. A Slimer Doll. Do you remember him, the green mess from Ghostbusters who flies at you at the end of the movie? And there he sat on the  shelf in an obvious attempt to market and mainstream him again. Because we’d all better get ready for the movie coming out next year. *sigh*

I hate the idea of a Ghostbusters remake. The first one was not only silly and visionary, it did something you rarely see in the movies today. Featured a lead character who was unabashedly a Christian and a hero. And mentioned Jesus and religion in a positive light. In 2011 when that movie comes out, well, I’m not expecting the same.

I know they have to make money. But can’t we leave some stuff alone and pure? The original stands so well by itself that it makes you miss it.  I know their bottom line isn’t dependant on our memories being intact. But can’t my kid have memories of his own that are original?

2. Training.

Once upon a time artists in film churned out masterpieces after long quests for the chance to film their screenplays. They went to film schools, directed crappy test movies and learned the craft of film directing and acting the hard way, as they climbed to the top.

Now all you need is a reality show or multiple babies. And you’re  a star.

Thus our generation has so very few actors who can hold a candle to those of days long before, which is why there’s little trans-generational respect anymore. I may have been born in the 1970’s, but I knew who Katherine Hepburn was. I learned about Jimmy Stewart and Lena Horne and Sinatra. We weren’t just living in the now.

With the exception of really geeky kids, no one is respecting old school art in the movies anymore because there’s a new school version to check out instead. 

This is why my three-year old can sing a Men At Work song on cue, but also prefers his teachers to many of the kids in his class who have no idea what he’s talking about half the time. “You’re making it hard for him” says my husband the indie music buff as he plays Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man on YouTube for the baby. Yeah. It’s all me. And Night Ranger.

3. Wonder.

I was very young  in 1977 when Star Wars came out. I left the theater on a cloud I can still remember and have been a Star Wars lover ever since. (How proud was I when my son burst into spontaneous John Williams music yesterday in the toy aisle?) The themes had been on-screen before to be sure. The look hadn’t. It was new, refreshing and incited glee because of those things.

My children, almost 16 and three, have yet to see a movie that grabbed them like this. Because they’ve seen it all on the Disney Channel or Nick Jr long before they go to the movies. This saddens me.

I want my children to have that monumental moment in the theater that burns itself into your memory and stays there as a good one in a world so full of poor memories.

Come on Hollywood. Put out something new and original, family focused and wonderful. We’re waiting for you.

In a previous post I went through my thoughts on why Christians should not be so flippant about Climate Change/ Damage to the earth. Long story short, “the Earth is the Lord’s”. We’re subletting so don’t trash the house. If God wants to throw it into a pit in the universe, that’s his call. Not ours.

But I often wonder about the scientific community as well. There seems to be a genuine hatred for the concept of humans not being the top of the mental food chain. Of course there’s nothing out there that can design better than us! That’s goofy to me.

My freshman year of undergrad, the professor spent an entire hour telling us how stupid Creationism is. Since I come from a family of ministers with doctorates in theology, a mother who graduated Ivy League and am pretty smart myself, I knew that to be untrue. The smartest people I knew were folks with a deep abiding faith in God. I wasn’t that motivated. I bailed and failed. (Had to take it over with the same guy too.)

Just now I was listening to a gentleman explain how stupid intelligent design is on YouTube. The crux of his argument is that the universe is hostile for any and all life except for us. Okay, there’s no way I believe that and here is why. Our understanding of life, breathing, mating, all of these things are limited to what we know WE need to be supported. Or that which is needed for life on EARTH to be supported. But what if “life” has a meaning expanded beyond what we can even measure with our limited brains?

I am open to the possibility of intelligent creatures out there who are over and beyond our mental and physical capacities. This is why I’m open to the idea of God.

Having said that I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT ABIDE (and I mean to shout) with the idea of theocracy or state-sponsored religion. As such, I don’t think “Intelligent Design” should be taught in any measure in schools which are not private. Ever. Religion as taught outside of the home and church in America has given us everything from home-grown terrorists to the Klan. People with different faiths need to be able to know about mine through their own desires and the kindness of people who witness to them in love. Not via a mandate.

Mandated faith in America said it was okay to daily beat, rape, and subjugate people based upon their race. Mandated faith in America said it was okay to conduct genocide of the Native Americans, often at the hands of missionaries who claimed to represent Christ. Mandated faith gave us the burnings of women at the hands of hysterical and mean-girl teens. I don’t want my faith to come from the Government. I want it from the Source.  And I want the God who has given all of us free will to be represented as an informed choice.

I think it speaks volumes for Christ that when presented with all of the scientific wonders of the universe, I stand firm in belief in God’s wonder even more. No, I don’t believe the universe was created in seven of our 24 hour days. (What is God’s concept of time? And if there was no sun, how was a day 24 hours when the sun was created…if it’s measured by the sun?)

No, I don ‘t believe Adam was walking around with dinosaurs. The Bible says that in terms of life on Earth, first came the sea creatures. Doesn’t science say this as well? Then the birds. Then creatures of the land. Then mankind. Isn’t this what science says as well? I really don’t see the problem here. Not knowing what God considers a day, it makes perfect sense that dinosaurs are on earth loooooooooooooooooong before mankind ever stepped foot on it.

 For Christians, there has to be an ability to stand in faith and stand in evidence. It is why Jesus used parables. He wasn’t speaking in concepts that the average person had never heard of. He made his case in both the natural and spiritual world. Those that chose to believe him did so of their own accord.

Christians shouldn’t embrace anti-intellectualism. To do so is an insult to the very brain that our Creator gave us. Stand firm in the Word, and learn things about science. And prepare to be even more amazed.

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15

“When a child hits a child, we call it aggression. When a child hits an adult, we call it hostility. When an adult hits an adult, we call it assault. When an adult hits a child, we call it discipline.” – Haim G. Ginott

If this is something that I myself can’t reconcile, I don’t see how I could ever possibly expect a child to understand that spanking was acceptable and even beneficial as some say. All of my life I have been told that it’s unacceptable to hit someone to get what I want – but somehow it becomes ok once I am a parent? I just don’t think so.

On November 26, Tiger Woods was on top of the world.  He was the most admired and recognized athlete in the world.  His abilities on the golf course along with his public persona made him so marketable that sponsors were clamoring to get him to endorse their products, making him the highest paid athlete in the world.  Forbes magazine had predicted that he would soon be the first athlete to pass $1 billion in earnings.  However, after a bizarre November 27 early morning auto accident in his own driveway, Tiger’s perch on top of the world began to unravel in an epic tailspin of events due to revelations that followed over the next few days regarding his infidelity to his wife and family.

The thing that struck me was the realization of how quickly a reputation can be damaged by a weakness of character.  Just like Tiger, many people spend cycles of time trying to hide their character and protect their reputation.  But ultimately, it will crumble because character will always be revealed at some point.  A man’s reputation is what other people think of him, but his character is what he really is.  It is our character, either good or bad, that causes others to accept or reject us.  Honesty, integrity, loyalty, sincerity, approachability, vulnerability….they all make up the whole of our character.

As parents we must protect our character if we expect our children to value and trust us.  Parents aren’t able to hide their character for long because our true character will always be exposed at sometime and it is our family who knows better than anyone what that character reflects.  Parents, your desire should be to reflect the image of Christ within your character, not the image of our depraved and scandalous world.  Parents need to live out Ephesians 5:1 “Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents.”

“Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses and avoids.”
— Aristotle, Greek philosopher

“A man’s character is his fate.”
— Heraclitus, Greek philosopher