Because I obviously love you too much.

The magazine. Not your neighbours or relatives.

I have not seen a copy of “People” in maybe years. It is just as tacky as ever. I can’t imagine a better example of what has gone wrong with culture. It`s about…people you have no reason to know (famous and rich),… people who are desperate (an issue on people losing weight because as one subject said, `No one ever told me I was cute.`)…people who are trivialized after fighting hard for freedom, their lives, or justice (because you can`t cram a long struggle into three pages, with photos.)

I don`t know why is this one of the most popular magazines ever. It is not educational, instructional or enlightening. It`s junk food for the brain.

I wonder if this is just what people want. It`s much easier to live your life on the surface, concerned about appearance, clothes, fashion, fame, attention and sex. It`s about soap opera story lines – the ones on television, the ones acted out in celebrity lives. People is about making up a life, not living one.

Real life can be pretty boring. It`s laundry. (I`ve got a load of clothes to fold, and I must reassemble the vacuum before the day is out. Yes, I took it apart. I had good reason.) Real life is dirty diapers and dishes to wash, and the end of winter, with the yard looking like a buffalo wallow. Real life is rather boring doctor`s appointments. (`Can you see this – can you see it now…`)

But there is something in real life that you won`t find in People. True love. Spiritual strength. Lasting friendship. Laughter over pork chops for dinner. The gift of being ordinary and out of the spotlight. God made us ordinary people, while making us extraordinary, when we turn back to Him and look for real life there. We don`t need a fabricated life, or to live out our days in other People`s lives. God finds us interesting enough to be with us always.

This is a good question we should ask ourselves often:  Where do we want to be 10, 15 or 20 years from now in our marriages?  Once you have a clear vision in view, the next question is: What choices am I making today that will help me get there 0r prevent me from getting there?

Far too often we react in the heat of the moment instead of choosing carefully our responses to our wives.   Most women are more emotional than men, although I am not ashamed to admit I tear up quite easily.  But I have learned through the years when Debi is having an emotional challenge not to react to her, but instead calmly lead.

Proverbs 15:1 says, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”

It’s not easy staying calm in the midst of a heated moment, but God has helped me speak softly.  I can testify the word of God is true!  Many an argument has been diffused when I’ve chosen to speak softly.  Loving our wives involves being willing to defer rather than conquer.  I don’t have to go after every challenge and prove myself.  My task is to represent Christ by the way I treat my wife.  Certainly this doesn’t mean peace at all costs – there are times to confront and correct, but that’s another post.

For now, this is the road I’m choosing to follow – how about you?

Raising Incredible Kids is looking for a Web Programmer who is willing to volunteer their skills to create a RIK website. Email us at raisingincrediblekids@verizon.net if God is leading you to help out.

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.

Private Christian schools.  Today I was on the bus going back up to the University for my evening class.  After getting on I started to talk to an acquaintance and the High School I attended came up.  I was posed with the question as to why my brother was “grumpy” to partake in actions that had gotten him expelled.  My simple answer: he had no friends.  My acquaintance seemed surprised to hear my quick reply.  It was true though about my High School.  I have very few positive memories from my time at Cedars Christian.  I had few true friends.  I remember when in elementary I begged and begged my mother for years to let me go to the public school.  She thought it would have a better influence on me to keep me at Cedars though.  I don’t know if my experience would have indeed been better as I had envisioned when younger.  But I guess change was better than what I was experiencing so logic told me that it would be better there.

I hate that at my school there was such a harsh divide between those with money and those without money.  If your family had monetary influence you were popular not only amongst your fellow classmates but also with the teachers.  After all the school runs on donations and tuition.  It’s not like the public sector which receives money from the government.  I was the odd child.  I had an imagination and I used it.  I thought outside the box, and my parents were your run of the mill middle-class adults.  They worked hard to provide for us as they did and they did an outstanding job.  They volunteered continually at the school helping with the first expansion and again when they built the cabins to make room for more students.  They came on class feildtrips and went to every student-teacher meeting to make sure that we were recieving the best education available.  All that doesn’t matter in the eyes of a spoiled 8 year old who KNOWS that their family has it.  And that they do get to have what they want.  Maybe I’m being a bit judgmental, I’ll readily admit that.  But my 8 year old self clearly saw the divide between the desired and the undesired.  I wasn’t invited to play at lunch with my classmates, I was relegated to either my own entertainment or to play with the boys.  That didn’t turn out half bad given that it opened my eyes to some of the passions I have today: classical history and literature.

I don’t know where I’m going with this.  I suppose I was surprised by my aquaintences implication that the school I went to seemed to have no problems.  I’d posit that is quite untrue.  There are many students that weren’t/aren’t happy within the confines of its walls.  That is not to say that the teachers were exceptional.  My memories are of the teachers who invested much of their lives into my education.  Mrs. VanCalsteren, Mr. Costley, Mrs. Nemitz, Mrs. Bluemink and so forth.  They CARED about their students and strove to see that they excelled in all they took on.  I would say that I don’t think that I would have excelled as much as I have and neither would have I overcome life’s challenges nearly as well if it wasn’t for their hard work.  They are the memories that I carry with me from my primary and secondary school experiences.  And when I’m personally a teacher I hope and strive to be able to emulate even just one of them.