My infrequent blogging has been due in part to simple laziness. Another part of it is due to increased time on Twitter and FB. A third reason behind the blogging decline has been just how unfriendly wordpress has become. I’m moving to tumblr, but don’t get your hopes up. Reasons 1 and 2 still need to be fixed for the blogging to improve.
Starting over at greatadvantage.tumblr.com.
The realization I had while grading papers at Pacific Coffee:
When I was in high school, I had a difficult time completing work if I knew the teacher was probably not going to look at it very thoroughly. In other words, if it was something that I suspected the teacher would quickly skim over to check for completion, I was one of the guys who would frequently write nonsense in the spaces provided so that I could look like I had done work, when in fact I hadn’t. I’m sure I wasn’t unique in this, so why is this a revelation? hmmm… not exactly sure.
I guess I’m wondering how this affects my tendencies as a teacher today, both in the effort I put into planning for lessons and in the extent to which I respond to student work. 1. I function much better when I have regular accountability in my job performance… If I know my lesson has the potential to be observed or critiqued by my supervisor, I inevitably put more work into it. 2. I have a real difficulty with assigning student work and then correcting it. I want to assign quality assignments (as opposed to just busy work)… but then I face the inevitable reality of time constraints when it comes to grading that work. I simply cannot give quality feedback as much as I would like.
P.S. Today I felt like a crappy teacher and I almost slammed my fist down on a Pacific Coffee table in frustration. I hate that feeling… and I hate the fact that I get angry about it. So basically there’s a lot of hate. And then I wrote in my journal… “It’s okay. God, thanks for being God.” And then I listened to U2, “sometimes you can’t make it on your own.” neither of those actions solves the anger issue or makes me a better teacher, but I got through the moment. so here I am. done.
Again, I direct all of my three readers to very well-written posts by my student Hannah. Always interesting to hear about life from the perspective of a high school senior.
“Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.”
I was a college senior – cynical and aloof. I recall reading Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in the cafeteria with the noise of forks and plates surrounding me. Yet King’s words found a place in my heart I didn’t know was there. I wept at the story of injustice. I wept at the courage of conviction of those who fought non-violently for equality. And I knew (somehow) that this was the essence of Jesus’s mission. He allowed himself to suffer, and it began to help me to find meaning in the presence of evil. King said you had to have “faith” that unjust suffering was redemptive. Could the civil rights movement have existed without the example of Christ, who set the standard for “unearned suffering?” My moment in the cafeteria, reading his speech, letting it soak into my emotions, broke through cynicism and helped me see that God was real. Real people, under the burden of great injustice, had faith. That HAD to mean something.
The Mennonite in Blood Meridian.
The wrath of God lies sleeping. It was hid a million years before men were and only men have power to wake it. Hell aint half full. Hear me. Ye carry war of a madman’s making onto a foreign land. Ye’ll wake more than the dogs.
From More Ready Than You Realize:
Perhaps you are familiar with the term apologetics, which is the study of how to give a reasonable defense for the Christian faith. I wonder sometimes, especially since “defense” implies warfare rather than friendship, if postmodern apologetics should take a different approach. Instead of defending, perhaps apologetics should begin with an old-fashioned apology: I’m sorry we Christians have so often put roadblocks up for spiritual seekers through our narrow-mindedness, our failure to bridge racial and cultural and class barriers, and our lack of acceptance. I’m sincerely sorry. Please don’t blame Jesus for our failure to live up to his teaching and example. And be assured that we’ll try to do better, with God’s help. Please pray for us, okay?
A friend of a friend made a video about coming to visit Hong Kong. I have a speaking line at about 3:08.
Here’s an excerpt from my student, Hannah, who has started a blog called “a peek in another life.” check it out.
Sometimes, I hate the fact that I am “stuck” between two cultures. I know it is suppose to be a blessing to be in such a privilege position where I receive the “best” of two or more cultures. However, it seems difficult to live a life where at home I am brought up with a traditional Chinese thinking while at school I am taught a very liberal, western point of view. It feels troublesome for people like me, who cares to take a stand, who believes it matters to understand about both views, who doesn’t like to say “who cares” to cultural beliefs and customs.
I thought I was a cynic. Despite voting for Obama, despite getting caught up in the excitement, I thought I could keep a degree of academic distance – be analytical. Yet, after seeing pictures of African-American voters, tears in their eyes upon learning of his victory, my cynicism was beat down. I got teary-eyed after watching a bit of Obama’s acceptance speech. He said:
America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves –- if our children should live to see the next century… what change will they see? What progress will we have made?
How much is packed into that phrase, “we have seen so much” – how much injustice and suffering have we inflicted, all while living in such great prosperity? And where are we going… this world of ours? How can our future possibly overcome the mistakes of the past? That future may be bleak, but for a moment I’m okay with putting a little faith in humanity. This moment is history, and I’m a part of it. Obama is my generation’s Kennedy. And even more so, he means something to the black community that I will never truly understand.
John Dickerson in Slate:
At the start of his campaign, Obama often concluded his speeches by telling the story of his Senate campaign and how he prevailed in the southern part of Illinois despite its history of antipathy towards blacks. He cited Martin Luther King Jr., who said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” On Tuesday, 221 years after the adoption of a Constitution that allowed slavery to continue, an African-American won the presidency. In Grant Park, as Barack Obama left the stage, you could see that arc bend.
About 3 weeks ago the U.S. Consulate here in Hong Kong sponsored an overseas voting day for American citizens who were too lazy to register their absent ballot in time and get it in the mail. I was one of those people. So I went. And I voted. Hooray.
I like voting. And I like being an American. Ok… sometimes I like being American. This was one of those times. Going to the consulate was just as memorable, probably even more so, than the actual voting. Here’s what I mean: There’s something satisfying about showing your American passport and being welcomed “home” if you will, as I was at the Consulate. I’ve thought about this experience on more than one occasion. The feeling is similar to the times when I’ve come through Customs after having traveled out of the country. It’s gratifying to know that you belong.
Don’t we all crave that sense of belonging? We want to have privileges, to have a place where we are given special treatment. It’s not about getting equal treatment, though that’s nice, too. It’s about elevated status, about being granted rights not normally granted to everyone else. We all want that, and it feels great when we get it, even if it comes in the simple act of entering a building.
Back to voting. I’m a young urban professional. So no big surprise when I tell you I voted for Barack Obama. Don’t you just love it when you fit the statistics?
I could probably ramble for a bit about my reasons for voting this way, but it probably wouldn’t be interesting or articulate. Instead, a quote from someone more articulate. I particularly appreciated Colin Powell’s statements when he officially endorsed Obama. Here’s what he said about the insinuations from some Republicans that Obama is a Muslim:
Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? This is not the way we should be doing it in America.
… Those kinds of images going out on al Jazeera are killing us around the world. And we have got to say to the world, it doesn’t make any difference who you are or what you are, if you’re an American you’re an American.
Slate Magazine wikiHow