Chapter 13

For anyone who reads my blog for my fanfiction updates, this is for YOU!  Chapter 13 is finally up.  I know that it has been 8 months.  I know that I could have spent all the time writing my blog this year writing "Heart of Gold" (actually, the story has approached novel length, so I might start referring to it as Heart of Gold instead).  I greatly apologize for that.  BUT I promise that you will like the chapter.

Some highlights to whet your appetite:

• Liam and Aislinn decide to do something new
• We finally find out what Christopher Devon is so afraid about
• Regulus and Lily decorate the office for Christmas (note: this shows you what month it was when I started writing the chapter, haha)
• Regulus feels mortal peril ... three times
• Regulus gets into a tiff

Go read.  :)  And review!

Is there something more?

One of my readers asked for more information about IVCF in my previous post, and I was really glad to get that perspective.  IVCF is an organization centered on college students, so they have little direct presence in public schools, however, the organization is involved in promoting service among college students.  A lot of that service work happens in the public school sector, so IVCF does affect public schools indirectly.  In fact, IVCF has an entire conference called Urbana devoted to promoting service and missions work.  The conference happens every three years, and really is an amazing way to spend five days -- I attended the one in 2006.  According to the mission statement of IVCF, its purpose is to establish "witnessing communities" on college campuses and universities mostly in the US, but also around the world and to promote the message of Jesus Christ, growing in love for God and for God's Word, God's purposes for the world, and ethnic reconciliation.

I have seen IVCF have a positive impact at every university I have visited with a chapter, and I have experienced the power of this kind of community first hand.  I went to Urbana with only two other people from my chapter (our staff worker and a law student) so I was "adopted" by several other chapters while I was there.  I went to the conference knowing next to nobody, but left with dozens of new friends.  That alone shows the power that the organization has in welcoming students and drawing them into community.

In terms of this kind of teaching and NCLB, there is obviously something missing in modern schools.  We're test-driven and we've lost a lot of focus on developing our students as people and as future leaders.  Beyond making sure our students get good grades and test scores and go on to make our schools look good, we've lost a concern for helping them discover a future hope and goals.  This was always a part of both private and public education until now, and it's rather tragic that this is so downplayed in modern public schooling.

I do not think that any particular group would say that developing students and people and leaders is a terrible goal for schools, but I think that priorities have changed.  This is one reason why I am looking forward to teaching social studies -- you can't get away with this kind of thinking in a social studies classroom.  Social studies has a dual purpose of teaching the subject and promoting citizenship and the discovery of an enlightened life.  You can't teach history without teaching what people thought, and that is a great opportunity to challenge your students with the thoughts of philosophers and great thinkers, from all over the globe.

The fact is that though students can put up a front about not caring about their education, most of them are searching for the answers to life's big questions.  My high school experienced this in a powerful way.  Two of our social studies teachers proposed starting a Comparative Religion/Philosophy elective for the junior and senior class.  The students would spent half of the year studying religion and the other half studying philosophy.  The school and the school board fought the proposition for months, stating that it would be a waste of resources because no modern student is interested in that kind of thinking.  Our schools are full of atheists and deists now.  Who would take such a class.

How wrong they were!  Half of the senior class and a good chunk of the junior class signed up for the course.  They actually had to open three new sections and ask other teachers in the school if they would be willing to teach religion and philosophy.  The class was fantastic because all of the students were interested in the subject matter and in applying it to their own lives.  We all wanted to consider and answer questions about the meaning of life and how we order the way that we think and the way that we make moral decisions.  The county actually asked the teachers to consolidate their notes so that they could promote the class at other high schools.

Clearly, students do want something more, but they need to be presented with the opportunity to find it.  There is certainly room for this within No Child Left Behind and public education, but it takes initiative, planning, and perseverance.  It takes teachers willing to take a risk and not just stick to the properly approved courses, but to reach out and do something more than is required.  If they really care about their students, they will do that.

What matters?

What matters to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship?  Everything.

I've been having fun promoting InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at W&M over the past couple of days.  I'm so excited to be involved with this chapter this year!  Everyone is friendly and I can really see God working in their lives.  For a summary of what IVCF is all about, check out this video.

A future hope

"I want to talk to you about the subject of plans, life plans and how we all make them, and how we hope that our kids make good, smart, safe plans of their own.  But if we're really honest with ourselves, most of our plans don't work out as we'd hoped.  So instead of asking our young people, "What are your plans?  What do you plan to do with your life?" maybe we should tell them this: Plan to be surprised." ~ Dan In Real Life

Anyone who spends any length of time with my immediate family will quickly come to recognize my father's love for movies.  So, the time I spent at home is generally colored by which movies I watch while I am there.  Lexington was not really a prime location for seeing new movies as our theater only showed three movies at a time and the next closest theater was a 30-45 minute drive.  I really haven't gone to the movies much in the past four years, except when I was at home.  However, whenever I do go home, my family is always discussing some movie that they've all just watched and have a million inside jokes for, and then we usually watch it together.  Dan In Real Life was one of those movies this time.

The movie documents the family vacation of recently-widowed Dan (Steve Carrel) and his three daughters, all in various stages of moving through life.  Dan has tried to rigidly control their lives and his own, and this has become even more apparent since the death of their mother.  Much to Dan's surprise, the reunion turns his life upside down, and he has a completely new perspective on the future by the end of it.  This is when he writes the aforementioned quote on plans.

I used to plan out every detail of my life.  I had this idea that by a certain age I would graduate from college, get my first job, be married, start having children, publish my first book, etc.  I think part of that was wanting to give myself something to dream about when I was bored.  Now, I think that it is a good idea to have goals.  We should be encouraging our young people to have an idea of where they want to go and what they want to do, and I think that it can be good to say that we would like something to happen by a certain date.  BUT only if we have the control to make that happen.

In the movie, Dan's problem is that he is trying to control things that he cannot possibly control.  I think that is the major problem with the planning that we do in our lives.  I have had a lot of people ask me in the past couple months where I think I will be teaching next year.  My answer is that I would love to be back up in Northern Virginia with my family, and hopefully a good number of my cousins, but I know that my life is going to be completely different eight months from now.  Everything about my life can change in a day, for better or for worse, and a single event can sometimes have the intensity to alter my views on where I want to be.  There may be a compelling reason for me not to be in Northern Virginia, and I know that I need to stay open to that.

I like the idea of planning to be surprised, because this gets at the idea that the future is hopeful and something to be experienced and embraced, especially if we don't know what is going to happen.  This is something that we need to instill in young people, especially our students, and in "old people" as well.  :)

Happy birthday (to my blog)

My blog turns a year old this week!  I'm proud of myself that I've kept it relatively up to date for the past year.  I posted 55 entries, which is roughly one per week, so I'm satisfied.  We'll see what the next year holds.  I expect that I will end up posting more because it appears that my entries on schooling are engaging and have led to more readers finding my blog, and I'd like to encourage that discussion.

Since my last posting, I have finished coursework for my first term of graduate school, spent a week in Maine, run a lot of errands at home, and almost finished the first book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, entitled Twilight.  I really like it so far.  She is an extremely engaging writer and I can tell from her writing what she considers most important as an author -- characterization.  Perhaps I'm a bit biased because that is the most important thing to me as an author, too, but the best thing about her stories, and the reason I think so many people have fallen in love with them, is that her characters are very real.  She has thought long and hard about who her characters are, how they react, what matters to them, etc and she does not deviate from that picture.  Of course, she confirms that this is the most important thing to her on her Web site, but I guessed that it was before I went searching.

It's good to have a break, and great to be reading for pleasure again.  I told my family that if food is what keeps us physically sustained, then books are what keeps my soul sustained, if that makes any sense.  Along that analogy, Twilight is like candy.  Fast, easy read, and sweet.  I went to get the next two books at Barnes and Noble yesterday, and I'm trying to space out reading them.  Mostly because I know that I have other things that I need to be doing.  Self-control is key.

That said, they're great books, and I highly recommend them.