Church
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Revisiting Krakow Shot
Caesars Head
On the way to look at lots Sunday, we stopped briefly at Caesars Head. I didn’t get a decent shot of it because of the haze, but I tried cleaning it up with Lightroom…
Start of the 2023 Season
Tonight was the start of the 2023 volleyball season. As defending state champions, the girls have a lot of expectations on them: from the coach, from other teams, from parents, from fellow Mauldin High students, and from themselves. Each component of that list has different levels of expectations for the girls, but the most significant component is the girls themselves.
I guess it’s a little inevitable that the girls put pressure on themselves. All athletes do that to some degree or another. There are likely some students putting pressure on them inadvertently with calls to bring another state trophy back to Mauldin. Some parents might be doing the same. And the other schools in the area? They’re probably rooting for them to have a less-than-perfect season.
What are K and I doing? Making sure L knows we love her, we love watching her play, and we want her, above all, to enjoy what she’s doing. I don’t know if that will help with the stress she’s probably putting on herself, but we can hope.
The Lot
We went looking at lots in North Carolina. We found one. Boy, did we find one…
August Saturday
The whole day in the yard — every bush or shrub that could be trimmed was. For example, I turned this
into this
The day started calmly,
But soon, I was turning this
into this
bringing everything I cut off of every bush (and every blade of grass I trimmed) to the community dump pile across the street.
Not Sure
Saw this on Twitter the other day:
I’m not even sure what this means. “The earth was created some 5000 years ago,” this person suggests, but at “some point God fast-forwarded time to the end of the world and then reversed earth’s time billions of years to the beginning of the universe.” How does that work? God moved us to the end of the world — does that mean after Jesus returned and set up shop a second time and punished all the pro-science/anti-god baddies? And then reversed time?! And then the purpose of all this is so “God’s enemies [can] choose ‘science’ over Him”? This god is doing some kind of time-travel trickery to fool people so they’ll end up in hell?! What?!
When you believe in a literal story about a talking snake convincing a woman to eat something to initiate some kind of fruit-based curse that dooms humanity for all eternity until — well, when you just start with that as your basis for knowledge, you end up vulnerable to believing all kinds of craziness. And it doesn’t even have to make sense…
Fight
The Boy told me about it the moment I walked into the house. “There was a fight at school today. A big fight.” Apparently, two boys got into it during lunch, and it happened right in front of the Boy.
“Were you scared?” I asked.
“Yes!” he replied without hesitation or self-awareness of the fact that such a response would definitely mark him at some schools among some kids. One of those involved was someone E knows, and he was a little worried about what was happening to his friend and a little worried about what might happen him.
“I’m definitely in middle school now,” he concluded.
Views of Nowy Targ
Tuesday School Thoughts
On the one hand, I’m responsible for teaching them to read and write better. That’s my bottom-line assignment at work. Traditionally, that’s all a teacher has ever been expected to do: teach the course material.
Yet some of my students fall under the rubric “at-risk” in one form or another. They can’t stay focused for more than five minutes (at best) or five seconds (literally, at worst). They can’t keep up with their materials until the next day (at best) or the next minute (at worst). They can’t accept “no” as an answer, and they take everything personally and turn things into battles that have no business being fights to begin with. They come in without materials — no pencil, no paper, no nothing.
These are the kids whose behavior, quite honestly, disrupts the learning of anyone and everyone else in the room. They are black holes for attention: their every second is a new event horizon to resist. Interactions with them can be quicksand, pulling everyone in and restricting movement completely. Working with them for five minutes can be utterly exhausting; working with them for a whole class period can have one questioning one’s sanity.
Yet what option do we have as teachers? No one else is teaching these kids (only a few — perhaps 7-10%, and not even that many who are so demanding and high-maintenance) these skills. At least it seems no one else is teaching them the skills. And someone has to teach these kids the basics of how to interact successfully with the world.
But it’s so exhausting…
19
She’s put up with me for 19 years. I deserve none of her perfection but am grateful for every moment she’s been with me.
Sunday
Saturday
Such was the day — working in the yard, working in the house — that I took one photo the entire day, of the Boy doing his part.
The rest stays in my head — and in my legs, arms, and exhausted body.
Lockers
Working
Quote
What does an atheist know?
He doesn’t know anything. He wonders astray. He doesn’t know where north is, where south is, or where is the exit. He dies. And nothing. That’s what it’s all about.
New Faces
At this point, I barely know any of their names. They have 4 new names to learn; I have almost 120 new names to learn. Still, we’re getting to know each other, learning what makes each other tick…
A good first day at school.
School Year’s Eve
Tomorrow, I begin my twenty-fifth year teaching, my sixteenth with Greenville County Schools. Am I ready? I’ve reviewed and signed all my IEPs and 504 plans. I’ve worked with other eighth-grade teachers to create this week’s lesson plans (and of course, the administration tweaked the lesson plan template, as they do every single year). I’ve spoken to teachers and administrators about which students I need to focus on early in order to form a good relationship so that when things sour, I have that good relationship to appeal to. I’ve spoken to my co-teacher in my inclusion class about what we’ll be doing and had a fruitful discussion about how we will work together. I’ve watched (almost) all my safety training videos (the same ones, year after year after year after year after year…). I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do, and I still don’t feel ready for tomorrow.
Part of that is because of what I’ve heard about this year’s group of kids. “They’re the toughest bunch we’ve ever had” was the common assessment of most seventh-grade teachers. I’m not looking forward to a year like that. Yet they always mature some over the summer, so I’m hopeful that will mitigate things a bit.
The Boy, though, feels even less prepared than I do. “I just want to go back to elementary school” has been his mantra. New starts always make him nervous, but K pointed out to him all the new things he’s thrived in this summer: a new scouting troop; summer camp with a different scouting troop; band camp with a group of strangers. Still, he’s reticent. I can understand that.
The Girl is just ready to go. She’s got so many AP classes this year that it’s troubling (seven out of her eight classes are AP: four the first semester, three the second semester), but she’s stubborn and resilient. She’ll make it.
K is not looking forward to the morning rush, but she and I will slip back into it.
Only the animals are calm about it…
Scout Family Campout Day 2
Scout Family Campout Day 1
