Unique Math

Let's start with a word problem:
Sally is on a road trip with her parents. She is making a list of all the different state license plates that she sees. So far she has seen 27 different state plates. How many more of the 50 states does she need to complete her list?

My student knew to subtract, but since the 27 came before the 50, she tried to do 27-50. Then, finding that she couldn't subtract 2-5, she borrowed from the ones column. Her final answer was 76, and she at least saw that it didn't make sense. Still, she maintained that she had done the work correctly.

I laughed and laughed at her unique math (she laughed too). This is the same student who insisted that 130 divided by 8 was 1 with a remainder of 780.

In fact, for a while all her long division was done on the "find an easy number to use and accept a huge remainder" method. Which means that she did 39 divided by 7 and got 2 remainder 25. While this is technically true, it's very bad math.

Another student was introduced to the concept of right angles. It confused her because she then wanted all other angles to be wrong angles. When I explained that there are also acute and obtuse angles, she was really lost. Besides this, if she was looking for right angles and picked one that wasn't a right angle, her answer was wrong. The angle, on the other hand, was not known as a wrong angle.

I don't know why I try to teach them math.

Merry Christmas

Yes, I know it's too soon. It's also been too warm lately. Today, though, I was looking through my Chapter's wish list and tentative cart (I have a couple gift cards to spend and I've been trying to decide for weeks what I want), and the cart is mostly Christmas stuff. And now I'm listening to Christmas music.

It seems that the month doesn't really dictate my thoughts. I've been thinking about Christmas, partly because of tentatively planning the Christmas program. Also, one of the moms at church returned a stack of Junior Church lessons that her boys hadn't returned (although they maintained that they had). One of them had the youth 2011 Christmas concert readings in it.

Also, I've been thinking about "the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it." That's one of my favourite parts of Scripture because no matter what happens, there's still hope. There's still light; darkness cannot defeat light.

Merry Christmas.

Getting Ready

I've had a pretty nice break from church related stuff this summer. There was no Sunday School and no Junior Church. I was in the library pretty often, but that's my happy little hide away, and I didn't feel rushed to get there. It's been nice.

Now, though, it's time to start getting ready for fall. Today one of the other teachers and I sat down and planned the first few weeks of the new Sunday School year. We have lessons through at least the second week of October, and plans to write more in a few weeks. It feels nice to be prepared and it's good to have someone else to talk things over with while we write lessons (although his wife thinks we'd get further faster if we talked less and wrote more!). This year both our classes are doing curriculum based on The World-Tilting Gospel by Dan Philips. It's more work for us; until a couple years ago we all did a set curriculum that was all ready for us, and even last year when I did Worship and Wisdom, the lessons were based on my school notes and were much easier to write. It's good stuff, though, and we're both excited about teaching it.

I suppose I should start getting Junior Church materials ready for September as well. That's not really a lot of work since they're already written (this is our second time through the Bible). I just have to type up the notes, maybe make some adjustments, and make sure they have illustrations and colouring pages. It just takes time, that's all.

This fall we're also having a woman's teaching time or discipleship thing or something. I'm not really sure what's happening, only that we're going through the "I am" passages in John and I agreed to do some teaching, but they assure me that I won't be needed until November. I don't plan to think much about that just yet.

There are only a couple weeks of summer left. It's been a nice break and I think I feel ready to start things up again.

One Last School Post

A few final notes from Thursday and Friday...

If it’s not Biblical change, it’s not change at all.

The church is the place where people can gather together and worship together and have world peace with each other and peace with God.

Tomorrow is ice cream day in the snack room. It might make up for it being the last day. I really don’t want the week to be over because it’s my last week here and I really, really don’t want to go back to work.

Our knowledge is limited by our event horizon

He’s talking about sex now. We are not anti-sex; we are pro-sex within God’s design. I’m pretending that I’m somewhere else. In the ancient church married couples were encouraged to be celibate. Single people were extra spiritual. I think I’ll agree with that last statement!

So…I was talking about one of the guys in my class on Facebook, and how he can be pretty loud when he talks. I just friended him. I hope he doesn't see that post (or realize that it’s about him)!

Life’s not fair because we’re in exile.

I’m trying to take better notes today since one of the guys asked me to send him my notes (he can’t take notes himself, and his helper guy isn't always here). I’m trying, but it’s Friday and I’m tired! Also, I have some focus issues in general. My brain needs the occasional break, and I do focus well while doing other stuff and less if I’m just listening. For example, right now the prof is talking about covenant of works and covenant of grace and how there is an aversion to any kind of command in some movements because they believe that Jesus has done it all.

I’m still working on my control tendencies. I haven’t checked work email once this week, and it’s been challenging. I want to know what’s going on and make sure everything is under (my) control. At the same time, I’m pleased that they only sent one message looking for advice. There was a message from another director telling me that he had taken care of a couple things at my other centre, but that was more of an update so I know what’s happening (it was the only potential new student enrolling this week). Beyond that, I have to trust my people to know what they’re doing, and ultimately trust God to take care of things and people much better than I can. It is a trust issue, and I am working on it.

The church flourished by advocating a strict exclusivism.

The food isn't as good this year. Tuesday’s supper was leftovers from Tuesday’s lunch, which included leftovers from Monday’s supper. Also, I’m pretty sure the same green Jell-O has been served every day, but that’s just because no one wants green Jell-O. Tuesday was really the worst day. Most people went to a BBQ, and those of us who were left were pretty sure were forgotten (even though we had said we weren't going; one of our former classmates was coming up to visit). There are a couple other groups here, so we think they prepared (leftovers) for the other people and we came in 30 minutes later and got whatever was left. We’re a little concerned about tonight, since they found it necessary to find out how many people were planning to be here for supper (it’s Friday now). It’s either to make sure they have enough food, or to see how little food they have to prepare, or to see what the can get away with.

Spell check keeps trying to get me to fix “it’s” to “its” even though I’m using it correctly. At the same time, it allowed “we’re” when I meant “were.”

Supper wasn't that great. It's the last day of the last week of classes, so I guess we should be happy there was food. The salad was definitely made up of leftovers and there was no dessert. We went for frozen yogurt. Now I'm in the lounge watching the guys play pool and procrastinating on packing.

Wednesday's Random Notes

Because I know you want to hear what goes through my mind when I'm in class, here are more notes (plus, bonus second post today!).

I’ve eaten bacon for breakfast every morning so far. It makes mornings so much better.

You know the song “Deep and Wide” that we sing with kids? The only place that’s found in the Bible is Ezekiel 23:32. It’s about Israel drinking of the cup of iniquity.

Not many people take notes by hand. By my third summer, even I had given in and mostly type notes (although I write some things down, mostly when we get off on rabbit trails and I don’t want random things in my notes). Last summer we had to write our notes for one class, and then type them up after the class. It’s noisier when people are typing than when they are writing.

He’s talking about Proverbs, the “Train up a child verse.” He agrees that it’s properly a warning if translated from Hebrew properly. I finally had something to contribute since I was able to explain what it really means, so now I look smart!

Proverbs 31 is written to men. They are to marry wisdom.

Why is pride wrong? Because the only one high and lifted up is God. When you are proud, you are saying, “I am competing with Jesus for attention.”

Someone’s mowing the lawn, or possibly using a week whacker of some sort. It’s noisy.

The social gospel and the emerging church switch the gospel with the results of the gospel.

My computer is wondering if I want to switch from google.ca to google.com. I won’t even switch the time (I have to remind myself that it’s an hour earlier than it says); I’m certainly not going to switch the search engine.

I haven’t decided if sitting through classes for 4 hours every morning and every afternoon makes me more sympathetic with my 4-hour students or less sympathetic. After all, they have only 1 session a day and they get more breaks, and sometimes they get to throw things.

Men

It’s interesting to watch the men here and compare them to the men at work (well, most of the men at work). Most of the men at work are nice guys (because we don’t generally hire jerks), but they tend to be very, very self-centered and focused on what will make them happiest. They do what needs to be done and don’t worry about helping others unless they are asked (and even then if it doesn’t inconvenience them). Don’t get me wrong: they are relatively harmless and not bad people, and there are a couple notable exceptions to my overall judgment.

But here it’s different. Here the men are quick to help, to offer help (even with little things), and to make sure everyone is cared for. I know that if I asked a small favor, they wouldn’t fuss at all; they would be happy to help. Most of the time I don’t have to ask; they are quick to notice what someone needs or wants or might want. They’re fun and they’re great to have around and there’s always a lot of laughter and then deep talk. They’re tough guys who know that their responsibility is to care for those who are smaller or weaker. And they’re totally gentle when they should be. (Just so no one gets any ideas: they’re also all married.) They’re good guys and I feel safe with them.

There’s this guy I’ve worked with for years. One of our other co-workers has tried to convince me that we should try dating. I always refuse to consider it. He’s a nice guy, funny, maybe a bit too much of a geek, but nice enough. He’s also an atheist, so I refuse to even consider it. My refusal is based on Biblical reasoning: do not be yoked with unbelievers. After this week and my observations and thoughts, I would refuse on pragmatic (and possibly selfish) reasons as well. It will be better for me, and happier for me, to have a man like the men here, and that guy at work is nothing like these guys. They co-worker is a really nice guy and by most standards would be considered a pretty good catch. Compared to what I’m seeing here, though, he is sadly lacking.

I understand that there are some very nice non-Christian guys. I think there are some Christian guys who are jerks (or at least who annoy me). There are also men in the church who aren’t really Christians, or who are barely Christians, or who are so focused on theology that they forget about the parts of the Bible concerning treating others. As a general principle though, I trust the Christian guys more and find them to be better to have around. When I think about the men in my church, they’re the same: good guys, fun, friendly, caring, and completely safe and trust worthy.

Biblical reasons are enough to refuse to become involved with a non-Christian, but my observation is that there are pragmatic reasons as well.

Random Notes from Today's Classes

There were 7 students in my first class yesterday. Now there are 8; the other one is the only other girl. I’m a bit perplexed: where did she come from? My afternoon class only has 3 students. The other 2 are guys. They told me that last week it was all guys in their classes. We need more females in this program.

Okay….she left half way through class (at our break time). Based on overheard conversation, I think she was checking out the program.

The TMC wifi seems to be crashing right now. I’m not sure why it’s suddenly a weak signal that won’t let me do stuff. Okay, it’s fixed. Not that I’m on the internet while sitting in class…I would never do that!

I think the guy in back is trying to type up everything the profs say. He keeps getting them to repeat stuff. I think “typing everything” is not his learning style. He should try listening more and typing less.

Interesting fact: Israel has around 83 political parties. Some are more conservative and claim that there are around 50 major parties. One party is paying parents to have children (sort of like child benefits, only more money compared to their cost of living), up to 7 children (it was 10, but they realized that they couldn’t keep that up forever). So they’re breeding voters and growing their political party.

No one is going to want to serve a god who is just a means to an end. God is not the mean; He is the end. He is glorious.

You will never get the kind of change you really want until they see how great God really is.

They need to provide bigger desks. I’m using three of them (and advantage to small class sizes) and it’s barely enough. I have the one I’m sitting at, then the one in front flipped around so I can put the computer there when I want to write notes or look something up in the Bible. It’s also good because I prefer the computer a bit back when I’m typing, so it rests a bit on the other desk. Then I have the one beside me pulled over to hold my binder and pen when I’m not writing notes, as well as my Bible and drink. My backpack, water bottle, and pencil case are on the seat of that desk. I need a full table, or even a proper desk!