January 2019 – Confessions of a High School Bible Teacher

January 30, 2019February 4, 2019

The Homeboys and Homegirls that point us home.

Embarrassing confessions.

The first CD I bought was Biggie Smalls’ Life After Death. I sent in for one of those 12 CD’s for 1 cent scams, not knowing I had to buy a membership. When the box came, I thought the only error I made was ordering two copies of the same CD. My parents, however, explained the $39.99/mo mistake I actually made: a valuable lesson in reading the fine print.

I don’t remember having a talk about the content of my musical interests, though I’m sure they said something about listening to music free from drug references and unhealthy sexuality–you know, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and 80’s Hair Metal.

January 16, 2019February 4, 2019

Leaving the 1 for the 99

Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, spirit-wrecking truth that we aren’t God.

Wouldn’t it be great to be omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient? For many of our students, we imagine small changes we could give them to improve their lives: a better grasp of the English language, a more thorough understanding of the effects of American isolationism in the 1920s, proficiency in systems of equations, a steady hand with the scalpel, time management, a better digestive system on Taco Tuesday.

But then we have those class-clowning, persistent detention-getting, constantly rebelling, quietly suffering students. For sociological purposes, we call them “at-risk.” For many of us, we call them our most painful memories of teaching. What we wouldn’t give to dramatically change their lives. And yet, we often give very little, if anything.

January 9, 2019January 9, 2019

Teaching International (ELL) Students

As I’ve written previously, our international students (ELL for the sake of brevity), predominately from China, come with needs and challenges and strengths that we are blessed with a chance to address. It truly is global missions brought to America.

As I promised in the previous article and failed to deliver until months later, here are some tips for teaching this population.

Check your biases and prejudices

Though my intention in my first article was to chisel away at these things that exist in all of us, it bears a reminder for teaching this population. I have seen many wonderful Christians carry anger and hostility for our international students for merely being who they are: teenagers living thousands of miles away in a totally different culture, immersed in a school that is not using their primary language, all without daily parental contact.