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Our Daily Thread 9-23-13

Good Morning!

Fall has fell. 🙂

And on top of that, I’m sorry to inform you it’s Monday. Again. 😦

On this day in 1642 the first commencement at Harvard College, in Cambridge, MA, was held.

In 1779 John Paul Jones, commander of the American warship Bon Homme, was quoted as saying “I have not yet begun to fight!”

In 1806 The Corps of Discovery, the Lewis and Clark expedition, reached St. Louis, MO, and ended the trip to the Pacific Northwest.

In 1838 Victoria Chaflin Woodhull was born. She became the first female candidate for the U.S. Presidency.

In 1845 The Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York was formed by Alexander Joy Cartwright. It was the first baseball team in America.

And in 1962 “The Jetsons” premiered on ABC-TV.

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Quote of the Day

“Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.”

John Adams

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Several of my favorites have birthdays today. No, Springsteen did not make the cut.

First up, Mr. Ray Charles.

Next up, Mr. Harry Connick Jr., and a cool version of “Just a Closer Walk With Thee”.

Next up, Mr. Julio Iglesias. And just for fun, with Willie.

And last but not least, Mr. John Coltrane.

“”Alabama” is a song written by John Coltrane that appears on his album Live at Birdland. It was written in response to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, an attack by the Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four girls.”  😦

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Anyone have a QoD?

33 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 9-23-13”

  2. My son really likes jazz so he is a fan of Coltrane. Now I really like his music. Thanks for the nice reminder of the sounds in our home when our son is home. Sweet.

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  3. I was lucky enough to hear Ray Charles perform live. I keep thinking I will walk in someplace in NOLA and hear Harry Connick…of course that would mean I would have to be in NOLA more often than I am.
    It is a dreary day in the Sunny South. This time of year is hard because it is Fall but still warm. It was cool yesterday so I wore a sweater. I have a hard time figuring out what to wear. I go in the stores to find something and all they have are heavy Winter clothes. It’s too hot to wear any of that yet I feel funniy running around in Summer clothes.

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  4. It’s already 8:30 and nobody buy Janice is sturring around.
    I was here earlier but had to leave for the Y.
    I’m not much for baby dedications. All three of my grandkids were dedicated. And the greatgrands too.
    But we had a nice baby dedication yesterday, the usual prayer, etc. But the pastor presented the couple with a cietificate with a letter. And a sealed letter from the pastor for the child to open when he makes his decision to trust Christ

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  5. Elvera has the same problem Kim has. She will ask me, “Does this look all right?” Of course it does. I’ve never mentioned this, but I think she’s asking the wrong person the wrong question. if I say it looks good, I mean that it looks good.
    I suspect she’s really asking, “Does this look appropriate for the situation?” In which case, she’s asking the wrong person. OTOH, I’m all she has.
    But it has worked out so far.

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  6. We had a baby girl dedicated during the service yesterday. The family is from Kenya so the parents were dressed in finery. It is a nice reminder of the commitment made by the individuals in the congregation to help be an encouragement for spiritual growth for the child.

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  9. Good morning. I read an interesting article just now, written by a man who was alarmed at the amount of homework his 13-year-old daughter had to do nightly. So for one week he did the same homework she did to get an idea of the usefulness of it all. QoD: your thoughts on the article and/or anything related to homework and its ability to prepare children for successful adulthood?

    http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/my-daughters-homework-is-killing-me/309514/

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  10. Kare, when we say “chilli weather” we’re talking about low 70’s. High 80’s is considered “cool”. When it get into the 60’s we call it “cold”. If is gets cloudy and in the 50’s, it’s time to stock up on milk and bread and look for our gloves.

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  11. Good Monday morning…it is 42 degrees here this morning and we awakened to the sound of rain…the sun is shining now, but, it is still in the 40’s….Snow on Pikes Peak and up in the mountains…not long before the white stuff covers our Forest floor….yep…we skipped Spring this year and now it appears we will be skipping Autumn…let’s just get right to winter! 🙂

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  12. That was an interesting article, 6 arrows. Jim Dobson once refused to allow one of his children to do an assignment that was interfering with their family time, I believe. He did not believe in too much homework. Too much was when it interfered with other spheres of importance in a child’s life and/or was unhelpful or healthy for his child. He was willing for his child to take a lower grade.

    Some parents would never allow their child to have the lower grade. Their child must succeed and get into the best schools. Families have different values and excelling in school may be lower than other concerns, such as faith, family and social activities.

    Some children learn easily and retain what they have learned. They automatically learn learning skills, which helps them learn more efficiently. Parents and teachers can help children develop these skills.

    Some children use the time given in class to actually DO their homework. Others wile away the time and then complain when they must do it later.

    My children have had teachers that others complained gave too much homework. I didn’t find it true with my child. However, my children, generally, had all the right skills for doing it more quickly and they liked a challenge. That is not true for all children.

    That is why homework can be such a challenge for teachers. They need to please the parents, school boards and general public. Each wants their class to be the number one concern of their students

    . Activities are sometimes the same way. The band teacher wants all the student’s time; as does the swimming coach.

    In the final analysis, it seems this must be approached like many things. What is the parent’s goal for their child? How can they reach that goal? How do they help the teacher and school be part of that? Is a different school the answer or is it better to change the school their child is already attending?

    For me, I would agree with Jim Dobson. There are many things more important than homework. Schools need to keep that in mind. Parents do too. If they agree with that, they may need to find a school more suited to their beliefs.

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  13. It was sunny here yesterday — looks like sun again today — but it’s definitely cooling off with our foggy mist from the ocean at night. I was at the dog park late yesterday and as soon as the sun fell behind a hill next to us, it really cooled off fast.

    The thing about living here is that even some of our ‘winter’ clothing is made of cotton and other lighter, breathable materials. But it is tricky when it’s warm (high 70s right now) in the afternoons but mid 60s in the mornings and again by early evening.

    I’m still waiting for my dark sunglasses to be refilled with the new prescription — I miss them, especially when driving. But I did get ‘transition’ lenses in my regular new glasses this time, so that takes a little bit of the edge off. It’s the first time I’ve tried the transition lenses (which my eye doctor recommended for me this time). I think the technology is probably a lot better than it was for those only a few years ago.

    Off to another week.

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  14. On Baby Dedication. I am Anglican, we Christen. I love a Christening. Our priest leaves the bowl of water up front and when we take communion he invites us to dip our hand in the water and bless ourselves and reconfirm our own Baptismal Covenant.

    On Homework: I had a teacher in elementary school who was more concerned with my ability to get into heaven than my math skills. I am currently pretty sure I am going to heaven but I still struggle with math and lack confidence.
    This made me an excellent math teacher for elementary school because if my students didn’t understand we sat in the floor and made 5 piles of 7 popsicle sticks and then 7 piles of 5 and counted them all our to know we had 35.
    Teaching the older children math was more of a challenge.
    There is a school of thought in the education system that you can tell just as much by having students work 5 math proplems for homework as you can in having them work 25. Some parents don’t like that. What this is all about is giving the “appearance” of actually teaching when they aren’t.

    BG is in 10th grade now. I am not sure of the education she is getting or has gotten. I know that she went from an A to a B in one class because she didn’t turn in her father’s email address. He logs in an checks her grades every day. He is OCD and not afraid to go into the office at the high school and create a scene. He is more than willing to call them on the carpet for double standards such as putting his child in on campus suspension for wearing the wrong uniform pants when two other girls in the office hadn’t been written up for wearing the same pants.

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  15. I was a crummy teacher. If a teacher gives homework, then they have to grade it. Grading homework means doing homework for the teacher. I didn’t do much homework as a child and I sure didn’t do much homework as an adult. I didn’t give out homework.

    Here are some of the ways to handle grading papers.
    A full page “A”, half a page “C”, name on the paper and a little bit of work “F”, nothing turned in “0”.
    The stair method. Take the papers and throw them on a stairway. The top papers get “A” and the bottom papers get “D”.
    Actually grade papers, this usually meant giving out lots of very low grades.

    I had to work to give out decent grades. I always found that if a child missed 20 days of school in a semester they were sure to get a Fail.

    I always felt that preparing for the next day’s classes was more important than grading homework. I had other things to do in addition to school work. How about you?

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  16. bob- I don’t give a lot of homework for the same reason, but the parents expect it. So I give one or two assignments per week. Those who are studious do the work and learn, those who are lazy either don’t do the work or get the answers form someone else. As a school we are trying to keep them from “working together”, but what they do outside of class we cannot control.

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  18. I read the article, and am glad my daughter is not subject to such nonsense. 3-5 hours of homework a night? No way. If a child gets home at 3:30 and gets right too it, they may get an 1 1/2 in before dinner. Dinner from 5-5:30, then back to work for another 1 1/2 to 3 hours? Then shower and it’s bedtime. The child’s whole life is taken up by school. Where’s the time for family, friends, and play? This does not make for a well rounded child. A drone maybe, but not a child.

    This is ridiculous. I often hear the response that we have to “teach to the test” and this requires the amount of work that is being given. That’s hogwash. My daughter takes the same state required test as the public schools. Not to brag, but she is in the top 4% of kids her age in the country every time she has taken it. How is it she can accomplish this with very little homework, and a shorter school day, with an advanced curriculum? Seems to me the schools are wasting to much time on busy work and unnecessary stuff, and not enough on the basics. Given the work, time, and resources the schools exhaust, they should be scoring far above her if what they’re saying is true. And yet they’re not.

    Maybe Common Core, which is all the rage in public schools, is part of the problem. Too much garbage, not enough learning of things that will actually be useful later in life. Personally I say no thanks. And as a parent, I have the final say, not some teacher, administrator, or gov agency that thinks they know better. And I don’t care because unlike the local schools, they can’t wave funding in front of me and use extortion to get me to comply. And I thank God for that.

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  19. This discussion of homework is far more interesting than my question, but I’m running off to work, so here it is anyway.

    I’ve got my annotated (by me) copy of The Shack. I don’t want it anymore. Do I give it to the church library where it will go on the free cart most often visited by AA folk, or do I donate it to the public library for the book sale next month.

    It’s all those notes that make me think about this–I’d be reading them if it were me. Would it be better read by a Christian or a non-believer?

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  20. One article I read on excessive homework made a good point; If a child spent 13 hours a day hunched over a sewing machine it would be considered child abuse, why is okay for the same child to spend 13 hours a day hunched over a desk.

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  21. I made two changes to help my son get through his homework. 1. I have began to use a timer. I tell him things like, “let’s see if you can get through your math in 20 minutes.” and “You read that chapter in 8 minutes, let;s see if you can beat that.” This makes it feels more like a game and cuts down on dawdling. 2. I pay more attention to long term projects ,like book reports and science projects to make sure he paces himself and doesn’t end up doing a 8 hour marathon because he waited until the last minute. It was a poem that he had had three weeks to memorize that causes a major meltdown the day before it was due.

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  22. I like those thoughts on the homework article. Good for you, AJ. Good point, kBells, too.

    Michelle, I am not sure your book would actually make it into a public library with the notes in it, so I would go the other route.

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  25. Michelle,
    I think I saw your copy of The Shack in the library’s book sale last weekend. 😉

    I wasn’t a fan of the book. The story was kinda cool, but it exacerbated the problem I have with this whole “personal relationship with God” thing….

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  26. Michelle, In my opinion The Shack should be read only by believers. Non believers could be confused, and even turned off by the scenario. It makes sense to us that Christ can appear as a black woman, or some other situation. And that he would deal with a person for an entire weekend, even though no real time has passed.
    A Christian could buy into the scenario and go along with it.
    Someone else might not.

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  27. Speaking of books. A few weeks back someone mentioned the book Fifty Shades of Grey. They linked an article saying it was child pornography because of the innocense of the female character. I admitted to having read the book. It was one sex scene after another linked together by bad dialogue and writing.
    It struck me yesterday that the main male character is named Christian. I can’t credit the author with having enough talent nor foresight to do this intentionally, but I still find it something to question and or think about…

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  31. I did not like the Shack at all…I threw it away as I didn’t want anyone else reading my copy….I purchased Burning Down the Shack…written by James De Young…a former friend and colleague of Paul Young….very insightful and in my opinion a must read for anyone who reads The Shack….stepping away now!

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  32. I enjoyed reading all your comments about the article I linked. My personal belief is that that amount of homework is excessive. Children are spending enough hours away from home as it is just attending school. Then it’s more school at home, doing homework. Where’s the time to learn practical skills that will serve your current or future family and friends and neighbors well? When do you have time to build relationships in the nuclear family God gave you?

    I thought the author made many good points, especially with statements like “School is training her well for the inanities of adult life” and “When would she ever have time to, say, read a book for pleasure? Or write a story or paint a picture or play the guitar?” And yet, at the end of the article, nothing has changed for the older daughter, and, after all the author’s reservations about the way said daughter is being educated, he’s going to send the younger daughter to the same school! Incredible!

    That was my take on the article.

    Regarding The Shack: I have not read the book. I read some reviews of it, written from a Christian perspective, and had no desire to spend time reading the book as a result. Here is one analysis that I think presents a clear picture of why it would not be a good idea for unbelievers or new Christians to read the book. http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/08/shack.htm

    I would get rid of the book instead of donating it and possibly having it get into the hands of someone who is not rooted in pure Christian doctrine.

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  33. Thanks for your thoughts. A Christian friend wants to look at it with my notes.

    I do think I need to say I only led the discussion because I was asked to by people at church. We’ve talked about it before here. I could understand why some people liked it after I took it apart, but I don’t think it was worth the time and trouble.

    Good point about not letting it fall into “innocent” hands. 🙂

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