Your Better Half

Weaving in and out of conversations amidst friends and colleagues, I find the silver stranded cliche of "one's better half" mingled with the various light and dark colors of everone's life. Pondering this term, I have taken for granted most if not all of my life, I've come to realize that I never want to be someone's better half.

If I am their better half, what does that make them? Do I want to spend the rest of my life with a man's worst half? I think not! Do I want anybodies half of anything? Another resounding NO!

Cultivation of these thoughts couries a quandry at the door of my reason. Am I only half a person? Have I been taught that I am to be half a person until that "significant other" appears and completes me? How selfish a notion! That is quite a laborous yoke to place on anyone.

I am not saying that we do not help one another or meet some of each other's needs. The conclusion I have come to is that I want to be a WHOLE PERSON with or without someone else. The only way that can be achieved is through Jesus Christ.

If I am a whole person, imperfect as I am, then my significant other is free to be a whole person also..We can stop spending so much time caring for each other's needs and tend to the things God has for us, working as a team, pulling the same cart, not training each other in the yoke.

Presently, I do not have a significatnt other, (I don't want to lead you all astray), however, the mountain I am scaling is asking, seeking, and finding wholeness from Jesus. I am fifty years old, that's a long time to be only "half a person" . I want to be whole, thus, while I am single, if that be His will for the rest of my life, then I can be His completely, to do His bidding.

And...if he does bring someone in my life (a whole person, I hope) then we can submit ourselves to the one who ultimately meets our needs whethere He uses us directly for that or not. We can then spend the energy and time we have helping others in whatever ways Jesus has us do.......

I know this sounds altruistic, but, at least for now...it is my goal....

Ever and Always

Beth

The Lunacy of it All

Nestled in a rump conforming chair, I ponder the relevance of proficiency testing. Gazing the field of studious minds set before me, undertaking the arduous "hoop leaping" of an objective test, sanity beckons at my pedigogical heart of the validity of such exercises.

Surely we teach in order to equip those in our charge for the task at hand. Is that not the essance of education? Yet, it appears what we teach is the fine art of multiple choice savvyness at the expense of content at the core of the subject matter.

What happened to kinesthetic displays of knowledge? Where is the visual and oral expressions of proficiency? Has extinction strangled them in its icy grasp? I

I am contracted to give my students what they need to become effective teachers, by the federal, state, and local standards, howevr, I am bound by the chanins I am commissioned to destroy. They are woven about myself and my students by the ones protesting "No child left behind."

Oh the hypocracy of it all! It torments my pedigogical soul. So what must I do? Surely if life was perfect, there would be no need for rebels such as I. No, I and those with synnonomous passions were born for such a time. The challenge is set before us, we must not give in to a seemingly hopeless circumstance. Too many great educators have been wounded by those fiery arrows. This is just where we should be, scaling the mountain of reform, crossing the black slimy sloughs of despondency, making a way for ability driven education to exist.

I am encouraged as once again I look out on the band of students that have been placed in my care. Hope, they are hope,they are the ones with the power and determination to change things. They are bright, clever, and have the courage to go where other professions dare not tread....the heart of another hungry soul. True teaching is not a sterile entity or career, it is a calling, mission, and quest. I see in my students amazement and wonder....they are our hope...

Perhaps my job isn't just to teach them Educational Psychology, perhaps my calling is to teach them how to climb.

Ever and Always
Beth