Teacher, you never smile…

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Lynn

It’s been a hectic few weeks settling into a classroom routine again.  I will admit that my biggest professional challenge is just learning the technology that now accompanies our 21st century learning environment.  Students of all ages are using computers, tablets, smart phones and the like in their classrooms and I am WAY behind the times when it comes to utilizing technology in the classroom.  As I told the techies in my school, “I know enough about computers to be dangerous!”  After their countless trips to train me and try to undo my computer crashes and glitches, they now believe what I say.

Will I ever get it right?  *sigh*

I’ve been in a classroom long enough to notice the signs of stress, not in my students per se, although they certainly stress out, but in my colleagues and my friends who teach.  There are days that weigh heavily on me and I just feel overwhelmed but something I promised myself I would do is SMILE…a lot.

It happened WAY back when I was the director of my own preschool.  Not only did I have the responsibility of being the owner and operator of the preschool I also taught the four year old classes every day.  I loved being in the classroom but after a particularly stressful week I was reading a storybook to one little guy who looked up at me and said, “Teacher, you never smile…”

His matter-of-fact statement shocked me.  I had fallen victim to a common malady amongst teachers: letting our feelings/stress show on our faces.  Oh my!  I hugged the little boy and apologized and immediately put a big smile on my face.  I didn’t feel like smiling but I smiled because my students needed to see their teacher smile.  I did it for the kids!

Teachers, we spend a lot of time preparing our classrooms and lesson planning and organizing fieldtrips etc. etc. etc. but the easiest thing you can do for your students is give them a smile everyday!

Case in point.

I have been teaching a vocabulary, grammar and spelling unit to my junior high students.  Admittedly the content is dry.  It’s hard to motivate students to find anything remotely “smile-worthy” about conjunctions, adverbs and pronouns so I applaud Weird Al for helping me out this year with his video: Word Crimes.  At least my introductory lesson was fun when I shared that video with the class!  Yesterday we were trying to wrap our heads around yet another grammatical term and one boy pulled out his iPhone-there’s that new technology again 🙂 and asked “Siri” what the definition of that term was.  For those of you who are even more technologically disadvantaged than me: Siri is that little Miss Know-it-all that comes with your smart phone that acts as the voice of all the internet wisdom of the world.  Hahahahaha!  Definitely being sarcastic here.

Anyway, I immediately put the kibosh on using Siri to look up definitions…I’m still “old school” and think my students should use a good ‘ole fashioned dictionary in book form even.  So I said, “I ban Siri from this classroom!”  I was probably frowning when I said it.  A student piped up immediately, “Are you Siri…ous?”

Okay…I smiled… then I laughed…belly-laughed even.  The rest of the class laughed with me and we had a good, but unexpected introduction to the humour of using puns.

One young man commented that it was one of the best language arts classes he had attended all year.  I had to agree.

So remember to smile Teacher, and I even recommend laughing out loud in the class.  Some days it’s hard to laugh, hard to smile but do it anyway.  Smile for the kids!  It will make their day and it will make your day too!

 

Posted in Family Life, Proverbs 16:9 - Journey Thoughts, Teach on, Teacher! | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Terry Fox – A Great Canadian

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Lynn

I was a young bride and studying at the University of Calgary on my way to finishing my education degree.  My husband was going back and forth from Calgary to Comox, B.C. to visit with his mother who was battling cancer.  We did not know that cancer would affect us so much then or later when his mother lost her battle in 1981, my mother would lose her battle with the same disease in 1990, and I would be diagnosed with breast cancer eleven years later.  To say that cancer has touched this family would be a drastic understatement.  It is no surprise then that one of the people I admire the most is Terry Fox.

Terry Fox is considered one of Canada’s greatest heroes of the 20th Century.  Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1958, and raised in Port Coquitlam, B.C., Terry lost his right leg at age twenty to cancer.  Instead of wallowing in self-pity and remorse, the young athlete decided to run from coast to coast in order to raise awareness and money for cancer research.  He began by dipping his leg in the Atlantic Ocean at St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980, with the goal of dipping it again in the Pacific Ocean at Vancouver, British Columbia several months later.  He ran an average of forty – two kilometres a day, a unique running style evident in a hop-skip approach that took tremendous effort and stamina to maintain the grueling pace.  No one had ever done anything similar to the task Fox was undertaking.

At first there was little media attention for the young runner, and his “Marathon of Hope”  but slowly and surely word of the courageous young man began to spread.  It began as idle curiosity and then spread to admiration across Canada.  Communities welcomed him and others began to prepare for his arrival.  It was like a national cheer or wave starting at the east coast and spreading to the west.

I remember watching the news reports and catching the “wave” with millions of other Canadians who cheered on his progress.  Terry and I were the same age and I marveled at his determination and strength.  Then on September 1, 1980 just north-east of Thunder Bay, Ontario after 143 days, running 5,373 km. (3,339 miles) through Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario, Terry was forced to abandon his run.  Cancer had spread to his lung.

I remember the interview he gave so vividly as I watched the news on T.V. that day.  His voice was hoarse, arms crossed over his chest as he lay on a stretcher, tears in his eyes; he promised he would return to the run as soon as he was able to.  Terry had raised $1.7 million dollars for cancer research during his run.

Unfortunately Terry died on June 28, 1981 at the age of 22, one month before his 23rd birthday, but not before becoming the youngest person ever to be awarded the Order of Canada.

Two-and-a-half months after his death, the first Terry Fox Run was held on Sept. 13, 1981.  More than 300,000 Canadians took part in the event at 760 sites across Canada.  The run raised $3.5 million.  Since then the amount raised in over 30 years of Terry Fox Runs is well over $600 million!

Fox’s heroism inspired other Canadians to similar feats in the name of charitable causes.  Steve Fonyo, another runner who had a leg amputated to cancer retraced the same route as Fox and completed the run in the name of cancer research.  Rick Hansen, a paraplegic athlete, made his own trek around the world in his wheelchair to raise funds for spinal cord injury research.

In 1982, British singer/songwriter, Rod Stewart, wrote the song “Never Give Up On a Dream” as a tribute to Terry’s Marathon of Hope and proceeds from the song went towards cancer research.

Terry’s goal was to persuade every Canadian to donate one dollar for cancer research.  Now the run has become a global event with over two million people running world-wide in organized Terry Fox Runs.

I’m not a runner, I’m a writer, but if I can help raise awareness through this blog, I will have done my part.  I encourage my readers to click on this link and generously donate to the Terry Fox Foundation  today.

Posted in Canadiana, Inspiration & Devotion | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Parenting 101- What to Do If Your Child Is Being Bullied.

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Lynn

I have three very unique, very different children.  I am constantly amazed by them!  Certainly there have been times  that I (and they) have questioned my sanity…or lack thereof…in trying to parent these children but for the most part I wouldn’t trade a minute of it!

My daughter Laurelle is now a grown, married woman.  She is a phenomenal young woman with a passion for teaching and raising my two grandbabies in the “way they should go”.  I had no idea when we signed her up in kindergarten french immersion way back when, that one day she would actually teach French to other children and to my grandchildren!  How did that happen?  God had a plan and a purpose for her for today but the journey started many years ago.  Who knew?  God did.

I remember that little girl learning to ride a bike.  She fell off that thing more than she stayed on.  At one point, after crashing once again to the pavement, she picked herself up and in tears kicked the seat with all her might announcing to her father that she would never learn to ride a bike!  It’s hard for a parent to watch their children struggle, but it’s also a time to instill a value, “Don’t give up!  Don’t quit!”  her Dad said, and taking her by the hand, straightened her helmet, and plunked her back on the bike.  “You can do it!”  he said and with a push, he sent her on her way again.  Yes, she wobbled and yes she even fell off a few more times but eventually her perseverance paid off and she mastered bike riding.  It was hard but she didn’t quit.

In grade seven, Laurelle became the victim of bullying.  It was the worst time of our lives.  She had become the primary target of sBullyingome malicious girls at her school who took great pleasure in undermining everything about her.  They called her degrading names; called her stupid, and maligned her every chance they could.  They tripped her, pushed her into her locker and laughed at her.  Her marks plummeted, she started to look sickly and pale.  She started to dress in sombre colours and she rarely smiled.  She had few friends and at one point she wanted to die.  Her father and I tried to question her about school but she was tight-lipped and was a good enough actress at home to make us believe that everything was okay.  We had no idea how serious the bullying situation had become until her piano teacher, who was also a close personal friend, called me and said that Laurelle had confided to her in the middle of her piano lesson that she was thinking thoughts of suicide.  In horror and in panic, I ransacked her room looking for anything that she might use to hurt herself, instead I found her diary.

As a parent, you make split second decisions some times.  In this case to save her life was much more important than respecting her privacy.  I didn’t hesitate.  Page after page of heart wrenching pain was written in her handwriting.  I wept with grief over what my child was going through at school, things she had never shared with us.  When I confronted her later about it, she was horrified I had read her most private thoughts.  I had betrayed her trust.  I didn’t apologize for that.  I wished I had done it sooner.

For a day or two, Laurelle was more angry with me than she was at the bullies at school.  I was okay with that.  Now that I knew what was really going on in her life I could come alongside her and help, even though she rejected that at first.  We immediately contacted the school, set up meetings with the school counsellor, her teachers, and the principal and we illicited prayer support from our church family.  Over the next several weeks, everywhere Laurelle turned she heard, “Don’t give up!  Don’t quit!”    God placed people in her life that supported her, encouraged her, and loved her.  Bullying had caused her to lose hope.  She felt alone and afraid.  Now she was surrounded by people who wanted to help her.  She wasn’t alone and it gave her hope.

Laurelle’s school counsellor, a precious young woman, told Laurelle to journal her thoughts and her pain to God and to trust Him to help her.  Although I had said much the same thing previously to her, she wasn’t ready to listen to me yet because she was still mad I had invaded her privacy, so I praised God when He used another person to speak to her.  It was truly a “God thing” because in this particular public school, teachers and counsellors did not give spiritual advice to their students, they were discouraged from doing so in fact, but I believe God gave this woman boldness to speak to Laurelle about embracing her faith in God and it impacted Laurelle at a critical time in her life.  She also gave Laurelle some very practical ways to “stand up” to the bullies at school.

  • Hold your head up.  Act confident.  Do not retaliate or get angry.  (Bullies are intimidated by those who do not fear them.)
  • Respond evenly and firmly to them or say nothing and walk away.
  • Develop other friendships and stick up for each other.
  • If bullying continues, tell someone, preferably a trusted adult.  Tell your parents, a trusted teacher, counsellor, or principal.

Within several weeks, after rededicating her life back to God and then utilizing the strategies her counsellor had given her to combat the bullies, Laurelle’s confidence came back.  She developed new friendships and her once tiny circle of friends grew.  Eventually her group of friends was much larger than the “bully group” and as such the “safety in numbers” factor cut in.  The bullies lost interest in tormenting her, and on occasion if they tried to intimidate her, she was no longer afraid of telling on them.  She got her “no quit” attitude back and it propelled her through the rest of the year and has remained with her ever since.

A while back I was on Facebook and noticed that one of Laurelle’s Facebook “friends” was one of the girls who had bullied her that fateful year in middle school.  I must admit I was quite surprised to see that Laurelle was actually corresponding back and forth with her quite regularly.  I marveled how God had helped her come to a place in her life where she could forgive and forget so completely.  When I commented about it to her, she just smiled.

Laurelle has had opportunity through the years to share her testimony regarding that bullying experience.  God has given her great sensitivity and compassion towards those young people who are victims of bullying.  She shares how angry she was at me for reading in her diary, but how glad she is that I did.  She shares how God brought people in to her life to help her, to encourage her and to love her at a time when she thought she was all alone.  And lastly she tells them: “Don’t give up!  Don’t quit!”

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  Jeremiah 29:11

Posted in Family Life, Inspiration & Devotion, Proverbs 16:9 - Journey Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment