Dare 4: Love is Thoughtful

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourself.  Each of you should look out not only for your own interests, but also for the interests of others.  - Philippians 2:3-4

Dare 4: Love is Thoughtful 

I don't know the depth of a lot of my students' stories, and I probably never will.  But I do know that many of them do not go home to loving and thoughtful homes.  (I also know that many of them do--I don't want to discredit those parents that are obviously doing their best for their children.)  

Sometimes it is overwhelming to think that perhaps no one has ever prayed for some of these students.  No one has ever taken time out of their day to do something thoughtful for them.  It is written all over their faces when they come to you with story after story, longing for you to listen.  Or when they sit so reserved in your classroom and never open up to anyone.  Everyone longs to be loved... and everyone longs to be thought of...

It is not a coincidence that being thoughtful comes after not being selfish.  If you are stuck in your selfish patterns throughout the day, you can pretty much bet you aren't doing anything thoughtful for your students either. Thoughtfulness is selflessness put into action.  

This Week's Dare

The idea this week... along with being patient, kind, and selfless... is to really show your students that you care for them.  What does that look like?  Maybe it is standing at your door when they come into your classroom and saying hello.  Maybe its taking a few minutes out of class to ask a student how they are doing--with no other agenda than to really know how they are doing.  Maybe it is evaluating what you could do for your students (as a whole or individually) that would make their lives a little bit easier.   Or maybe you will take a more private route this week and decide to pray for your students individually--truly interceding on their behalf--and asking the Lord to reveal Himself to them and bless them.  


Please share ways you have discovered to practice being thoughtful with your students.  I hope you all have a wonderful week.  Praying for you and your kiddos.  

Kendrick, S, & Kendrick, A. (2008). The Love Dare. Nashville: B & H Publishing Group.  

Side note:  I hope that if you are truly participating in the love dare each week, that you are not only acting these out in your classrooms.  While I am focusing only on our students and how we can love them--they are not (or probably should not be) the most important things in our lives.  Your relationship with the Lord and your family should always come first.  Your thoughts should never be so consumed with loving your students that you forget to love your spouse or your own kids.  I know that sounds like a "duh!" comment, but I also know that it is incredibly easy to be consumed by work and all the baggage it can load on you.  So if you have a rough day at school practicing patience, that doesn't mean its okay to come home and throw it all to the wayside because it is hard.  We aren't just called to love our students... we are called to love.  In general.  Everyone.  All the time.  

Every part of our lives is a reflection of the Gospel inside us... what does your reflection look like?  

Dare 3: Love is not Selfish

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor.  Romans 12: 10 

Dare 3: Love is not Selfish 

"We live in a world that is enamored with 'self.'. . . If there were ever a word that basically means the opposite of love, it is selfishness."  

We are selfish from birth--it is part of our sin nature.  Think about it, no one ever teaches a child to be selfish--but they are very selfish beings.  Most sinful actions can be traced back to selfishness.  "It is a trait we hate in other people, but justify in ourselves."  

This is a hard idea to wrap my mind around when relating to our students.  I should not be selfish around my students, but I am the teacher... and what I say, goes :).   Here's where it got me though..."The bottom line is you either make decisions out of love for others or love for yourself."  


Here's the questions the book says to ask yourself...(modified of course)
- Do I truly want what's best for my students?
- Do I want them to feel loved by me?  
- Do they believe I have their best interest in mind?  
- Do they see me as looking out for myself first?  

"Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves."  --Philippians 2:3 

This Week's Dare

It is hard to care for something that you are not investing in.  Look for ways you can invest in your kids.  Maybe it is listening to a kid's stories when you'd rather be grading... buying a kid a new binder because his is broken... surprising your kids with a bonus of some sort... Or simply letting them know you're thinking of them....
And of course, continue working on patience and kindness. 

Please share ways you are practicing patience, kindness, and selflessness with your kiddos... I would love to know how everyone else is living it out in their classrooms.   
Have a wonderful LONG weekend and a blessed week! 

<3 
 

Kendrick, S, & Kendrick, A. (2008). The Love Dare. Nashville: B & H Publishing Group.  

Dare 2: Love is Kind

"She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue"

Proverbs 31:26

Dare 2: Love is Kind 

Practicing patience helps to avoid negative situations, whereas practicing kindness helps creates positive situations. 

"Love makes you kind.  And kindness makes you likable. When you're kind, people want to be around you.  They see you as being good to them and good for them."  

"Do not let kindness and truth leave you;  bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.  So you will find favor and repute in the eyes of God and man."   Proverbs 3:3-4

So, what does it mean to practice kindness on our kiddos?  The book has broken the term into four separate ideas.  

1.  Gentleness.  First let's think about what gentleness is not... It is not harsh, bitter, argumentative, careless, impatient, irritable, insensitive, and maybe this is important for some to hear: gentleness is not weakness.  In fact, The Full Life Study Bible defines gentleness as restraint coupled with strength and courage.  I think gentleness with our students simply means being careful how we treat them (even the roughest piece of sandpaper in your class!).  When we have to discipline our students, gentleness means making the discipline as easy to hear as possible.  I really liked my friends idea of having an "Australia"
 corner in her classroom--where she sends a student to chill out and have a second to think about what's happening before any discipline occurs.  

2.  Helpfulness. The idea of being helpful is to meet the needs of the moment. What needs do your student need met?  Let's think beyond Bloom here for a moment... and maybe go a little more simple.  Many of my students need help getting organized, an extra bit of attention, or a little eye contact to help them remember to do the right thing.  Many times their greater needs are completely out of our hands.  Let's not forget that we can still be helpful in the small instances. 

3.  Willingness.   Willingness to listen, to offer our time, to offer our insight, and to help them in any way possible. 

4.  Initiative. Taking initiative means we greet our kids first, smile fist, serve first and forgive first.  

Jesus gave us a perfect picture of kindness in the story of the Good Samaritan.  A Jewish man is attacked by robbers and left for dead on the side of the road.  Two religious leaders pass by and do not stop--too good for such a lowly man.  But another man, a Samaritan--who culturally does not get along with Jews (understatement)--stops and takes care of all of the man's needs.  This act of kindness brought two enemies together. 

 

"Love determines to show thoughtful actions, even when there is no reward.  You will never learn to love until you learn to demonstrate kindness."  

This Week's Dare

In addition to saying nothing negative (patience) to your students this week,  do at least one unexpected gesture as an act of kindness.  

Try to reach as many students as possible.  And remember, as with patience, kindness and gentleness are fruits of the Spirit.  If you've already got the Spirit inside of you, tap into the gifts He's given.  :) 

Praying you have a blessed week.  

Kendrick, S, & Kendrick, A. (2008). The Love Dare. Nashville: B & H Publishing Group.  

Dare 1: Love is Patient

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13

Dare 1: Love is Patient

 

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient bearing with one another in love.  

Ephesians 4:2

Everyone, whether they like to admit it or not, has a deep rooted desire for love.  Love changes things.  It always does what is best for others and empowers us to face our greatest problems.  Love makes relationships meaningful.  Love makes life meaningful. 

So many of our students have not been offered love—and perhaps some of you haven’t either.  A very wise man told me once that when you are longing for something, the easiest way to receive that something is to give it.  So, our goal for this year is to give love.   I know God will show up in BIG ways when we follow His commandment to love.  Our students will be blessed… and we will be blessed. 

“Love is built on two pillars that best define what it is.  Those pillars are patience and kindness.   All other characteristics of love are extensions of these two attributes.  And that’s where your dare will begin.  With patience.” 

Part of me wants to run away screaming at the thought of practicing PATIENCE with some of my students!  I hear myself saying, “It’s just not possible!  This kid is so __________.”  I’ve adopted the term “sandpaper kids” to refer to those not-so-easy-to-love students.  They are smoothing out my imperfections through a very uncomfortable process. 

Loving those students will inspire you to be a more patient teacher.  You will begin to respond to negative situations in positive ways.  It will provide a calm in the midst of the storm our classrooms can sometimes become.  Perhaps you will even find ways to extend mercy (not giving something that they deserve; a disposition to be kind and forgiving)  to your students. 

Reacting out of anger will never make a situation better.  You may win in the moment, but what have you done to that child?  Anger typically will stir up new issues, while patience will put a stop to them.  “It is a choice to control your emotions rather than allowing your emotions to control you, and shows discretion instead of returning evil for evil.” 

“Patience stands in the doorway where anger is clawing to burst in, but waits to see the whole picture before passing judgment.”   How often do we truly get the opportunity to see the whole picture of our students’ lives?  How often do you take their lives outside of school into perspective before reacting to their poor behavior?  Please don’t mistake me here; I believe whole-heartedly that students need to be disciplined.  Disciplined, not punished.  Perhaps this is where we need to take a step out of our busy days and attempt to understand where our students are coming from. 

Patience will not come naturally.  Often times when you are praying for patience, that is when your patience is most tested.  For those of you who have accepted Christ, remember that we already have His patience inside us.  Patience is a fruit of the Spirit—tap into it! 

This Week’s Dare

 

The way we treat our students and the things we say may very well be a reflection of the condition of our heart.  For the next week, resolve to practice patience with your students.  The best way to pay attention to this is to check what we say to them... and when and if you feel your impatience building, take a step back and breathe, then respond.  What’s the rule we always teach them?  If you can’t say anything nice… don’t say anything at all!


A couple things to keep in mind...
- It may be a while before you see changes in your students—so start the change with yourself
- Your coworkers need love (and patience!), too!

Praying that God will bless us all with patience.   
<3


Kendrick, S, & Kendrick, A. (2008). The Love Dare. Nashville: B & H Publishing Group.

A Fresh Start

Well, I kind of made it last year! For those of you that journeyed with me, thank you, and I'm sorry I didn't finish.  Life gets busy and it sort of became an out of sight, out of mind kind of thing...unfortunately.  

I honestly wasn't really planning on starting it back up again.  Satan has a way of taking a good thing and threading lies through it.  I'll be completely honest with you, not many people commented on my posts and I sort of felt like I was doing it for nothing.  Should have realized Satan's schemes quicker.  I've been very surprised by the number of people who have mentioned the blog recently and asked me if I was planning on doing it again.  I think that's God's way of telling me I should reconsider.  

So, here I am.  School is beginning and there's no better time to pick this back up.  I'll revamp the dares I redid last year and begin working on the new dares.  But I will need your help!  The Love Dare book offers all kinds of great dares for married couples, but let's be honest, that kind of love does not always apply to our students.  So, I'll need you to help me out with dares that you think are applicable to teachers... what do you think we need to work on the most?  

A Quick Refresher...
This is taken from my very first post on this blog, just about a year ago.  I went back to it to remind myself what my initial goal was...

You quickly realize when you are teacher that the one thing above everything else that your students need is love. Many students practically cry out for it on a daily basis. And they all have different reasons. I've found that many of my students do not receive the love they deserve at home--which I'm sure is the case for many teachers these days. Even the ones who do receive adequate love desire to feel accepted and a sense of belonging. What better way to care for our students than to love them?....
I'm going to go along with the "Love Dare" book and tweak it to fit the needs of a teacher attempting to love those sometimes-not-so-lovable students (as well as those that are just easy to love!). My hope is to have fellow teachers post about how they are carrying out each week's dare with their students  {being careful not to breach confidentiality!} I love to learn from my fellow teachers! ...
This is my warning that although I may be an English teacher, I will not always compose my sentences correctly, and I will probably get caught up in what I'm saying and forget to add punctuation and do a lot of "dot dot dot" and use some sort of improper English...forgive me.

The goal is simply to love.

Will you join me?
 

First dare will be up this weekend.  Hope the year is starting off well!! God Bless!  

<3 

Dare 19: Speaking Truth in Love

I hope you all had a blessed week last week and have had some time to relax this weekend.  I know this is the time of year where things start to pile up quickly.  Grades are due, plans need to be made, testing is coming up quickly.  It is very easy to be distracted by all these "things" and to forget what our purpose truly is.  

I felt very blessed this morning when our pastor asked the teachers in the room to stand up and asked everyone else around to pray over us.  I can honestly say that my heart feels lighter than normal approaching a new week :)  Especially a week like this one... conferences most of the day Thursday and my yearbook is due on Friday... It's going to be a busy one :)  

So with conferences approaching my thought for the week is wondering how I can love all those parents I will be coming in contact with on Thursday.  I want to communicate clearly to them, but I don't want to intimidate them or bash their children.  I want to tell them the truth in love and hopefully offer assistance where its needed. 
Part of being able to do that is preparing for the conferences beforehand...  The way my school does it is we all sit in the gym and parents are able to walk up to our tables and speak to us.  During the busier parts of the day, lines will form, but in the past it is typically a steady stream of parents throughout the day.  This means I don't know what parents to actually expect to be meeting with-- and when you have 70 kids it is hard to feel adequately prepared for all of them.  So everyday this week I will be meeting with my kids one and one... talking about their grades, taking notes, etc. in order to feel more prepared for Thursday, and in the process being able to invest a little bit of my time specifically into each student this week.  

I also want to offer love to the parents simply because THEY need love just as much as our students do.  I'm praying for discernment for all of us as we speak with parents (whether its in conferences, over the phone or via email).  Remember, their lives are tough too.
Praying you can speak the truth in love. 
<3

Dare 18: Tough Love

Do not withhold discipline from a child... Proverbs 23:13

This past week I was pegged as "the mean teacher" because I caught several of my students plagiarizing and they (as promised) received zeroes on a very large assignment.  I was very, very upset, angry, disappointed, etc. with my students, and I'm sure I came across more strict than I typically do, but I wanted them to understand the consequences for their actions and that it was in no way okay.  

Even though I can honestly say (and only after a few years of teaching under my belt) that I truly don't mind if I have a student that doesn't like me-- I mean, its bound to happen.  But it still really bothered me that I was the "mean teacher" when I had not been the one in the wrong.  Of course, that's typically how it goes, especially when you teach middle schoolers :)

I really had to convince myself that I wasn't in the wrong.  That their actions required a consequence.  And the consequence was known and out on the table before they decided to follow through with their behavior.  

It is good to discipline your students.  They need it.  Of course, there are lines that I'm not going to attempt to draw here between discipline and punishment that need to be taken into consideration.  But my heart's desire in disciplining my students is not for them to be in trouble, its for them to learn from their mistakes and move forward.  

So, this week I want you to think about how you give tough love.  Is it really tough love or are you just frustrated and angry?  I'm sure many of you do this already, but consider explaining the process of tough love to your kiddos... tell them the why behind the consequence.  Sometimes it is easy to get wrapped up in the business of the day and I know students receive consequences in my classroom without me ever taking them aside and explaining my reasoning behind it.  


Have a blessed week.  Love you. <3