Daily Helping:
Week 03 (January 15 - January 21):
During this 7 day period, consider the deep needs of your students in our society. Many children have tremendous trials and tribulations that their precious minds and emotions must deal with; and so, we must be sensitive and compassionate, as well as encouraging, as we function professionally in their lives each school day (and when we see them with their parents at the local grocery store in the evening or on the weekend). There was a 3rd grader who told her teacher that she missed her father who had recently passed away. This student needed, when she was struggling to cope with the loss, to periodically go to the office and have some time to reflect over her sorrow. This illustrates our responsibility to truly reach out in love to our students in various and appropriate ways. Do not forget that there is often more going on in the classroom than academics, and we need wisdom to know how to engage our students in their learning while NEVER failing to meet their greater needs within the framework of a social and human context. We have the privilege and responsibility to educate the whole person, and this calling and duty should not be taken lightly. Greatly consider how this truth needs to be lived out in your professional and civic life; and if you also function as a parent, then magnify this need to be faithful with the task at hand as it relates to raising your posterity in such a way that seeds are planted for cultivating a healthy heritage for future generations. It is only through solid character, rooted in all of the great attributes of virtue, that we can prevail in our great American-Republican-Democracy, the great experiment in human freedom that, among many things, makes us unique as a people!
During this 7 day period, consider the deep needs of your students in our society. Many children have tremendous trials and tribulations that their precious minds and emotions must deal with; and so, we must be sensitive and compassionate, as well as encouraging, as we function professionally in their lives each school day (and when we see them with their parents at the local grocery store in the evening or on the weekend). There was a 3rd grader who told her teacher that she missed her father who had recently passed away. This student needed, when she was struggling to cope with the loss, to periodically go to the office and have some time to reflect over her sorrow. This illustrates our responsibility to truly reach out in love to our students in various and appropriate ways. Do not forget that there is often more going on in the classroom than academics, and we need wisdom to know how to engage our students in their learning while NEVER failing to meet their greater needs within the framework of a social and human context. We have the privilege and responsibility to educate the whole person, and this calling and duty should not be taken lightly. Greatly consider how this truth needs to be lived out in your professional and civic life; and if you also function as a parent, then magnify this need to be faithful with the task at hand as it relates to raising your posterity in such a way that seeds are planted for cultivating a healthy heritage for future generations. It is only through solid character, rooted in all of the great attributes of virtue, that we can prevail in our great American-Republican-Democracy, the great experiment in human freedom that, among many things, makes us unique as a people!
© 2009-2013 J.T.A.S.P.
Last modified: January 13, 2013
