Touch my book and the Teddy Bear gets it!

Steph and I are finally home from Christmas visiting!

Now we begin the annual re-opening of gifts. You see, when you spend your vacation time on the road, you tend to open your gifts, appreciate them, and then pack them away again (as efficiently as possible)(to save space in the car!). When you get home, you get to unpack all the presents again. Re-opening gifts is great! This year I recieved a bunch of books (hence, the title of this blog!), some clothes, Mindtrap (an intelligent game), a pretty nice wooden plaque from Dad to welcome people into our home, and an Ottawa Senators Baseball Cap.

Unfortunately, the flowers Steph recieved (for conducting the school play) have all wilted. She was able to enjoy them for only a short time. We mourned for them by unceremoniously stuffing them into a garbage bag and throwing them out into the cold, cold, garbage bin outside.

Speaking of outside. There's no snow! None, nodda, zip, nien, rien, n'est pas (I don't know what half of those 'words' mean...). But there's no snow. Qu'elle disappointement! (you gotta love french).

I would have to say that the highlight of my personal Christmas was keeping Steph's present a secret from her.... FOR FOUR (4) MONTHS!!!!!! I had Steph's present figured out in September. Which, of course, tormented her because she hadn't even thought of mine yet, nor, had she told me what she might want. So for four months I kept it secret. Which I usually can't do. She's going to see Momma Mia! in Hamilton. I don't know who she'll bring....

Here are some other highlights:

- Playing Bond with Matt, GT3 with Nan,

- Almost winning Euchre after going down 8-0 at the start (final score was 10-9)

- Making a luge run with Stevin and Michael,

- Almost smoking a tree when we tried the luge run,

- Getting Mom and Laura to play Dance, Dance Revolution,

- Seeing Friends and Family

- Getting a chainsaw stuck in a tree,

- Getting the chainsaw unstuck from the tree,

- Playing 'Ticket to Ride Europe' and winning,

- and Eating.

A Weight Has Been Lifted!

Well, as of 7:45 this evening the Christmas Program is done for another year! Boy am I glad!!! Everyone said that it went well and I think it did too....other than my class starting to sing "Joy To the World" before the piano player was done the introduction, I'm still not sure what happened there...Anyways, I was very proud of all of them! And at times like tonight, I love my class! They were cheering for me when we (myself and the other teacher who ran the show) were given flowers and when I came into the classroom afterwards they started clapping for me! Why can't they be that sweet all the time! Anyways, I'm so glad it's finished! One more week and then Christmas Break, during which I hope to fit in at least some relaxing!

The Community That Binds Us

Recently, at my high school placement, I've realized just how deep the sense of community (and prayer) is to a Christian school. And just how important it truly is.
Everyday, the teachers take 15 minutes at the end of the day to share something exciting, or emotional, about their day. Then we all pray.
Recently, a young boy was given two months to live because of cancer. Then it was shortened to about two weeks. It seemed there was nothing left to do but pray.
Even more recenlty, the wife of a former teacher passed away because of cancer. She left behind a husband, and three very young children.

Often, I think it is easy for us as Christians to look first, at the cost of Christian education, and second, at what we'll get from it. I think too often, the sense of community is forgotten.
But, being so far from soo many of our relatives, friends... our loved ones. I think Steph and I have realized just how important community is.

I also know, from experience, that not every school cares for each person the way a Christian school does. Not in the public, nor even the Catholic schools, will you find teachers as willing, and genuinely able, to pray for a student and their loved ones.

It's a shame that the Liberals can't see the importance of Christian education, isn't it? Or do we honestly believe that public funding will make us lose our sense of community?

Girls....

While assistant coaching a junior girls volleyball team at a recent game, I heard these comments from my bench:

1 Girl - Oh, she's so pretty!
2 Girl - Don't you think she looks like Hailey Duff?
3 Girl - She's a little too dark (tanned)
1 Girl - I like her shoes
4 Girl - Are we going to get 'storm' clothes for volleyball? (School labelled shirts and pants...)

2 Girl - Yeah, can we buy clothes this year, coach? (I honestly had no clue...)

1 Girl - Oh, she's strong

3 Girl - Yeah, I love her. She's great.

4 Girl - She always has such great hair!

1 Girl - Yeah, I like her hair too.

Honestly, as assistant coach, I just wanted to bury my face in my hands. Do they not understand that there's a game going on?!!?!

Dave's Extra-curricular Activity (shortened version)(for readability)

The fundamental problem found with all new volleyball players is that their skills are not developed in certain integral ways. Thus, I present, the seven deadly troubles of volleyball:

One of the first problems is that they don't know how to pass consistently. This takes practice. But in the mean-time, coaches settle for half-decent passes.

The Setters also have to settle for half-decent passes. And content themselves to the fact that they must chase down every shanked pass. No matter where it goes on the court.

The third trouble is that, a shanked pass always heads to one player or another. So that player (with visions of grandeur, and 'taking one for the team') decides they might as well take on the role of a setter. But the real setter is still chasing down the ball.

The fourth trouble is that, when the setter and the 'new' setter collide somewhere on the court, the ball still falls to the ground.

The fifth trouble is that, if by some miracle the team gets the ball returned over the net, the players will not know that they should stand at the net, with hands raised to the sky, as though they can block.

The sixth trouble is that the players' vertical jump abilities don't allow for any reasonable block. If the ball is returned back to your team's side, the trouble starts all over again.

The seventh trouble is that even when your ball CLEARLY landed inside the lines on your opponent's court, the REF still calls it out!????? (REFS!!! they NEVER get it right!)

These are the lessons I learned while coaching a junior girls volleyball team this past weekend. While it may sound pessimistic, I assure you it is not. Coaching volleyball is a LOT of fun! And it's great when your team remembers how to get past all those 'troubles' and actually starts playing as a team! I've learned that I love coaching, and can't wait until our next game!

Our record so far is:

6 sets won, and 7 sets lost (in tournament play)

The Evils of Extra-Curricular Activities

Well, as I'm sure you all know by now....I am in charge of the Christmas Program at our school this year. Let me tell you, this is the craziest thing I have ever done. Though it may have its fun moments, most of them are stressful, especially since we only have two weeks until performance and we're not even close to being ready!

The thing about extra-curricular activities is (actually there's several): 1. teaching in a Christian school requires you to do a certain number of them; 2. teaching in a Christian school where they've recently laid off staff requires you to do more of them than physically possible; an 3. they take time away from the actual job of teaching. Allow me to demonstrate, here is what my day was like today: Christmas Program stuff, more CP stuff, oh that was the bell I should let the kids in....wait a minute, what am I doing today!?!? More Christmas Program stuff, recess: rehearsal, let the kids back in, do more Christmas Program stuff, oops I'm supposed to be teaching right now, lunch recess: yard duty in the freezing cold, more Christmas stuff, French class....what am I doing in French today? More Christmas stuff.....finally the end of the day! But not over yet, after school I had to work on the backdrop for, you guessed it, the Christmas program and plan for tomorrow.

I tell you, by the end of the day, I'm not really sure what I taught and we're still not ready for the Christmas program. Oh well, the show must go on and somehow we'll pull it together!

P.S. If anyone has some good ideas for making quick and easy Roman Soldier costumes, I'd appreciate the tips! (See I'm STILL thinking about the Christmas Program!)

Pop Quiz!

Today I was caught feeling completely useless. Fortunately, my associate teacher was the first one on the scene, so that I had to do very little. This was my biggest fear about teaching phys. ed. -- that one day I would have a student injured in some way that I would not know what to do...

At worst, I worried myself about a rolled ankle. Those happen all the time...

Or, maybe a finger bent out of shape...

Or, maybe an arm broken....

But, a knee being completely dislocated? So that the knee cap (patella) is risen an inch out of its normal place? and the fibula is sticking out the side?

While playing badminton (of all sports!) a girl in grade 12 dislocated her knee. Which has got to be one of the most painful injuries a person can endure. And she was screaming/crying from the pain she was in... And I was at a complete loss for ways to help her or comfort her. Okay, maybe not a complete loss... but I felt pretty useless...! ("I'll call the ambulance," is what I said).

It was about five minutes before her knee slid back into place (That's a long time when you are in pain!). And she went home on crutches. Apparently, there's not much you can do for that particular injury. If you try and force the knee back into place, you can create more damage. So you have to just let it work its own way back in...

Needless to say, I am brushing up on my care and prevention of injuries textbook!

Full Circle

It's been a pretty busy week down here in Jarvis. Not only are Steph and I both teaching, but we've also volunteered to be the Young People's Leaders for our church. It's been busy, but fun!

On Tuesday we took the Young People's bowling in Hamilton (almost all 30 of them came out!). The kids had a blast, and Steph gave me a real run for my money (she scored 109 in her second game!).

Actually, Steph's games were kind of interesting. She spent the entire first game putting a crazy spin on her ball -- that always sent her ball into the gutter in the last 5 feet before it could hit the pins. (Her first game was a real low score....). By the time the second game came around she had figured out what to do about it.... She moved over to the left side of the lane, and let the spin do its magic! She ended up getting a few strikes, and a few spares to really push her game up! It was fun to see! I only beat her in the last 3 frames and scored a 126. Was that mean of me?

My high school placement has been enjoyable. The staff at Smithville are fun teachers who have really made me feel welcome. I've started teaching badminton (which was never my strongest sport...), along with the NEW rules for the game. (Badminton is now, officially, played to 21 points. Every rally results in a point for the winner of the rally).

A few kids were giving me a little grief. Nothing I wouldn't have done in High School. The kids just want to have fun, right? Who needs to practice, let's play! So I've learned that the student's capacity for practice is limited to about 1/2 to 3/4 of the gym period. Then they need to play.

Which I don't mind. As long as they are applying the skills and strategies I'm trying to teach them.

Like I said, it's nothing I didn't give my teachers grief over when I was in High School.

It's interesting that kids just want to play as soon as they get into the gym. It's ingrained in them. So it's actually a little harder to get the few troublemakers... wait, I'll make that playmakers, to stay on task! The funny thing is that the playmakers are becoming my favourite students...!

I love it!

Christmas Already?!?!

I have to admit that I am in the Christmas spirit already! I can't believe it, it's only the beginning of November and I'm thinking about when we can start decorating, buying gifts, Christmas vacation/dinners! I'm sure that I don't normally start thinking about it already, I mean we don't even have snow yet! (Thank goodness! Sorry Steve, Katrina, and Crystal!). Maybe my premature spirit has to do with the fact that I am organizing our school's Christmas program, which I am crazy to have volunteered for! Plus I'm looking forward to two weeks off more than I ever have in my life! My class is crazy....I feel like I've done a whole year with them already and it's only November! And it probably also doesn't help that Dave says he's already bought my Christmas present, which actually kinda scares me.....he often doesn't get the greatest gifts, so normally I have to give him a list. This year I didn't even have time to suggest anything, so who knows what he's come up with. If anyone can weasel it out of him and confirm for me that it really is a great gift, as he keeps assuring me, I would feel much better! Anyways, I'm going to go look through my magazine of Christmas cookies....don't get your hopes up, I like to look, but don't have the time to bake!

High School

Two days down - 28 to go.
My time spent observing, and helping out in a high school have been.... (I don't know what word to use here).

The first day at school, the phys.ed teacher was away at meetings. So I spent the first two classes helping out the substitute teacher. I felt pretty good after surviving a grade 12 phys.ed class (spent at computers of all things!) without making a fool of myself. And I felt even better after preventing a fight from breaking out in full force between two grade 10 students in the next class (yikes!)(when THAT happened, all I could think was -- "You gotta be kidding me! On my first day!....."). I gave the students 'the benefit of the doubt' and said if it happens again, they're gone... Whatever that means. Then the grade 10 History class (after lunch) spent the whole class wandering the halls making home-made movies for a unit on the Roaring 20's. Which is kinda cool, but left me with absolutely nothing to do. No marking, no supervising, nothing. So that was the first day.

The second day was a little different. I was able to see how the students behaved with their actual phys.ed teacher around (which was a little better). I had to referee a Lacrosse game (which was a subject that the grade 10 boys weren't liking!)(It broke my heart). And grade 10 History was still doing their movies.

It's been an interesting set of days for me, but I still don't feel like I've done much of anything just yet. And I've had lots of time to absorb High School life in general.

And I'm tired for some reason.... (any teachers want to explain that?)

Happy Birthday Dave!

Well today is Dave's birthday, he says he's feeling old, but I'm sure that feeling will pass! Unfortunately his birthday could have started off much better than it did: We could have slept in a whole extra hour......we COULD have, had we remembered to change the clocks back. We were honestly driving out of the driveway to go to church (an hour early) before we realized that today was the day standard time begins! I can honestly say that I have never, ever done this before, and as a result am feeling really stupid! Normally people everywhere are reminding people to change their clocks back but I didn't hear any talk of that this year! Here I am trying to blame our mistake on everyone else! Oh well.....now it's time for cake.....that should make up for this morning!

I'm reading a book right now

"Thus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference between an island of make-believe and the same island come true."

(J.M.Barrie wrote that)

Okay, I'm addicted.

I keep checking this blog thing to see if anything different has happened to it... Even though I know nothing has happened! I just keep doing it! I can't stop!

I think I keep checking because I want to see if anyone has written a comment to anything.
A professor of English, at Redeemer, once said, that "we write because we want to say - 'this is the world as I see it, do you see it too?'"
It's so true.
Whenever I write something, I always love it when someone makes a comment about it. I simply love it. I can't get enough of it. I think I will write something someday. Most likely, a children's book. And I won't show it to anyone. Because writing something is insanely personal. And if people don't like it. Then what?

Plus. Half the plots in the world are taken already.

And, in all likelihood, I'd just be copying C.S. Lewis. He is a good writer. I'm not. I won't be anywhere near as good as C.S. Lewis.

My favourite book (right now) surprised me. It's about kids who fly away to an island. Kill pirates and live without adults, and the people they kill never actually die. There is a ton of killing, and no-one dies. It's a mystery to me.... I don't get it. But don't think for one second that the movies do any justice to the book. The book is way better than any movie made about it. So don't watch a movie about Peter Pan. Just don't. It'll ruin the book for you.

A few pictures

David in his Castle (under construction)(with people walking around in it) Okay!... it's not his Castle.....!Stevin, Katrina and Petra (just hanging out)

Naomi had just finished saying "I love you" to Petra in this family photo
David and Steph at Casa Loma in Toronto

Naomi at Uncle David and Aunt Steph's House

On the Purpose of Education

Exams are done! It was a quick and painful process of cramming and writing and cramming some more. I'm glad that it's done. Now I can move on in life, spend some time with Steph, and look forward to my teaching placement! (I can't wait to teach badminton)

One of our exams was on the purpose of education. What is the purpose of education? Of course, I had an answer to the question... It's a tree! And of course, I wrote extensively (2 and a 1/2 pages single spaced) to defend my answer. But, as with most of my exams, I begin to question myself afterwards -- thinking, what if that wasn't really an answer to the question?

So what do you think? What is education about?

I think education is about attention, actually. On my exam I went through a lengthy process of saying that people learn by making neural pathways in the brain, and that we all use a different part of the brain (which led to Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences), and that Herman Dooyeweerd actually touched on this, with evidence from Harro van Brummelen, and that a theory of neural pathways leaves us feeling like computers, so what more is there?

The Truth of it is, that we are all Wonderfully and Fearfully made. Our Creator made us capable of THINKING, and that is more than simply inserting information. John Dewey (not a Christian) sought to create an educational environment in which students are simply exposed to things of the world. If the students are ready for it, they will be able to actively process the information and think critically about it. John Dewey had a glimpse of the purpose of education.

Simone Weil, it appears, had a much better purpose. She says that the purpose of education is the development of the faculty of attention. And I completely agree.

My duty, as a teacher, will be to simply give the students something to look at (A tree), and say "Wow, would you look at that?...." and hopefully my students look at it, and ponder its existence, and wonder what it is good for, and maybe someone will measure its circumference and relate that to its diameter and get pi, and then someone will chop it down and make it into furniture.

Hopefully, someone will say, "It is good!" Because, God made it after all....!

"Fun" Days for Teachers

Alright, so I haven't had the time to write on this thing yet, but I've made a discovery in the last year, and it was brought back to my attention in this past week and I thought I would share it. When we were in school, we used to think that all the "fun days" were great! They were the best days of the whole year! Days like Grandparents Day, Jump Rope for Heart, and Halloween. But now that I'm the teacher, these days seem much less fun! In fact they often turn out to be more work than "normal" days. Take this afternoon for example, my kids were so excited for tonights festivities the whole afternoon was a constant fight to keep things under control. Kids were constantly yelling, talking, singing when we were finished the songs, falling off their chairs: it was almost complete chaos. And to make things worse, I'm fairly sure that tomorrow will be worse than today because of all the sugar they've got in their system and their lunches! Anyways, I just feel like it's kinda sad when the "fun" days for teachers are actually the "normal" days! When do the teachers get to have any fun?

The Oldest Can of Soup in History

Hi everyone!

Steph was just cleaning out a bit of our pantry and found a can of soup that expired in 2004!(Oh, Redeemer....)(I guess you get the idea that we don't eat soup very often!) So I guess that starts a contest -- Can anyone say they have an older can of soup?

Dear Diary, this is the first time I've written to you in my life...

So, does anyone else see the relationship between 'blogging' and diary writing? Wait, I had better not go that route (steph will want to appologize for my writing entries later...). Okay, maybe I will... Maybe I won't.

So this week has been interesting.

I have been busy studying for my upcoming exams... which begin tomorrow, and I'm not looking forward to them (hence, I am delaying the inevitable by writing a blog entry). How do you teach math equitably without government funding anyway? Oh boy, there's a whole can of worms in that question. Please feel free to respond with a comment on that.

I'm looking forward to my first teaching practicum at Smithville Christian High School, which begins in the first weeks of November. I get to teach History and Physical Education, which are the best subjects known to mankind. I'm hoping to use a shock and awe approach to World War II (which is always spelled WWII, not WW2)(at least in my opinion). But I'm not sure how that will go.

Oh! gotta go! Steph's looking at me with fear in her eyes that I'll write something dumb....

See ya! - David

The First Blog Entry in History

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to our blogspot! We hope you like it and value your inputs (like it sucks! or, it's really good and you should consider becoming a publisher!).

Okay, in all reality, we hope this just helps a few of our distant (by that we mean distance) relatives and friends keep in touch with our lives out here in Jarvis! But, if close relatives and friends want to check this blog out once in a while -- that's cool too!

Please overlook any spelling or grammatical errors made by two teachers as you read!