Today I am substituting for Mrs. McGee. She teaches six periods of Special Education Math. I am a History, Language Arts kind of guy by nature, so this is something of a challenge for me. Though as you can probably guess, I do not have a great deal of teaching responsibility or I would not be writing this post while my three students are working on their project.
Mrs. McGee left all of these classes the same project to complete. They have $500 to spend on Christmas items. They must buy 5 items. They are not required to spend all the $500. They must determine the amount of tax on their subtotal. It their total is more than the $500 they must replace the items with those of a lower price so that the total will not exceed $500. When they find the total they are required to write a check for the amount. Some in these classes have spent every penny of the $500. While others have only spent part of the $500.
Is there a life lesson to be found in this somewhere? What an interesting idea, not spending more money than you have. What do you think of this idea?
And now a few additional thoughts.
Have any of you ever read the writings of Frederick Buchner? He is an award winning author turned preacher. He is truly a wordsmith. If you have not read his writings, let me recommend him to you. So just for some things to think about, here are a few quotes from Frederick Buchner.
"It is as impossible for men to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle."
"Pay mind to your own life, your own health, and wholeness. A bleeding heart is of no help to anyone if it bleeds to death."
"Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too."
Just some things to think about along the way.
Bob
1 comment:
"It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too."
I don't know, Bob. It's kind of a double edged sword. While there are certainly some down sides to being so caught up in the misery of others that we can't experience the blessing in our own lives, my experience is that a heaping helping of empathy is what most of us really need. This may be a bit too political of a point, but it reminds me of when I try to explain to my students why the war in Iraq may not be the worst thing in human history. Trying to explain that our soldiers are fighting so that Iraqi's can know the freedom that we take for granted doesn't make a dent on them, because win, lose, or draw their lives won't be significantly changed.
Sometimes we do things because it will make the lives of others better.
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