Teaching Adult Kids Today

Youth today are in some ways the exact same as they always have been, but in other ways, they are charting vastly new territory. They are still kids and they are still taught much of the same curriculum in school, but their personal lives look extremely different than they did 50 years ago. I believe that kids today are shown and taught how to grow up more quickly than ever before. 

Along with amazing medical and technological advances, violence around us has increased significantly. All of these factors teach children to act like teens, and teens to act like adults. With the great technological advances, the knowledge that children can receive from television and internet can be very dangerous. Not only are they learning much more at a younger age, they often come across things that are detrimental to their young minds, such a disturbing news or pornographic material. This is very serious because though children today are smart enough to understand what many things mean, they do not have the emotional capacity to deal with problems. Another big issue I see is how often youth come in contact with violence. “In 2010, nearly 700 Chicago school children were shot, 66 fatally, often in multiple shootings, as when 10 were murdered and 37 wounded by firearms in a single three-day period” (Yanklowitz 2014). There are school shootings and bomb threats regularly, and children are being prepared for something that should never have even been thought about as an eight year old. These are just a few of the issues that children today face. 


As a future teacher, I have to not only teach kids, but I feel the responsibility to help them be children and be safe. Technology is so advanced it is very easy to let children use iPads or computers in the classroom to do a lot of school work, but they need to be able to do things on their own and technology can limit that. I also have to keep technology in mind when assigning homework or projects because I do not want my kids cheating or stumbling upon something that could be bad for them. Furthermore, as a teacher, I have to be prepared to deal with violence within the classroom like home problems, bullying, school shootings, or even bombs. All of these things are becoming more regular occurrences and that is so scary. It makes teaching a totally different ballgame than even 20 years ago. These are only a few of the issues that are coming up within an elementary school classroom today and it is quite astounding. 

References

Yanklowitz, R. (2014, March 24). It's Hard to Be a Kid Today. The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 27, 2014, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-shmuly-yanklowitz/its-hard-to-be-a-kid-today_b_5018406.html

Learning Values from Home

I grew up in the Northeast region of Georgia. My town is at the bottom of the Appalachian mountains, and touches a large portion of Lake Lanier. This is unique because though we are pretty small, we have distinct regions of people. We have a lot of farming community, but we are also based around a giant chicken production industry. We have very diverse types of people: we have very rich, very poor, and everything in between. Our weather is fairly mild, which creates a little bit of everything. We have warm summers, cooler winters, and even the occasional snowstorm.

Both of my parents grew up in the same place I did, so I love to hear about growing up on the lake, and hanging out with their friends. Being from the South, we treasure slow summers and family time. We boat regularly and we actually live on the lake now because of my parents’ memories growing up. 

Once, my dad skied underneath a dock because his brother Blake drove the boat too close to the shore. My mom used to take out her father’s boat every day with all of her friends and they would jump off the bridges throughout the lake.  These are just some of the ways they lived while growing up.



I think that these types of stories and experiences have made me truly value family and learning how to appreciate my surroundings. I love to spend time with friends and family, and I make time for others regularly. Though school is extremely important, I know that its not everything to this life. I work to live, not the other way around. My grandparents and parents all worked extremely hard to provide for us, but through that, I’ve learned that enjoyment is necessary. We are people who need people and who love people. I’ve learned this through my parents upbringings and my own in Northeast Georgia. 

(2014, February 11). Georgia Base and Elevation Maps. Netstate.com. Retrieved March 13, 2014, from http://www.netstate.com/states/geography/mapcom/ga_mapscom.htm.

For the Love of the Lord

I have traveled to Spain a few times for missions trips, and along with those trips we have attended many many church services. Though, one of the churches we traveled to in Spain was Baptist (like me), it was totally different from anything I have experienced before.

At my home church, our services are right at an hour. My pastor says his sermon in about 25 minutes or so, we sing a couple of hymns, and then its over until next week. This particular church service was at a church called La Iglesia Evangelica Bautista. It is a tiny church in the town of Denía, Spain, located on the Mediterranean Sea. Most of Spain considers themselves un-practicing Catholics with a few muslims spread out here or there. This church is very unique because they are one of the only baptist churches in Spain. 

Going into the service, I expected it to be very similar to my experiences at home because they were baptist and part of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, just like my home church. Was I wrong. The air inside the building was so different than anything I had felt before. The service began with announcements and the celebrations of birthdays and anniversaries. EVERYONE in the church participated. Then we began singing, people were weeping, and putting their hands in the air, while my little group just looked on in wonder. Not only did we have a language barrier, but an experience barrier as well. People became more and more emotional throughout the service and by the end, they even had us feeling the love and presence of the Lord there with us. I was so in awe and so in love with this little church. They had helped me learn something and experience something totally separate from anything I have ever learned.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my church, but I think that experiencing other denominations, churches, and religious services is extremely important to the development of a person. It helps us to better understand the world around us and to understand who we are in relation to these other people. When we truly see and understand, less prejudice and discrimination will happen and our lives can become more peaceful. Harshness usually comes from things we don’t understand. I hope that others get the chance to experience a totally different religious service because it is truly inspiring. 

Why Make It So Difficult?

For most of the time, I don’t have to have a plan of action to get where I need to go. I just walk the way I’m supposed to and I know that I can get there by stairs, steep hills, or whatever. A lot of people don’t have this same luxury.

 Recently one of my good friends has broken her foot, and it has been a very eye-opening experience. She lives in the door on campus that is located on the top of a hill. For most of us, it would be a hassle, but not a problem. For her, it was a problem because she either had to drive to her classes or try to handle the hill on crutches. Even worse, because her injury was temporary, parking and disabilities services on campus would not issue her a handicap parking pass. This makes getting to class and parking extremely difficult. We have many buildings on our campus that have elevators, but in incredibly inconvenient areas. And not only that, but they only work half of the time. She will have a class in one end of a building, but have to use the elevator on the opposite side just to get up one floor. Or, using the parking deck, she has to walk all the way around the building to get to a ramp instead of climbing a flight of stairs. She has to constantly build in more time in her schedule and a game plan for her to get somewhere that usually is so easy to get to. She also cannot participate in things like our intramural games or volunteer work because she can’t do things like walking a puppy or carrying heavy cans. 

Many places around our campus could easily be fixed to have better access for those with disabilities. An elevator added at the more commonly used end of a building, or build a ramp along with stairs somewhere for more convenience. Our world is made for “normal” people, but wouldn’t it be so easy to help everyone out?