Human Space Invaders

This is perhaps evidence of the greatest waste of time spent by the most people at one time.

Lights, Cameras, Action

Well I am spending much of this week doing something I never thought I would do. Direct a movie! While big named directors can boast about the big names they have filmed and how much money they have raked in, I bet that they can't say they ever directed a film with a cast and crew of 25 children ranging from Kindergarten to Sixth grade.

So yeah. That is what I am doing this week. Basically my church group decided to run "minicamps" this summer instead of a VBS program. Since our church meets at a YMCA we are working in the late afternoon to add a series of speacial programs. I chose to head-up a movie making camp.

Really I must be nuts. These kids are pretty hard to work with and they like to expel energy. But anyway, they are learning new things, using cool, expensive equipment, and make new friends.

Sunday after our church service (and after I spend all weekend editing the film) we will screen the film with the kids. Then they are offered a complimentary limo ride to feel like big stars. After that, I am going home and crashing hard for many hours. Maybe I can post some of the movie online.

Pray and Post

When there is not much left to do about a situation, you can only pray about it. When you are done praying and you still cannot help, you might as well post.

I came to work this morning to find our email services were down. I get to work really early so I can be the first to find out bad news. I worked for a while trying to resolve issues of dead hard drives until my system administrators got here.

One of them is working on one server trying to rebuild the hard drive while the other is trying to recreate the secondary server to take over for the first server. Really boring stuff but I had to clarify that to express that I have nothing left to contribute while they are working. So I spend that time praying and I thought I would even post about the situation to calm my nerves a bit.

Well I am going to pray more now.

How does TEACHER = LIBERAL

I am not a big Rush Limbaugh fan but I am a conservative Republican that listens to the local radio station that airs the big boy. I was listening to a promo for his show this morning and he was bashing teachers because the NEA is trying to get a new deal that includes no teacher makes less than 40k, they get fewer students per class, and they can stop teaching specifically for the testing required by the No Child Left Behind act.

Just so you know where I am coming from, my wife is a second grade public school teacher who just finished her third professional year. Now I am not going to argue about the pay. People always demand more pay and I hope that in all situations in America people work at places that will give them raises according to available funds and loyalty and improvement of the employee. I know that is not the way it is but that is also why we have a free system where you can always seek higher paying work if that is what you are after.

I do have issues though against Rush's other comments about this deal. My wife and I are each required to put in at least 40 hours per week at the job site. My job does not usually require more after hour work though sometimes things happen of course. But my wife gets home from school and the real work begins. The two of us dig through piles of paperwork grading student's homework and marking notes to contact parents about concerns, and preparing material for future lessons and projects. This lasts usually until 11:30pm most nights however on a good night we can be done by 10:15pm. Now remember that is with me helping out. Also, this is before we had a baby which we had at the end of this school year. I don't even want to think yet how this will affect our workload this fall.

I believe the cause for most of this is two-fold: large class sizes, and federal testing. If the class sizes where smaller well that would be a lot less papers to grade now wouldn't it. Not to mention the more personal attention students would get so that the teacher would know where a child stands without having to test the child.

As for the No Child Left Behind Act, the wrong people are being blamed for this problem. The problem is usually not the Teacher; it is the Student's guardian. There are children that have been in my wife's class and it is evident to see that their guardians either do not care about them or they do not know how to selflessly raise a child. The guardians are have already left them behind. Even the students that my wife offers hope to, seem to get those hopes dashed when they return home in the evening.

If there are issues with the way the government spends its money (LOL, like there is any doubt), then the government should take responsibility to see that education dollars are spent as they are promised.

Sure in some cases perhaps there are teachers that are lazy or careless. If I had a lazy, careless person working for me I would get rid of them. The school system needs to be as shrewd. You can't make teachers "good" by forcing them to teach just a set of facts. They can still do that while being abusive verbally and emotionally. I believe that my wife received children in here class that came from previous teachers that were abusive to that nature.

So...
1) Government's responsibility - Control funding so that public schools are properly maintained and class sizes are restricted for optimized learning.
2) Guardian's responsibility - Do not get in a position of "accidentally" raising children. If you are to have dependents learn to love them and encourage their educational growth.
3) Education Department's responsibility - Discipline teachers that are lazy or careless about the progress of the students. Observe their classrooms.
4) Teacher's responsibility - Love children and pray for strength to handle whatever situation the Government and guardians deal you.

I believe that if the first three responsible parties take care of their duties then the fourth party will not need to complain as much about pay.

But to Rush and others, do not ridicule our good teachers because of a bunch of test scores. You have to look at the real problems.

Overdue for Global Destruction

Hmmm, I find it odd that there are certain thinkers (evolutionists, we'll call them) that believe this universe has existed for millions and/or billions of years. Personally I believe that the entire universe as we know it is only around 6 -10 thousand years old.

Now I also believe that God (the living God) was the creator of all of this universe. I believe that He was pleased to inhabit the planet we call Earth with all that is around us. So I believe that He loves us and protects our lives and has a special plan in mind for us. By the way, a new creation is currently underway so if you didn't believe in the first one hopefully you will start thinking about this next one. I believe that while God plans to destroy this creation at some point and replace it with something better, all of that is up to Him and not just a chaotic happening.

There is a nasty rumor that the world is going to be destroyed by accident. It has been the theme of movies for the last ten years or so. The funny thing is that there would be much better odds in my belief of a young earth for such a disaster as opposed to the ridiculously old earth as some people believe. In that belief you have billions of years where billions of opportunities for disaster should occur. Billions of asteroids and comets would have threatened our existence. But somehow, chaotically, we dodged all of those bullets and yet these same believers of the old earth are fearful of the sighting of every space object that comes our way. Evolutionists should have more peace of mind and faith in the lone fact that history, their history, is on their side. So why the alarm? What are they afraid of?

Just thinking.