Getting an education in education...

I spent two days last week at the convention for a really large Christian school association. There were some good things I learned.

The first seminar I attended was titled "The Battle for Our Families." The speaker was one of the more passionate speakers with respect to the preservation of the family unit in a society that seems bent on destroying it. He talked about having Family Markers, citing Joshua 4. Remember that chapter where the Lord told Joshua to move 12 large boulders over to the Promised Land side of the Jordan and make a monument? The whole point being that when the children asked, "What's that monument all about?" the parents would tell how the Lord delivered them out of slavery in Egypt and into the land promised to their forefathers.

He encouraged the educators as parents themselves to set markers for their own families. His wife is an art teacher and has painted each of their children's life verses on their bedroom walls. He shared about how his own dad sold a piece of property that had a huge pile of rocks on it. That rock pile had been where the speaker prayed in tough times when he was growing up. When he told his dad its significance, his dad had the pile of rocks moved onto dirt that would remain family land. Now there's a literal pile of rocks that the speaker's kids look at and ask, "What's that all about?" And he shares the legacy of faith with them.

Then he hit us with probably the best moment of the whole conference. He showed a clip from the "Opie and the Spoiled Kid" episode of The Andy Griffith Show. It's one of my favorites. If you have 25 minutes and can click the link, you can watch the whole episode. In it Opie learns from a very manipulative new kid on the block to throw tantrums and make demands of his dad. My favorite parts are how Andy handles Opie's tantrum and how Andy handles the Spoiled Kid's dad. Classic.

Earlier I had a lot of other stuff here. Largely stuff the Lord is working on in my heart concerning the philosophy of teaching and why I went back to do it. But in light of a conversation I had with Tracey via old skool email, I think I'm going to cut it off here, with the positive.

And, by the way Tracey, last night my quiet time was Hebrews 10:32 - 12:4. What do you think that means? ;-D