Wonder through Science Steven Brubaker March 22, 2024 Teachers Week 2023 Wonder through Science Audio, Video 00:00 / 01:04 Download Download Our interest here is thinking, how can in science class, can we help to maybe loosen the scales that are on our eyes and really see, really see the presence of God, the wonder of God in the world that he's made. So how can we teach science? How can we explore the created world that keeps that wonder, keeps that sense of awe, that sense that I'm small and this world is amazing that God is made. So, I asked the question, how can we, in our classes, take off our shoes? How can we cultivate this ability to see to where our jaws drop? And we say, "Wow. Yes. This is amazing!" And I'm going to suggest that, while the best jaw dropping is done in the context of seeing God behind it all, just dropping the jaw is in the right direction. So here are eight ways to take off our shoes. One: Look until Breathless Let's look and keep looking until I am breathless. So, this first one is about what we do as teachers. And I'm suggesting if we're going to inspire wonder, we have to feel wonder. And that means we're going to have to prepare. We're going to have to look. We're going to have to dig into our subject matter to the point where we come alive to it. If you want them to come alive to the wonder of the creative world, you have to really be alive to it. Marlene Lefever said this, "Becoming an effective teacher is simple. You just prepare and prepare until drops of blood appear on your forehead." You see, it's that kind of work that we need to do. You might say, "Oh, that's going to kill me if I do that." No. No. No. You have to push through the complexity before the simplicity comes. You have to push through some of the work before you really the scales drop off your eyes and you say, "Woah, this really is amazing!" We should not expect to inspire wonder if we don't thrill ourselves to what we’re teaching and learning together. Second, we need to identify a wonderful, a full of wonder, a wonder full focus or demonstration that can be do, that we can use. So here we're going to be talking about demonstrations. Some demonstrations have wonder built into them. I taught electricity and magnetism for many years. I've used Van de Graaff generators, which they can be, wonderful. I've made use of Tesla coils. I've used a variety of things, made little, small generators, or had the students make motors, a variety of things. But you know, I still, after years of doing that, the old (which I know many of you have seen this), but the old magnet in two is just a wonderful way of talking about electricity and magnetism. And in fact, it’s part of the reason what makes it so wonderful is that it's counterintuitive. Everybody knows that cardboard, there's no attraction between a magnet and cardboard. And now, this on the other hand is a what kind of tube? Looks like copper. It's a copper tube. Is a magnet attracted to copper? No. It is not. No attraction there. And we all know that when objects drop, they drop at 9.81 meters per second squared. That's the rate of acceleration. And if we drop that through this tube, it drops at that rate, 9.81 meters per second squared. And so, when we drop it through this, which is no different than the cardboard tube in terms of neither, subtracted to neither. When we drop it through this, it should also drop through at nine point eight one meters per second squared. But this time, I have plenty of time to catch it. See, that's a wonderful demonstration. And then we can go and talk about all kinds of things related to electricity and magnetism and so on. Two: Modify Ordinary Demonstrations And, you know, there there's lots of demonstrations that you can do. Just take common ordinary demonstrations, and by changing them up, adding features or whatever, you could turn them into something wonderful. Every child has grown up pouring vinegar into baking soda. I mean, that's just that's a right of growth or something for us. And so, you, but you can take that, and if you just did that, it would be, oh, what's the big deal? If you put it in a test tube, put a cork on it, and the cork spout it out, that would add some wonder to it. But you could also do things like... Let's just take a candle. So, what we're going to do is mix up some, you know, after we're talking after we've talked about the gas, carbon dioxide that's produced when we have baking soda and vinegar, we'll just mix them up into a container. Then we'll talk about how carbon dioxide is heavier than air and that it's a fluid, and you can pour it. And so, in order to demonstrate that we can pour it, we'll create some carbon dioxide, and then we will see if we can pour it down the trough and put out the candle. Since flames need oxygen, carbon dioxide covers it. So, I'd prefer to use a, a container like a I generally use a big gallon jar, but I didn't have one this time. So, I'm just doing it in a bucket. The bad thing about this is you can't see, the fizziness and everything. But it's producing some carbon dioxide in there. And now we will try to pour it down the trough, and boom. It's gone. Thank you. So again, you can just take some ordinary that they're used to and add some pieces to it to increase the wonder value. Three: Surprise after Content Third, content first, then the surprise. Once you have a reputation of giving discrepant events or wonderful dim full of wonder demonstrations, then you actually have some capital in the bank that you can spend by teaching content. So, if this is sitting there in front of your class, again, you can teach for an hour, and they're going to still be watching because they wonder, when are we going to get to the gun? And, but so what you do is you take, you know, your kind of maybe motion toward that a little bit, "What we're going to do today is we're going to talk about..." Maybe it's single displacement, double displacement reactions. Maybe you're just talking about balancing equations. But you can talk about, say, "Today we want to look and consider this equation and, see what's going on." We might label all of the different components. We might come along and say, well, "Is this a solid, liquid, or gas?" And so on. And so, we get in other words, we're just talking about a lot of things, maybe reinforcing, reviewing, or maybe I would take an equation like that and use it to teach a whole bunch of stuff, kind of build it around the one equation. We'll explore different parts of that. And so, calcium carbon, oh, we have some of that here. It's a rock-like chemical. And so, what are we doing? We're just putting it with water, and that's producing calcium hydroxide to form a lime. Of course, it's a base that we're producing. And then what is this thing? Has anyone ever seen it? Well, eventually, you can tell them that's acetylene, and someone will start to say, oh, we have that in tanks at our shop, and it burns. And it's okay. Well, let's see. Let's go ahead and take that gas that's produced, and this is a gas. So, acetylene we're going to take acetylene, and we're going to add oxygen to it. And what is that going to produce? It's going to produce carbon dioxide plus water, but also in the process there is heat. And we also know that, if we add a match and a fire to that, there's the potential for an explosion. So that's what this is for. So, you see the idea though is to be content rich. Talk about a lot of things, teach a lot of things, all hinting that something's coming. And what's the something? Well, we need some water. I have some water here. What we're going to do is put the water into the well. So that's going down here in this portion. And then we're going to get some of our calcium carbide. I don't want to introduce it to water too quickly. And so, we put some calcium carbide here in the... This is just a piece of PVC. Stick it in here. Now, when I turn that, that's going to dump the calcium carbide into the water. And that first equation will be descriptive of what happens, and it will be producing acetylene. So, I'm going to put... You'll notice this this cap has a little hole in it. That's where we can introduce the fire. And then, I'm going to... You may want to hold your ears when I put the fire here. It can be loud at times. So, if you're also a music teacher, you may want to hold your ears. Okay. So, we will, at this point, go ahead and turn that. Turn it a couple times and get it in. Hopefully, it's making some acetylene there for us. And then we'll see where it's pointed to. [loud noise] And there we go. There was the second equation. Now, if we wanted a little bit more excitement at this point, somebody would say, "Hey! Could we put some ammunition in this thing?" "Oh, we could try it again with that." There is enough explosive potential that you want to be sure whatever you put in here can get out or else other things will blow up and it won't be fine. So, the way it is, I generally just do not put something in just to make sure that it is reasonably safe in an indoor type of setting. Okay. So that was, content first. Four: Mystery, Discover, and Wonder Then the surprise number four. Surround your presentation with the language of mystery, discovery, and wonder. Part of being a science teacher is choosing language that that actually cultivates wonder. Back when I taught chemistry, with time I began to realize that the story of how we figured out that there are atoms and then something of what is in an atom, the protons, electrons, and neutrons, that that is a mystery story. And I started teaching it that way, and started thinking of it as a black box, and so on. And after a year or two of kind of playing around with that concept, probably the best compliment I ever got and as a teacher is when someone just came up and they said, you know, "This this is so fascinating. What we're learning about chemistry and the atom and so on. It's just like a great mystery story." And I hadn't said that that's what I was trying to do, but for them to feel that and recognize that was great. So, let's say that you are maybe you're working with titration, or, again, maybe a double displacement reaction or it's just kind of a hybrid. But, talking about this one and so we have an acid plus a base produce, in this case, sodium chloride and water. And you could do so the traditional way is to say, "It's an acid plus a base produces salt and water." And that's accurate. That's good. But see, you can also surround that with a bit more mystery, a bit more excitement if you've talked about how hydrochloric acid is the stuff that's used to clean bricks off. And if you ingest hydrochloric acid, you will cease to exist as a normal human being. And I mean, hydrochloric acid is nasty stuff. And then we talked about sodium hydroxide, and I could talk about the person that I knew that had swallowed some of that and how it ate through their esophagus before I mean, they were they survived it, but they had to put in an artificial... So, what we have here is a killer plus a killer produces believe it or not. What? Table salt! Salt water! I mean, you technically could technically you could do this equation in exactly the right proportions and drink the result, and it would be fine. See, that kind of interpretation of what we're doing helps to cultivate a sense of, of the significance of what is going on. When you can, when it is justified, make outlandish statements. Now be careful here. I've made some outlandish statements that I have had to retract because they weren't correct. And so, you want to be sure. But here's one that almost always will get high school students going, and that is, you say, you know, I have a toy gun or something. But you say, "If I have this bullet and I drop this bullet, it will take x amount of time to get from here to the ground. Now if at the same time I drop that bullet, I fire this gun. Or at the same time that the bullet leaves the end of the gun, I drop this bullet, and they're both at the same height, they will hit the ground at the same time." See, now that's an outlandish statement. That is not intuitive, and very few people... They’ll say, "I'm telling my dad." But there's when we find those things, and they're often there in science class, we can use those to kind of get the get the wonder bubbling. Five: Combine Demonstrations Fifth, we combine. Combine our demonstrations. Combine our studies with story. Include story. And these don't have to be elaborate necessarily. So, this particular... This is just a piece of glass that's been made into a mirror, but there's nothing special about it really. It’s slightly concave to keep this disc toward the center of it. This is just a piece of metal. Here's the story. Quite a few years ago, there was an engineer out in California, and he did not have quite enough work to do. So, he was sitting at his desk sometimes just kind of existing. And one day he got a quarter out and he was spinning it. Quarter was spinning there on his desk. And then he started to say, "I wonder how another, a heavier coin would spin." Then began to realize that when you spin something like this, it's actually not just spinning. It's rolling and spinning. And so, we begin to say, "Oh, well, that's actually scrolling." And that is a term. It's scrolling. It's not rolling or spinning. It's scrolling. And he got on the search for how, "I'd really like to find the optimal scroll." The way that the scrolling can happen that would maybe go the longest. And so, he tried different metals, different angles on his disc, different weights, different surfaces, and he found that this particular weight, size, and metal composition with a certain machining at the corner is one of the best. And so, we will scroll. You'll notice I didn't even really try to really spin it hard. [prolonged spinning] At this point, you would expect it to have been stopped. [ more spinning] So simple little novelty combined with story maybe can inspire things like, "Oh, what studies could I do? What could I experiment with?" Here's another one. This is a Tantalus cup. Also sometimes known as a temperance cup. Let's say, you can see it looks kind of like a wine chalice, perhaps. And if you look at it, you'll see there's some, it looks like the Parthenon, pictured on it some Greek imagery and so on. The Greeks, some say it was Pythagoras that developed this cup. And he did it in order to encourage temperance in your wine drinking. And so, the way this works is that for the person who was temperate in their wine drinking, say, you know, had a modest amount of wine, they could pour that into their cup, drink it, and everything was great. On the other hand, the person who was in temperate and they had a lot of wine in their cup, it would all drain out. I see all a little bit left there perhaps. Okay. So, you see, I couched that demonstration in just a little bit of a story about the Greeks and wine tasting and so on. But at this point, what I would actually, I might say, "Okay. Your test today is to draw what that cup looks like on the inside." And then we use that after we have discussed, air pressure. We've talked about siphons. We've talked about, yeah, basically in that arena. Use that as a test. Six: End with "Why?" Six. Sometimes ends with "Why?" See, teachers I have found, at least I know this is true about myself, is that when I have a good demonstration, I want to explain. And probably a big shift in my teaching over the last thirty years is to move from quick explanations to having the class explain what's going on. So, for example, if we have just been and we've been talking about density, I'll use this density bottle, and we observe that there's some kind of fluid, and there's white beads and blue beads, and then all we get there is shake it up and observe. [observing] Why? Describe it. I don't have to explain it if we have been talking about densities and so on and how that works. Again, I may just say, " Okay. I'm asking you now in the next five minutes to write a paragraph explaining why." Or maybe we're doing a unit on light and index of refraction. And then I bring this to the class [and] ask, "What do you see?" It's canola oil. But in addition to that, There's another beaker in there. Why does it disappear? Seven: Go Big. Get Dangerous. Number seven. Go big. Get dangerous. Another one of my favorite quotes is that "a good demonstration is one with the possibility that the teacher may die." That has a way of increasing wonder. So, for a long time, I did a little something with a ping pong ball and used a straw to blow past it and show that when you have high velocity in a liquid or a gas, that there's actually a lower pressure there. High velocity, low pressure. Low velocity in a fluid is higher pressure. And so, I might blow from a straw over a ping pong ball, and you'll see the ping pong ball rise to meet the air. Or go over to a faucet, you have water flowing. It's high velocity, but it's low pressure. So, if you take a ping pong ball on a string and bring it over close, the ping pong ball will be drawn over to the water. You can do it that way. Or you can go bigger. You can use this for your high velocity generator. And fortunately, it produces a ball for us, so we will see what we can do here. [leaf blower noise] Instead of blowing it away, it actually keeps the ball there. And we can move it a little bit because out here it's high pressure, and it's just pushing it into the low-pressure area, keeping it clear. Can you go higher with it? [leaf blower noise] Of course, we can go to the point where it won't stay in. You've probably taken, say, soda cans, put a little water in them and then heated them up so that things would expand inside, turn them upside down in water, they implode. Well, that's great. But then you think, "Oh, you know what? We could go big. We could get a gallon metal paint can and do the same thing with that." But you can say, "Oh, we could go big." And then you get a fifty-five-gallon drum and do that. So just be thinking bigger, Have you seen those air blaster? Forget what they're called exactly, where you can do smoke rings with them and so on. Those are great. But you can also get a big trash and create a mammoth one that will produce these humongous smoke rings. Go big. That has a way of increasing wonder, not just for high school students, but for teachers as well. I was at the garden sale here a couple years ago and found this. It's a martini glass, if you know it. A big one. You know, what a great way to do, color change demonstrations. So, in this case, I have potassium iodide solution in there, reasonably clear. In the cup, I have lead nitrate. So, this will be double displacement. We're going to produce potassium iodide. The potassium's going to mix with the nitrate, potassium nitrate, and we're going to have lead iodide. Lead iodide is coal. So, let's mix this together and see what we got. Now you could do that in a little beaker or something, and that's really cool, but there's something would you agree? It's a little bit more wonderful by having it larger, bigger, and so on. Eight: Point to God in Authentic Ways Finally, point to God in authentic, fresh, unique, creative ways. Now, I want to say again that the students having an experience is saying, "Wow. That's pretty neat. That's amazing! That's incredible! Wonder how that works? You know, that's really interesting!" That is in the right direction. You don't it doesn't always have to be directly connected to God. A posture of wonder is a very Christ like posture. It's a humble posture. It's the kind of posture that we need to be seeking to cultivate. But I find that there are ways in which, in those moments, you can point to God that's not tacky and it's not cliched, and it caps things off. So, I offered some questions. And where you get them thinking about, you know, what all is behind. So, ask good questions. Sometimes quotes can help you here. I'm going to give an example in just a moment. But there are some scriptures. But be careful here, folks, because we have this tendency to just tack a scripture on to something that really does not connect with hardly anybody. I remember seeing an I remember seeing an egg separator you buy at a Christian bookstore, remember seeing an egg separator you buy at a Christian bookstore, and it was, yeah, it was a real egg opener, you know, to kind of put the egg in, you put the thing down and puts in a whole bunch of pieces. And then she had a bible verse on it. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Okay. Let's avoid that. But say, like, the passage there in Deuteronomy 6, the Shema, "The Lord is one." I have found that passage to be so helpful in actually making connections. "The Lord is one." The heavens declare the glory of God. Psalm 19 And we could go on. And then, you know, I find that that songwriters often get this right. So, we've already mentioned, "This is My Father's World." "I Sing the Mighty Power of God." Some of the songwriters really have brought together the creative world and the creator in ways that I think we can use sometimes in our classes that might feel fresh. But above all, I would just say, to stay tuned to your students. What are the ways that authentically connect them to God? That that don't feel tacky to them, that feel genuine. And you're going to have to learn it. You might even have to change. I have to use a different language now than I did twenty-five years ago in order to do some of those things. We can look for ways to even sometimes obliquely turn the attention of our students toward not just the wonderful thing that we've done, but a recognition of the one who's behind it. If I were to do this in a classroom setting, I would lead a discussion on what are the five most important numbers in mathematics. And those numbers are zero, one, π, e, and i. And these numbers are the numbers that you could say are behind the major mathematical disciplines. [I] won't get into that, but I would talk about each one and how each one is absolutely phenomenal. It's an incredible number. And how numbers like π, you know, 3.1415927 ad infinitum forever number, amen, non repeating, non terminating. And then e, a similar kind of number, and I talked about, and and I can't. I want to. I wanna talk about e because e is so amazing. All of these numbers are amazing. And then after we talk about those four, then we talk about how i is even in kind of in a different league. It's in a different world. And and so we have these really strange numbers, and yet we can put all five of them together like this: e raised. We're using not multiplication, division. We're using we're using powers here. e^πi+1=0 Now, I need to build that up in order for us to feel the wonder of that. But that's amazing. And then you see, after we'd explored kind of some of that, then I would end with this quote. And this is a quote from an MIT professor, an atheist. He said, "There is no God, but if there were, this formula would be proof of his existence." That's an oblique way, and I think compelling way, a non cliched way to point our students to the God behind, not just science in the creative world, but mathematics as well Download Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Steven Brubaker

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Creating Kingdom Citizens Meghan Brubaker September 12, 2024 Creating Kingdom Citizens Blogpost 00:00 / 01:04 Download Download What if I told you the most important thing you can teach your students is not in a textbook? I believe this is true, though I hold learning in the highest regard. As a teacher, your job is to teach content, striving for academic excellence and robust learning. But that is not your only job. As a Christian teacher, your job is also to help shape your students to be lovers of God and lovers of others. This can happen through the teaching of academic content, certainly. But you’re also spending up to 180 days with young souls who need to be pointed to Jesus. And you are in a unique position to point them there. One way that a teacher can lead their students in following Jesus is by giving them opportunities to serve. This might come in in simple, organic ways as you have your eyes open to immediate needs around you. Did the wind blow the dumpster open, scattering garbage all over the school yard? Take a few minutes as a class to collect the trash. Did another class play outside in the rain and track mud all over the hallway? Get each of your students to grab a paper towel and clean one section of the hallway. Do the younger students need help getting their mittens and boots on before going outside in the winter? Have your students help them. But you can also give your students opportunities to serve beyond the random, momentary opportunities that will pop up. With a bit of planning and minimal preparation, you can create other ways for your students to be servants. Here are a few ideas to get your imagination rolling. Acts of Service Look into your immediate community for needs that your students can fill. Maybe you can do yard work for the neighbours. Maybe you can go door-to-door or to a retirement home and sing Christmas carols. Maybe you can make artwork for your nursing home aide friend to pass out at her place of work. Beyond encouraging your students to serve in their local community, you can also look for needs within your church or the churches of your students. Make cards for a shut-in, write thank-you notes to the pastors, or do yard work for the elderly. On an even smaller scale, don’t neglect to look for regular opportunities around your own school. There may be a maintenance or cleaning task that needs to be performed regularly that is within your students’ abilities to perform. Volunteer to have your class take care of it. Fundraiser Another great way to serve is to help your students conduct a fundraiser, then give the money to a good cause. It is so healthy for our students to learn how to work hard for monetary gain, then use that money to help people who are needier than they are. I’ve heard many stories of teachers who have found creative ways to raise money with their students, such as baking and selling Christmas cookies, selling chocolate bars or soda pop at a profit, making a hot lunch for the school body and charging per meal, or selling hot chocolate on a cold day. Once you’ve accrued enough money, students especially enjoy getting to have a voice in where the funds go. You could offer a list of ideas and let them vote. Or you could find an organization that lets you purchase things like cows, pigs, chickens, etc. for needy families in underdeveloped countries. Students love hearing about the ways different animals could help to change someone’s life and choosing several to sponsor. Encouraging Others Some of my favourite memories from my years as a teacher were what I called “Encouragement Days.” (The title wasn’t all that original, I admit). I taught sixth grade, so I started by talking to my students about how they are leaders among the elementary students. Then, we worked together to make little cards of encouragement for all the younger students. I had a few templates for them to choose from, usually with a simple drawing and a punny saying. (For example, a cartoon donut saying, “Donut give up!” or a cute fish saying, “You’re o-fish-ally awesome!”) Each of my students was assigned the names of several students so that all of the children in the younger grades were divvied out. They made a card for each of their assigned students, writing the child’s name at the top and signing it, “Your Secret Encourager.” This was the part that was especially fun. Children love to be in on a secret, and they love to be sneaky. We attached a small snack to the note, maybe a little baggie of goldfish crackers or a piece of candy. Then, I let my students leave the classroom one at a time to deliver their notes to the younger children’s cubbies. They would come back giggling and glowing, bursting with stories of how they “almost got caught” or had to duck to avoid being seen by someone. We usually did this at the end of the day, and it was pure delight to watch my students’ faces gleam with barely-concealed satisfaction at the buzz that permeated the school at dismissal as the younger students reacted with shock and wonderment at the secretive packages. The anonymous nature of this activity was intentional. Needing to be stealthy made the whole experience more memorable and fun, and I also wanted my students to learn something of what it means to do a kind act and not get recognized for it. Secret Agents of Good After the highly successful Encouragement Days, one year I decided to come up with another way to capitalize on my students’ delight in secrecy. That’s when I came up with “Secret Agents of Good.” I share this here not because I think you need to do this exact thing, but as one example of how you might use some creativity and out-of-the-box thinking to encourage your students in kind, servant-like behaviour. I divided my students into two teams and allowed them to come up with a team name (of course, because that’s more fun). For the purposes of this explanation, though, I’ll simply refer to them as Team A and Team B. In addition, I let each student come up with their own “Secret Agent” name. This was also fun and hilarious, as they ranged from things like “Sneaky Snake” to “Bob.” Then, each week, I’d assign them a secret mission. These secret missions varied, but were ways they could practice being thoughtful, kind, unselfish, or diligent. They were things like holding doors open, saying please and thank you often, letting others go before them in line, making only encouraging comments while playing sports, double-checking their spelling lists before handing them in—basically areas that I wanted them to work in developing themselves as a person. I’d write that week’s secret mission on pieces of paper and distribute them. All of Team A was given the same mission, and all of Team B was given the same mission. Their goal was to complete the action as many times as they could throughout the week, recording each instance in a little notebook I had given them. They would receive points for each time they successfully completed the mission. One week, for my own delight and pleasure, I gave both groups the mission of participating extra well during grammar class. I’ve never enjoyed teaching grammar more, and I dare say they had never learned grammar so well. The other way we made it competitive and fun was that they could also receive points for correctly guessing the other team’s mission. This meant that they had to be sneaky when they were completing their own secret mission so that the other team wouldn’t easily figure it out. And of course, I pointed out to them that the best way to keep the other team from guessing their secret mission was to do lots of other kind and thoughtful things as a decoy. They loved it. And I loved seeing them delight in doing good while also unconsciously making those actions a more habitual part of their lives. Church and Community Needs Don’t neglect letting your students offer suggestions for service. The more ownership they take of these acts of service, the more invested they will be. Ask them to come up with ideas of how to serve. Perhaps they know someone with cancer, or someone who just experienced a house fire, or someone who just lost a loved one. Brainstorm together how you could bless that person in the unique need they are facing. Your students are creative in ways you as an adult might not be. Use that creativity to bless others in beautiful ways. We live in a world that is increasingly individualistic and self-centered. As believers, we know that Jesus compels us to serve. But our sinful, selfish hearts get in the way. Our students may need help to think outside of themselves and their own little worlds. But when they are given opportunities to serve, they can start to experience the joy of becoming more like Jesus. Download Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Meghan Brubaker

Teaching Students Gratitude Deana Swanson April 11, 2025 Teaching Students Gratitude Blogpost 00:00 / 01:04 Download Download I splurged last Christmas and got my students three gifts. One was free—a collection of about twelve different kinds of seashells and a shell identification guide. I collected those all myself during a rare vacation weekend to Florida in November. The second was a $3.50 laminated colored map of the world, which they all loved and many taped to the tops of their desks–with permission, of course. The third was my splurge. I bought each one of them a hardcover Merriam-Webster combination dictionary and thesaurus. I carefully placed one on each student’s desk and wrote “To _____ from Mrs. Swanson, 2024” on the inside front cover. I got one thank you note from a very sweet student who obviously was grateful. The student even informed me that it had already been useful. But, I had another student who walked up to me at the end of the day, with the brand-new hardcover book in hand, asking, “Do you want this?” Aghast but with a smile, I replied, “I bought that just for you.” “I won’t really use it,” was the answer. Imagine a junior high student not needing a dictionary. I figured it wasn’t the time for a lecture as I didn’t want that to be the student’s last memory of me for 2024, but it really hurt my feelings. G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Thanks are the highest form of thought; and gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” That is so incredibly true. My brightest students are the ones who are grateful and appreciative. And the ones who are often more difficult to deal with are the least thankful. I’m rarely content with a situation that I know can and should be improved, so I began to ponder: What can we as teachers do to teach our students gratitude? Here are a few of my suggestions. Model thankfulness yourself. In morning prayers, thank God for your church, school building, parents, and supporting churches. Show gratitude for the mothers bringing in a hot lunch or a snack. Teach it! Have the students write thank you notes to places you visit on field trips, or to the pastor of the church for letting your school rent their basement. Sing at nursing homes, rake leaves for widows, and donate coins to a Christian Aid Ministries project. Give the students opportunities to experience what it feels like to be unselfish and to think of others. Gently point out wrongs . We had a friendly discussion about what returning a gift communicates to the giver, and what it reveals about the receiver as well. Obviously, students either have not been taught or have not internalized these concepts, so use these times as opportunities for short discussions and lessons on gratitude. Don’t take selfishness or thoughtlessness personally . It is usually more a reflection on their ages and lack of experience. Use these moments for gentle correction, and point them in the way they should go. Sometimes teaching involves a little more parenting, and this would be one of those situations. Also, be thankful yourself, as you have the privilege to be involved in the art of teaching, assisting parents and the church in the all-important work of training up godly men and women for the church of tomorrow. That’s a noble thing to be doing. Photo by Alexas_Fotos on Unsplash Download Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Deana Swanson

High School Chemistry Syllabus Brian J Martin July 2, 2020 High School Chemistry Syllabus Document 00:00 / 01:04 Download Download Brian shares his objectives, texts, and materials for teaching high school chemistry. Download the syllabus or preview it below. Download Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Brian J Martin

Encouraging and Blessing Your Teachers Ernie Weaver June 16, 2022 CASBI 2022 Encouraging and Blessing Your Teachers Audio 00:00 / 01:04 Download Download Taking care of teachers is an important part of a board's job. Ernie Weaver reminds board members of the value of good relationships with their staff and gives practical ways to encourage and bless a school's teachers. Download Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Ernie Weaver

Teaching in a Loud World 1: Healthy Habits Joseph Shantz November 25, 2023 Teachers Week 2022 - Audio Teaching in a Loud World 1: Healthy Habits Audio 00:00 / 01:04 Download Download We are surrounded by the noise of a dysfunctional world. How do we not only survive but serve others in this world? Joey reminds us that the world not only produces noise; it influences our motivations. Are your habits making you the kind of person you should be? Download Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Joseph Shantz

Principles For Personal Economics Kendall Myers November 15, 2017 Worldviews Class Materials Principles For Personal Economics Document 00:00 / 01:04 Download Download Five basic principles for making and spending money. Download Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Kendall Myers

Grooming a Story Jim Morrison March 5, 2020 Western Fellowship Teachers’ Institute 2019 Grooming a Story Audio 00:00 / 01:04 Download Download Why are some stories powerful, while others fall flat? Jim encourages us to tell stories with economy, empathy, universality, and tension--and offers plenty of example stories. This excerpt was taken from a longer talk, Stories that Teach presented at Western Fellowship Teachers' Institute 2019. Download Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Jim Morrison

Loving Impartially Aquilla Martin January 7, 2022 Western Fellowship Teachers' Institute 2021 Loving Impartially Audio 00:00 / 01:04 Download Download Love considers others, even when we don’t fully understand what others may be facing. Each child should be loved and cared for in a way that’s best for their needs. Download Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Aquilla Martin

Music 3 Harold D. Miller December 13, 2022 Western Fellowship Teachers' Institute 2022 Music 3 Audio 00:00 / 01:04 Download Download Session three of a three-part series on teaching music. Download Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Harold D. Miller

Hutterite Anabaptists Kendall Myers October 20, 2017 Anabaptist Church History Class by Kendall Myers Hutterite Anabaptists Document 00:00 / 01:04 Download Download Powerpoint with pictures of Hutterites today and a few from the past. Download Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Kendall Myers

Incorporating a Missions Perspective Renee George March 16, 2018 Incorporating a Missions Perspective Video 00:00 / 01:04 Download Download You know if teachers could have that perspective of just seeing their students as workers in God’s kingdom in the future... Every Christian is called to be a missionary, whether it's here or in some foreign land. Why not raise up the whole crew of little people to come after you? Just some things that I do here to try to incorporate that missions mindset in my students are things like ethnic group day where we all dress up in costumes of people from different countries and just focus on learning about those countries that day. Also we do prayer groups once a week for the missionaries and I read them missionary updates to keep them involved and know what's going on in the foreign field. I love sharing stories about my experience in Africa with them and they love hearing them. If I would have taught school here before going to Ghana it would have been very different. With having that experience I've been able to put more of a world view perspective in what I teach—to just get them beyond themselves and just the “me” focus and to help them realize that there's a whole other world out there of people that have needs and who don't have the privileges that we have. Like in reading class—there are so many rural villages in other countries that would love to know how to read and especially they would love to know how to read the Bible and they just can't. Like one village I was in in Ghana that I would meet with the ladies there and share with them Bible stories and they were sad when I left because they don't know how to read the Bible and there was no church in their village so how can they really learn more? Even like in math—learning the metric system. When I was in school, I never really found value in knowing the metric system. Why? And going to another country made me realize that the metric system is used in many other countries around the world and so there is value in it and just all those little things. The importance of learning another language. So this year we're learning sign language and last year we learned Spanish. Even like geography—the value of knowing your geography. I didn't really see much value in it when I was in school and so I didn't know my geography very well. But just realizing that God actually has a heart for these people. There are people living in these countries. It's not just the name of the country and its shape and a couple facts. There's actually people that are living there today with real needs. And Bible class too—just God’s promise to Abraham that He's going to bless him and then through him all the nations of the earth will be blessed and how that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. I didn't really know that before and so now teaching Bible class, I’m able to share that with my students and help them to see the big picture of God's redemption for the world. So it helped me to just see value in helping them to have that world view or expand their minds and like I said, get the focus off of themselves and on to, “What are people like in the rest of the world?” Download Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Renee George

Confession of Faith, and Nine Reflections Peter Burkholder May 24, 2017 Confession of Faith, and Nine Reflections Document 00:00 / 01:04 Download Download The full title of this nineteenth century work explains its content: "The Confession of Faith of the Christians Known by the Name of Mennonites, in Thirty-three Articles; with a Short Extract from Their Catechism. Translated from the German, and Accompanied with Notes to Which is Added an Introduction. Also, Nine Reflections, from Different Passages of the Scriptures, Illustrative of their Confession, Faith, and Practice; by Peter Burkholder, Pastor of the Church of the Mennonites; Written by him in the German Language, and from his manuscript translated, together with the foregoing articles, by Joseph Funk. Gameo includes this discussion of the work: 'In 1837 a book appeared at Winchester, Virginia, with the following lengthy title . The Confession is the P. J. Twisck 33 Articles found in the Martyrs' Mirror. The Introduction of 27 pages is an independent writing, designed "to adduce some testimony to prove the antiquity of our religious confession of faith and from Dr. Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History." It has been claimed that Peter Burkholder "compiled the confession," i.e., arranged for its publication in English. However, since everything which he wrote was translated from the German by Joseph Funk, as is clearly stated on the title page of the Nine Reflections, and as is stated of the additional material at the end of the book, including "Of the Administration of Baptism" (pp. 405-14), "Of the Mode and Practice of the Administration of Baptism" (414-17), and "On Predestination" (435-61), and since it is not indicated that the Introduction was translated, it is most likely that Joseph Funk, and not Peter Burkholder, was the author of the Introduction, the translator of all the material in the book, and the compiler of the volume.' For a discussion of the importance of this work in articulating the doctrine of the Mennonite Church prior to the Great Awakening, see the first of Edsel Burdge's talks on the Mennonite Great Awakening . Download Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Peter Burkholder