Committing to Classroom Management

People are people, and in particular, kids are kids.
Human nature is distorted by sin, and on top of that, adolescence carries challenges all its own.
Assuming these statements are true, does it follow to say that schools are schools?
Perhaps, in the sense that no school is perfect, and every school has its own issues.
Perhaps not, in the sense that some schools are just plain healthier than others.

Classroom management means something completely different for me than it did for my brother during his time teaching on the Pineridge Reservation, and something completely different than it does for teachers in many inner-city schools in America.

My classroom management is not dictated by an urgent concern for students' physical safety, for the prevention of fights in the classroom, or for keeping students from simply leaving school mid-day.

Indeed, by these criteria, my record is spotless.

However, my students have their own challenges, and this is where my classroom management must be directed.

I have students from all over the world and I treasure this diversity in a single classroom.  However, in a setting where different perspectives are inevitable, students can be reluctant to speak up for fear of ridicule--even something so subtle as rolled eyes or a quiet sigh from a classmate.  This is what classroom management needs to address in my setting.

I have students who by and large have access to technology at all times: the laptops they are loaned by the school, home-computers, smart-phones, video games.  Varying levels of addiction to their screens, whether it be YouTube, a certain game, or a certain social networking site are not uncommon.  This is what classroom management needs to address in my setting.

I have students who desire to do well in school, but tend to over-commit, trying to tackle one or two too many AP classes along with co-curricular activities.  Setting goals and managing time do not always come naturally.  This is what classroom management needs to address in my setting.

Interestingly, the students are just as aware of this as I am.  For their first assignment in my class, as mentioned in last week's post, they had to read my course syllabus and then post to a discussion forum on our course Moodle suggesting a classroom policy that would support one of our two major classroom rules: 1) Respect and 2) Cultivating a Comfortable, Healthy Learning Environment.

I read through nearly 50 posts.  50 policies would be too many, so I looked for repeats, recurring themes or policies that could be combined.  In the end, I was left with the following set of policies:



Respect:

• Expect that others will see things differently--disagree respectfully, agree supportively ("supportively" meaning: have reasons for agreeing--don't just say, "I agree").
• No putdowns of classmates’ ideas or character--this includes nonverbal cues (rolling eyes, making faces).
• Listen carefully and attentively to whoever is speaking or contributing--no chatting or interrupting.
• Encourage and challenge one another, and yourself.
• Put yourself in others’ shoes--be understanding and gracious.

Classroom environment:

• Food is allowed, but keep the classroom clean!
• Only use computers when instructed.
• Computers are a tool to be used for classroom tasks; don’t misuse! 
• Phones, off-task books, other homework should be stored in your backpack or locker.
• Use your time well, and if you finish your work, look for ways to help classmates who are behind.

This is the product of the students' work, and not mine--I simply boiled the list down from the policies they recommended.  On Thursday, the students signed their names to a poster sheet with these policies written on them, effectively entering into a contract to consciously work on, encourage and protect these things.   We agreed upon a warning-consequence structure, though the details may vary depending on the policy.

I intend to refer back to these policies regularly with the students to review and reflect upon how we are doing, and to determine how we could be doing better.

My hope and prayer is that by the end of the year, the students will not need me to warn them or police them, that they will be able to hold themselves and one another accountable.  Already, I am seeing evidence that many of the students feel invested in these policies--ownership is exactly what I was going for in inviting them into the process of writing them.  I am committed to doing my part to help the students make these rules and policies genuine, internal values.  It won't always be easy, but then, the most worthwhile lessons rarely are.

Resolutions for a New Year

It never ceases to amaze me how much the atmosphere on campus can change in just a week's time.

One week ago, the campus was practically deserted save for the window-washing crew and a plaza full of noisy cicada.

Today, the cicada chorus was overpowered by the constant hum of anticipation and activity: staff physicals in the mini-gym, last-minute meetings throughout the day, a staff family barbecue in the evening, tennis and volleyball practices on the courts and in the gym.

In just a couple days, campus will be full, and a new year will be fully underway.  Excitement is in the air.

In connection with what I learned in my summer Master's classes, I have two main resolutions for this new school-year:

The first is to use technology to free up class-time for more activities, discussion, work-shopping and especially independent reading.
For a project this summer, I read Flip Your Classroom by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams to learn more about how I could transfer more technical and dry aspects of class to be completed outside of class.

In the end, I settled on the idea of video-recording an explanation of my class syllabus, unit guides and all assignment prompts so that they can be watched (and re-watched) outside of class rather than taking up class time with me mostly just reading information to the students.

I posted my course syllabi for both English and History earlier this week.  I asked students to respond to a syllabus discussion forum by the 2nd day of school to indicate that they had read the syllabus and watched my explanation.  I've already gotten several responses, and I am excited to be able to dive right into important discussions about our theme for the year on the first day of class rather than spending the entire period reading my syllabus.

I think my idea has good potential moving forward and I hope to improve my video-making skills as time goes on.

My second resolution is to actively teach and work with the students on the development of time-management strategies.  For my summer class on learner development and principles of learning, I researched classroom management and came away with the conviction to really focus in on time-use with my students.  While other years in school receive a lot of attention as pivotal years of transition, I truly believe that 11th grade has been too often overlooked.  In essence, 11th graders must make the jump from underclassmen to Seniors, preparing for college or career.  That's quite a lot of ground to cover in one year, but I also firmly believe that 11th graders are up to the challenge.  They just need guidance, feedback and encouragement, and I would like to make that an integral part of my job this year.

In my syllabus, I outlined my two main rules for the classroom as being "Respecting one another" and "Cultivating a comfortable, healthy learning environment".  I told the students that since these rules were fairly broad, we would need to come up with a list of specific policies that would help support these goals and ensure that they are realized in practice.  Therefore, one of the posts that the students must complete in order to show that they've read the syllabus is to recommend at least one classroom policy.  So far, we have policies prohibiting bullying & put-downs, and policies calling for students to help classmates who are behind or struggling.  I'm looking forward to reading more of these as they come in and then boiling them down into a succinct list.  We will also spend some time in class creating a consequence structure, and discuss strategies for holding one another accountable.  I plan to revisit our classroom rules, policies and consequences with the students on a regular basis in order to reflect on how we are doing, make any necessary adjustments and practicing the ability to self-monitor.

I put the lion's share of my time and energy into my curriculum last summer.  While I have certainly spent quality time over the past week touching things up, and will continue to make adjustments as the year goes on, I feel that for the first time ever, I will be able to dedicate myself to classroom practice and maintenance as never before.  While I love working with ideas and thinking about the big picture (a trait that I think is helping me to develop as a resident curriculum geek), all of that would be meaningless without the human element: I love working with the students and am excited to help them grow not only as students of English and History, but as people.

The old year was amazing and I've got a feeling that the new year just around the corner will be even better.  I can't wait to get started!

Initiating Year 8

It was a strange feeling to step back into my classroom this morning for the first time since June, and remember that I already have a good curriculum in place.

You see, in my first few years of teaching, I had the unfortunate habit of completely scrapping what I had done the year before, and trying to build something new (which I would just end up scrapping the next year, and so on).

This pattern of futility stopped when I was assigned to map out my curriculum for one of my summer Master's courses two years ago.  That summer, I spent a good 36 hours on my Humanities curriculum, applying principles of backwards design as I'd never done before.  Though the school-year that followed was not an easy one, it affirmed to me that my planning was on the right track, and also revealed some significant gaps (especially in my essential questions and assessments) which would need my attention during the next summer.  Fortunately, an assignment for one class asked me to research and apply learning about essential questions to a unit in my class, and the other asked me to research and apply universal design to a unit.  These helpful tasks gave me the momentum to apply what I learned to my entire curriculum, and it was during this planning time that I decided that I ought to make "justice" the central theme of my 11th grade classes.

This summer, my Master's classes revolved more around philosophy--of educational technology, of learner development.  These have been tremendously helpful in developing personal frameworks and perspectives on the way I teach, and the way my students learn.  Because of the nature of these courses, I have not worked on my curriculum until just this past week.

I find myself in the odd and unprecedented position of really liking what I did last year.  That's never been the case before.  I suppose that if I wanted to, I could just kick back and relax for one more week and just use the same materials as last year... but that's not who I am.  I thrive on a feeling of growth and development.  This manifested itself in unhealthy ways when I would tear down my entire curriculum and rebuild from the ground up, but I think this impulse is fundamentally a good one, and that the benefits will show now that I have a curriculum I want to hold on to.

This morning, I spent an hour setting the stage for the next week's worth of preparation.  I must confess that I'm not all that productive planning and brainstorming in front of a computer (reflection is a different story--this blog should provide evidence of that!).  In order to think creatively and think through how my curriculum fits together, I need to actually step into my curriculum and walk around.  So, I'm returning to a strategy I used in my planning last summer:
I wrote out my unit titles on A3 sheets of paper which I laid out on the floor of my classroom.  Then, I wrote out my essential questions on smaller sheets of paper, and set those around the units that they are attached to.
Over the next week, I will literally walk through my curriculum with Post-It notes in hand in order to fix up a few things in particular: a few of my essential questions are not related to my standards and I need to change those; some of my assessments connected to those superfluous essential questions will need to be revised or removed; one of my units needs a clearer focus.

The difficulty with this odd-unit-out is that it's my shortest unit at 4 weeks (the first unit after Christmas Break), and the focus is split between the Civil War--with essential questions about root causes/inevitability of conflict, the proper role of compromise, the use of terror or civil disobedience to achieve worthy goals; and U.S. Foreign Policy--with essential questions about isolationism, interventionism, and what it means for a nation to be a "good neighbor".  Both sides are important, but they do not really "gel" together in the same unit, and so I need to perform cosmetic surgery to make everything work in a way that makes sense with regard to the bigger theme of justice.

I know what I need to accomplish, and this will happen much more effectively if I'm able to write notes to myself, rearrange sheets of paper, physically add or remove essential questions.

The beauty of all this, though, is that I'm not starting from scratch: my final unit is still titled "Becoming People of Justice", and five of the six units leading up to that point have a clear theme that helps build toward that goal.

I suppose this is the kind of focus and ease that comes only with experience!  While I'm grateful for one more week to work, plan and prepare, I am excited to start the new school year.  Those challenging early years of surviving day-to-day are behind me, and I can look forward to growing and thriving as a teacher, standing on a solid foundation!

Summer 2015

Not only was it my longest stay in the States in four years, it was Tomomi's longest stay in the States ever, not to mention our longest stay as a married couple.

Whereas with past visits, it felt like we had barely unpacked before we were on our way to the airport to return to Tokyo again, this time we were able to get comfortable and make ourselves at home.

And yet, the past 52 days slipped by swiftly and silently.

In retrospect, we fit quite a lot in during our time in the States:

We visited my brother and his wife on the East Coast.  Ben had just finished up his first year at Yale Divinity School, and we were able to fly out at the end of June and spend a few days with him, and a day with Hilary (who had been away at a wedding for most of that week).  Highlights of our time on the East Coast included a day of sight-seeing in NYC, the opportunity to tour around Yale, spending time at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, where Ben works part-time training high-school aged "interpreters" who show visitors around and deliver presentations on various exhibits, attending church at St. John's Episcopal, eating legendary New Haven pizza (really--it's a thing!), going to see Inside Out, and of course, having plenty of time to visit and catch up with Ben & Hilary in person for the first time in nearly a year.

Next was our cross-country road-trip!  On June 30, we flew to Minneapolis, where we met up with my parents (who had flown in from Seattle an hour before us).  We rented a car and drove out to Rhinelander, Wisconsin.  We spent the next day visiting my sister at Honey Rock, a beautiful summer camp affiliated with Wheaton College.  Lea had just started her job as an administrative assistant and even though she had the day off, it was still interesting to have a glimpse into her world for the summer.  She showed us around the camp and took us out on the lake in a canoe.  We even got to watch her perform in a skit for the campers!

The next day saw us back on the road, heading west toward Washington.  Highlights of our road-trip included singing hymns to stay awake on our first night of driving, visiting with my dad's 98-year-old Aunt Lois and cousin Tim in Mankato, MN, visiting Dordt College and one of my professors for the first time since 2008, rediscovering the beauty of South Dakota (visiting the Badlands, the Needles Highway, Crazy Horse and Mt. Rushmore), visiting Yellowstone for the first time and catching up with my 75-year old high school biology teacher who still works summers as a park ranger (and still teaches Senior Biology the rest of the year, for that matter), visiting my mom's 95-year old Aunt Betty and cousins in Eastern Washington, and taking the scenic Cascades Highway home on the last day of driving.  Most of all, it was a precious time for us to spend with my parents, showing Tomomi a much larger portion of America than she had ever seen before.  She has now been in 14 states!

We arrived back at my parents' house on July 8.  At that point, it was time for me to really buckle down on my Master's coursework.  Woods Coffee became a daily destination, and to ensure that we weren't just sitting all the time, Tomomi and I began an enjoyable routine of walking 5k along Lynden's lovely walking trail each day before settling down to work at Woods.  It was primarily at Woods that I finished work for my two summer classes: one on the usage of educational technology, and the other on learner development & principles of learning.

Over the past month, we also had the opportunity to celebrate both of my parents' birthdays, catch up with extended family at my great-uncle's 80th birthday celebration, celebrate my pastor and his wife's 50th anniversary, complete two 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles, enjoy a day-trip to Seattle, catch up with several of my own teachers, enjoy meals with several good friends, and watch many-a sunset from the hill in the field behind my parents' house.

Nearly every day, Tomomi and I would climb into my old Ford Taurus, a trusty car which served me well for three and a half years of college in Iowa.  We would drive to Lynden taking the back-roads.  While these quiet country roads add a few minutes to the drive, the extra time has always been worth it, in my mind.  As long as I can remember, I have preferred this route to the quicker and more direct drive down Hannegan Road.  There is something magical about being one of the only cars--and sometimes the only car--on the road; something peaceful about the sight of cattle grazing and resting in a pasture to the side of the road, watched over by Mt. Baker and the Twin Sisters on the Eastern horizon.

I came to a powerful realization as I drove this route just a few days ago: I may live in the biggest city in the world, but I am, and always will be a country-boy at heart.  Tomomi wrote on my mom's birthday card that she feels ready to move to America at any time, and that it all depends on my feeling, and our sense of calling... so what is my feeling, exactly?  What is our sense of calling?

Let me be clear: I still feel called to my work at CAJ.  We still feel called to our life in Tokyo, to our home-church (and Tomomi's work) at Grace Harbor.

At the same time, as we talk about the future, we talk about Tomomi's visa as an eventuality.  We talk about a house with a big yard.  We talk about planting a garden.  We talk about owning a dog.  We talk about raising our future children in close proximity to nature.
Deep down, we fully expect that one day, we will move to the States... we just don't feel that God is calling us to make that move quite yet.

And so, we cling to God's calling and rely on His timing.  Getting on the plane tomorrow may be more bitter than sweet (especially as we anticipate the nasty heat and humidity we are returning to), but we rest in the assurance that we are going back to where we are supposed to be for now.

We also know that this is not 'goodbye' to Washington--we will be back to visit soon enough.

And one day, we will come back for more than just a visit.

"Go Set a Watchman" Review

As a history student, and now, teacher, the 1960s fascinated me.  I always wondered what it would have been like to live at such a dramatic time.

Then, 2014 came, bringing with it a string of highly-publicized confrontations between law enforcement and Black Americans.  2015 thus far has brought riots in Baltimore, the tragic shooting at a Black church in South Carolina, and a growing movement to remove the Confederate flag.  Today, July 14, 2015 also brought Go Set a Watchman.  The controversy over the nature of the decision to publish this novel aside, I was excited to hear that in the midst of tension, violence and chaos not unlike that in the 1960s, the world would hear one more story from the same brilliant author who gave readers To Kill a Mockingbird fifty-five years ago.  This was accompanied by a surreal feeling of becoming unstuck in time and place, a feeling that has not eased much having now read the novel.

Just to make it perfectly clear up front for any who may not have understood: Go Set a Watchman is not a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird.  At least, not in the traditional sense.  It was Harper Lee's first attempt at a novel, and in response to editorial advice, Lee took a flashback scene from the book and focused on developing the characters in that setting, resulting in the beloved novel that spawned an Academy-award winning film adaptation, and has been mandatory reading for so many high school English students since then.  Go Set a Watchman is that original manuscript, exactly as it was when Lee submitted it more than five decades ago.  This means that the book that record millions have pre-ordered on Amazon and will soon read is the same book that publishers sent back with the advice that Lee expand the flashbacks into a full novel.  This is Harper Lee's first attempt at a novel, even though it deals with familiar characters years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird.  This is an un-edited and un-polished copy of a beloved author's first attempt.  Although the release of this novel doubles the list of her works to two, it is undeniable that Mockingbird was a masterpiece and that Lee learned quite a lot as she revised.  All of this in mind, it is crucial that readers be somewhat gracious to Lee regarding some of the technical aspects of this book.  I've already seen a few reviews criticizing the dialogue for rambling or becoming stilted in places, or criticizing the novel's resolution for feeling rushed.  To these critics, I say "What do you expect?  Harper Lee was a 30-year old first-time novelist, and she responded to an editor's critiques on this exact manuscript by writing one of the (if not THE) greatest masterpieces in American Literature!"  It would be unfair for us to expect that same level of polish and brilliance out of her first attempt, especially considering that it has been published as-is, with no revision.  By rights, we should never have seen this story.  Yet, this is the story Lee set out to tell, and it's markedly different from the story she ultimately told in Mockingbird.  And, I argue, it's the story that America needs to hear at this time, just as Mockingbird was the story America needed to hear then.

The themes of To Kill a Mockingbird are familiar to most Americans who can remember their 8th, 9th, perhaps 10th grade English class: childhood innocence; prejudice; integrity.  The story was told from perspective of a six-year old Jean-Louise "Scout" Finch, and the readers were invited to see the world through her eyes.

The Jean-Louise Finch who we meet riding for a visit home to Maycomb on the train in the opening pages of Watchman is 26 years old, and has been living in New York.  She finds herself torn between a deep affection and nostalgia for Maycomb on the one hand, isolation and disgust with the racial climate of her home-town on the other.  In one particularly memorable scene, Jean-Louise attends a "coffee"--a social function hosted by her Aunt, and finds herself listening to three different conversations at once: married women with no children; married women with children; and unmarried women with no prospects.  Lee humorously weaves this scene with snippets from each conversation, the image being this lonely young woman stuck in the middle, not feeling at ease in any of the social circles around her, a stranger in the town where she grew up.

Race takes on a more central role in Watchman than it did in Mockingbird, and I wondered as I read if Lee's sometimes heavy hand on issues that were at the time completely contemporary (Brown vs. the Board of Education; the NAACP; a burgeoning Civil Rights movement) played a role in her editor's recommendation.  Before this manuscript came to light, I always thought it was a stroke of genius that Lee would comment on racism in the 50s and 60s by telling a story set several decades earlier, but it seems that this was not her initial intent.  In any event, what was fresh and current when she wrote the book is now the stuff of U.S. History textbooks and is further removed from us than the Great Depression was from Lee... and yet, still painfully relevant.  Through Jean-Louise, the reader feels the angry indignation of a society that seems slow to change.  This resistance to change is embodied in none other than Atticus Finch.

Much of the buzz I heard around the novel in the days leading up to its release came in such tantalizing headlines as "Atticus Finch a Racist in Lee's New Novel"; "Watchman's Atticus Finch a Member of the Klan" and the like.  The truth is far more complex, not nearly so black and white.  Readers will be delighted to find the 72-year old, heavily arthritic Atticus every bit as wry, patient and gentle as he was in Mockingbird.  At the same time, this is an Atticus who is concerned and even cynical about the NAACP's relationship to the Supreme Court, and who resists the expansion of the federal government into the lives of American citizens.  This is also an Atticus who feels that government-mandated, rapid desegregation will be a disaster.  Yet, it is the same Atticus who taught his children that to understand someone, they need to walk around in their skin; the same Atticus who defended Tom Robinson at great risk to his career and personal safety; the same Atticus who taught his children that it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.  Atticus is who he always was, but the readers come away with a broadened perspective on his humanity, along with Jean-Louise.  At one point, Jean-Louise's Uncle Jack, Atticus' younger brother, remarks that Atticus may not make many mistakes, but he does make mistakes, like anybody.  Come to that, some of the comments Jean-Louise makes may seem backward and racially offensive to modern ears, even though she simultaneously rages against the backwardness she sees in her father--an effect Lee surely did not intend, but is surprisingly effective nonetheless.

It is in dealing with such disappointing, but relatable realizations about the heroes we hold dear that the novel comes to its central theme.  As we watch Jean-Louise struggle with the recognition that her father--her idol, her watchman--is only human, we are invited to do the same, and while we're at it, to recognize our own flaws.

While this is written in a less sure, less accomplished hand than the one that told us the story of Jem, Scout and Dill so many years ago, the themes are poignant and powerful, and offer a call to agency in the face of injustice; agency in spite of our flaws and limitations; agency that deals graciously with others' flaws and limitations.

Along the way, Watchman offers a return to Maycomb at many different points in Jean-Louise's life by virtue of the flashbacks that so captivated Lee's editor.  Like Mockingbird, this novel is filled with witty, lyrical scenes of small-town life; unlike Mockingbird, it is tempered with a yearning for days gone by and a feeling of not quite fitting into that small town.  For this small-town boy who has lived in Tokyo for nearly a decade, such feelings hit close to home.  Watchman also offers readers a unique and insightful perspective on Southern society at a time when the South seems to be the setting for the worst of racial conflicts in America.

While this is not (and should never be anticipated to be) the masterpiece that Mockingbird is, it is also a tremendous gift to the world and one that comes at a time when the gift is most needed.  It is my sincere hope that this book, as with Mockingbird challenges its readers to examine themselves, and to have the courage to do what is right.

A Year of Reflective Teaching

I fought to make the closing minutes on the final day of school last as long as I could.  At about the same time that I had slumped down at my desk weary and frustrated a year earlier, I set out to savor all the teacher moments I could before the students would leave for the summer:

I helped a group of rising 11th graders track down summer reading in the library.
I sought out many of my students from this past year, now rising 12th graders, to thank them, and to wish them a wonderful summer.
I chatted and took a selfie with a group of rising 10th graders.
I said some difficult goodbyes to students who would not be returning to CAJ next year.
I received several beautiful letters from students that brought tears to my eyes.

When I left campus for the day, my heart was heavy, though for very different reasons than the year before.  My heart was heavy because I had invested it so deeply in my teaching and in my students, and by stepping out the gates, I was admitting that time had to keep marching on.  The deeper our love for something, the more difficult to let it go.
And yet, this same investment--my love for my job and for my students--was a source of tremendous joy throughout the whole school-year; joy that far outweighed the sadness I felt as I left campus--and the school-year--behind.

This year, I chose integrity.  I taught in a way that was true to my identity.  I was real with my students, and just as importantly, I was real with myself.

A vital component of that realness has been these regular reflections.  Writing is, and has always been the means by which I process what is happening in my life, and this year, it enabled me to process my teaching in particular.  Taking the time to reflect every week or every other week kept me accountable in my quest to teach with integrity.  Regardless of the topic, my reflections brought me face-to-face with my priorities and practices, my strengths and my weaknesses.  It led me to think deeply and intentionally about what I was doing in the classroom and spurred me to continually work harder, to invest more completely, to try new things, and learn from my mistakes.

Though this school-year has ended, my reflection will continue.  I am satisfied with my curriculum, but I still have adjustments to make for next year, new resources to find, new activities and teaching strategies to brainstorm.  I cannot simply repeat what I did this past year--reflective teaching requires a commitment to lifelong learning and personal growth.  I am grateful for the summer vacation that now stretches before me, but deep down, I am already counting down the days until the next school-year begins.  I pray that my teaching next year, too, will be characterized by integrity, and supported by earnest, ongoing reflection.

Becoming People of Justice

"Becoming People of Justice"
These were the words I had scrawled on a poster-sized sheet of paper on a rainy day last June; it was the last in a series of large sheets laid out on my classroom floor, but the only one with anything written on it.  I was setting out to fix up my curriculum.

I knew I needed a theme through which everything else could be filtered, a goal toward which every unit and every lesson would build.

"Justice" had been one of several course themes that I'd used the previous year, but I don't think I'd referred back to any of those themes after the first day of class.  They had been little more than construction paper decorations on the wall at the back of the classroom, pleasant but forgettable.

As I wrestled with the long list of course objectives and learning targets in my curriculum map, it became clear to me that "justice" was the unifying factor--a common tie that provided purpose and direction to the major understandings and skills of my class.

So I started with "Becoming People of Justice", and decided almost immediately that the final essay of the year would ask students to engage with what it means to be people of justice today.  From there, I resolved to work backward and fill in all of the blank sheets with the units and learning experiences that would equip my students to address this question on a deep and meaningful level.

Over the coming weeks, my revised curriculum took shape with units focusing on such subjects as love, agency, stewardship and worldview.

When I talked my students through the syllabus on the second day of school in August, I let them know about the prompt for the final essay up front, informing them that it would be a synthesis of everything that they would study and write about in the coming year.

The essay needed to include 5 literary sources, 5 historical references, 5 Scripture passages, as well as a reference to the global issue that the student would have chosen by then to research for their Senior Comprehensive Project.

Though all of this seemed awfully distant back in August, the year passed by quickly and I now find myself nearly finished grading these culminating essays.

I do not think I could have chosen a better course theme--student buy-in was high, and as the year went on, they began to see connections to the theme of justice in nearly everything we studied.  Just this week as I have held my final book conferences for Guided Outside Reading, I have been thrilled to hear students identifying justice and injustice in the works that they have read on their own, outside of class.

While there is, of course, always room for improvement, and I have in mind several changes to make as I teach toward this theme next year, I am so pleased with the level of thought and engagement that I see in the student essays that I am reading.

Here are just a handful of ideas that have come up in the students' writings:


"...true justice can only be built on a foundation of true love."

"Justice prompted by fear results only in heartbreak, hatred, and increased fear, for simply supplying for someone what that person “deserves” is never the correct option. Vengeance gives birth only to vengeance."

"The meaning of true justice is not to punish the oppressors, but to comfort and support the oppressed."

"I can’t just write about being a person of justice without actually following through with what I am saying. I will wear my cape, and I wear my symbol, and I am the one to choose to fly or not. And I do choose to fly, because justice is not justice if it’s not lived out."

"Author Lois McMaster Bujold profoundly wrote in her book, Diplomatic Immunity, that “[t]he dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a duty of the living to do so for them”, but I ask, “is it only the dead who are left without a voice?” In essence, what Bujold wrote could be broadened to imply that we need to empathize with those voiceless live souls against whom injustice is perpetrated."

"Persons of justice must be careful of such twisted views when striving to be impartial; however, they must also remember that they cannot remain neutral forever if they are truly seeking justice."

"Just as selfless people courageously take action to stand up for others, selfish people too often sit idle and wait for change to happen. To be someone that achieves justice requires a person to be an agent and dictate what they want to see happen."

"In this fallen society of mankind, a person of justice has the duty to view others equally without prejudice, to rise and take action to prevent injustice, and most importantly, to care for the vulnerable in order to impact the world for Christ."

"What is it that makes us human? We are born with a basic set of morality that is blurred, twisted, and deformed by the society we grow up in. But no matter how old we get we can still feel guilt. That’s what makes us human."

"A wise man once said “True love is an act of the will - a conscious decision to do what is best for the other person instead of ourselves.” (Billy Graham) This explains why being selfless is such a noble and just act! To be selfless means to make a conscious decision."

"Although it may seem impossible to make a difference in a world with millions of people, we should always be looking out for opportunities to help others in big or small ways. We are gifted with the opportunity to do good in our lives."

"I find that when we fight, we hear only our voice, when really there is always someone too quiet to speak up that needs help when even they may not know it."

"Ideas of right and wrong are continuously changing, but there is a basis for which we can look to for an answer that will not change. The values that are found in the Bible, do not change due to the time period or society’s view."

"We see how so many humans beings have been lied to about their safety, along with the safety of their environment. We have been taught to praise technological developments before we even consider the fact that we actually might be doing more harm than good. Rachel Carson, author of​ Silent Spring ​changed this thinking for people through her writings. In her book about the hazards of the pesticide DDT, Carson brought to light the fact that we, as humans, often overlook the damage that our developments might have on life."

"Linda, from the book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, first did recognize the need for justice, as she realized that slavery was wrong. 'I had not lived fourteen years in slavery for nothing. I had felt, seen, and heard enough, to read the characters, and question the motives, of those around me. The war of my life had begun; and though one of God's most powerless creatures, I resolved never to be conquered'. She realized, and she used that realization to feed her decision to fight that injustice. She fought that injustice done against her by standing up against her master. 'You have tried to kill me, and I wish you had; but you have no right to do as you like with me.'"

"One should contemplate about how to fulfill his or her responsibilities as faithful stewards who continuously strive to eradicate the injustices that are still rampant in today’s world. I, myself, am planning to involve in the field of electrical engineering to contribute to the development of the industry of magnetic levitation train, a technology that has tremendous potential for restoring the environment polluted by irresponsible abuses of chemicals but requires astronomical costs to build with today’s technology."

One student even wrote her essay as an epic poem:

"In Truth we will become the Person of Justice:
One who believes that the human race, among all the vile
Is Still beautiful
One who still believes that the human race, even through the apathy
Is Still impassioned
One who still believes that the human race, amidst all the adversity
Is Still resilient"

Overall, it has been a joy to read these essays; a celebration of the learning that has taken place in my classroom over the past nine months. Next year, these students will commit to their yearlong project of researching and raising awareness about the global issue they chose in this final unit of 11th grade. It is my hope and prayer that the words they have written for these final essays will become a reality that guides and shapes them next year, and in the years to come.