Weary in Well-Doing

Shadow Comforts

"Are my choices comforting and nourishing my spirit, or are they temporary retrieves from vulnerability and difficult emotions ultimately diminishing my spirit? Are my choices leading to my Wholeheartedness,  or do they leave me feeling empty and searching?"

Brené Brown, Daring Greatly

"Smallness of Soul"

"[R]eading Thomas Aquinas (1224-74) on the virtue of courage, I happened across a vice which he called pusillanimity, which means 'smallness of soul.' Those afflicted by this vice, wrote Aquinas, shrink back from all that God has called them to be. When faced with the effort and difficulty of stretching themselves to the great things of which they are capable, the cringe and say, 'I can't.' In short the pusillanimous reply on their own puny powers and focus on their own potential for failure, rather than counting on God's grace to equip them for great work in his kingdom--work beyond anything they might have dreamed of for themselves." 

Rebecca Kronyndyk DeYoung, Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins

Another example of the need for Christians to dare greatly through the power of the grace of Christ.

Personal Qualities Not Measured by Tests

Just a reminder for myself that I need to be making this clear to my students. The marks we give are not a mark for who they are, but for what they've done. Marks do not define the person.
This is also part of Daring Greatly--developing the above qualities--this what it is to be human.

Are we fostering some of the above qualities? Perhaps, but perhaps not for the right reasons. Students might develop self-discipline out of fear of failure. They might be reliable because they are afraid if they aren't, they won't be loved.

I struggle a lot with the feeling that schools are too much like factories. We don't allow the students to develop and learn in a natural way, but we push them through the system. You have to complete the curriculum, do the tests, report on their progress, do the exams, and pass them on to the next tier.

It doesn't feel like there is room  in high school for pursuing personal interests and going deep into topics that the students engage with. I wish there was a course that could just be individually-focused and -directed. Like a full year ISU, but the students would be self-directed and able to explore pathways of interest as they come up. They could write journals/blogs and do presentations and write essays and make videos, etc. and these would be used to assess them. It would be like grad school, I guess, where they would defend their "thesis" --the body of work they create-- at the end.
Maybe it wouldn't work for everyone, maybe there would be too much leeway and some people would be lost without guidelines. That, I guess, would be where their mentor/teacher would come in--to provide structure if necessary.
Maybe this is just an INTP dream. . .

Just some things running through my brain at present.

Daring Greatly by Paul

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted." Hebrews 12:1-3 ESV

The Man in the Arena

Hope

"Hope is a function of struggle. If we want our children to develop high levels of hopefulness, we have to let them struggle." 

Brené Brown, Daring Greatly