This is a time of transitions. Of course, as you know this is the time school days transition to long vacation time for the kids. They will be transitioning to the next grade, moreso of course these days than yesteryear. Once upon a time schools believed that holding back a child who wasn’t ready for the next grade was the right thing to do. Parents had to fight the schools to keep their children from this fate. Nowadays, schools have done a 180 and advance just about anyone believing it does more harm than good to hold that child back. This means that a child can do pretty much whatever he or she wants during the year without fear of having to repeat the grade. Parents who actually believe they might help their child by holding him/her back now must fight for this end instead. Is being held back such a bad thing? I don’t know- I just know things have really changed in schooling.
Okay, I have gone way off topic now, so where was I? Ah yes, transitions. I am transitioning from working to looking for work. I will be looking in to a state job possibly, among other things. I mean, besides teaching- there are state jobs in just about every field. There are also transitions in my church as of late. One of the teaching pastors left a couple of months ago after only a short time at my church to head up another college. The new singles group got started a couple of weeks ago. Most kids moved up a grade starting this week (the rest will change over at the end of August). And, there have been some staff rotations. The pastor that had written the curriculum for at least 4th/5th grade, probably the younger grades too, had transitioned to another church campus running both from there, but now he’s back and they hired another one to take over at the other campus so now each is dedicated to one campus. However, as duties have changed now a different pastor who previously did mostly the younger grades has officially taken over 4th and 5th grades as well, meaning he is responsible to get out the emails about the weekend to the leaders, such as what we should be doing, who will be teaching, new rules, etc… Yes, with the transitions come new rules. Just a slight change, but since he didn’t get an email out being new to this and all- he didn’t let us know until Saturday night. One of us two leaders (yes, only two of us this service) had to take over last minute. Since I work two services, I agreed I would teach Sunday morning so she taught Saturday night. The third service was actually worked out between a couple of the leaders phoning each other when they didn’t get an email I found out later, so Sunday went quite smoothly.
This was the first time for the former third-graders, now fourth-graders, so things were completely new to them. They are used to having a drama (which I was part of, of course) but now they have a game time instead. Worship is also different- they have to provide all the singing. Prior to this, they sang to recorded children’s songs, with the leader providing motions to do. Now the leader is more like the leader tin the main worship service, providing the music via guitar and possibly other instruments depending on who is there. Well, this was how it worked Sunday. We had no worship leader on Saturday night. High school students are a big part of this ministry and we just don’t have any serving on Saturday nights (they often provide the music as well as lead). We have had an adult doing worship Saturday nights, but he wasn’t there this time for some reason. I hope he didn’t transition out, or if so that a replacement takes over quickly.
Anyway, also new to the new kids are small groups divided up by gender. Girls with female leaders, boys with male. The leaders could of course be high-school age, adults, or somewhere in between which is why I don’t say “women” or “men.” Well, one thing that hasn’t changed is my Monday night small group, and I have to do my homework for it, so- later.
I’m not sure who to blame for the “sliding by” of students. However, it does seem to be more and more prevalent.
I don’t know, but we really have to stop worrying so much about “damaging” our children. As a nation we try to shelter them from everything. Now of course there are some things we do need to protect them from, things that will severely injure or kill for example. But we go to far by protecting their egos from losing a game by not keeping score and banning all competitive games altogether from recess time. That isn’t protecting them- it’s hurting them because it isn’t teaching them reality, and when they finally move out and join the real world they will be woefully unprepared.