A Toast.

To new and renewed love,
to finding out what is really precious and letting go of things that are trivial and have no ultimate value,
to a greater understanding of one another and the realization that we are all in this thing called life together,
to wisdom, courage, and conviction for the world's leaders which will lead the world closer to peace,
to a hunger for Truth and a passion for compassion...

to old friends, heroes, and lifetimes!

Happy 2007!!!
dt

5 Things.

Interesting tag from the Ponderer. Here are five things that you may not know about me just from this blog.

1) Sometime during the 2007 campaign I will eclipse the mid century mark in rockin' out with the 6 headed monster. I started listening to Widespread Panic my junior year in high school and fell in love with the lyrics of "Ain't Life Grand." My first show was in Charlotte in 1999 back when the boys played the Center City Fest at night. It was a very purple show. Since then I've been to NC, SC, VA, TN, AL, and CO... and maybe beyond. Panic never plays the same show... in fact they rarely play the same songs within a 4 night run. Mikey Houser died in 2002, but the band has settled in with Jimmy Herring and are ready to rock Philips Arena tonight as a matter of fact.

2) I was a few months away from being a SPE--in fact, I was the pledge class president. They called me Dan at DC and it never really was my thang. I spent way too much time at UNCW, UNC, and NCSU instead of the vaunted halls of academe at the presitigious institution. I learned a lot about who I was and wasn't during those years of haze. I still have a soft spot for the Cats, but I'll take the Dawgs any day.

3) My son Samuel Adams--"you named your son after a beer?"--Thomas was born 6 weeks early. We were on our annual end of the year golfing extravaganza in MB. I had just finished a great round defeating my partner handily when my wife called with concern. We started at Grand Strand Hospital and ended up a few hours later in Florence. He was a tiny 4 lbs 2ozs when we finally brought him home. Thankfully he had and has had no health issues. We are hoping our next little one Sydney Grace will be content for the entire 40 weeks.

4) The best 3 weeks of my life would have to be when Sarah and I drove across the country. We went up through the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Little Bighorn, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Glacier--with the Northern Lights accompanying--over and down the Washington, Oregon, and California coasts until we finally reached the Grand Canyon. I think my quote by that point was "how long are we supposed to stand here and look at it?" I'm hoping the underground comes through and teachers are paid much higher salaries, so I can visit the great west more often.

5) Nothing beats Saturday nights in the Fall/Winter by the fire at Shields' house. Sipping on the smooth Canadian Blend and discussing sports, education, politics, Masonic conspiracies, women, children, and on and on and on.... Sarah says she could pen the script for each time we get together because the same old topics always arise--the same 10-15 year running jokes. "Old Friends, Heroes and Lifetimes, don't let a single memory ever fade away."

Cheers to 2007 folks!
peace
dt

The Other Guy's Response (to the previous post)

**Sorry for the layout--BLogger is whoopin me**

Where to start.  Well, I guess I’ll start with what is going on.
(Name deleted) has
decided to start a bi-partisan caucus together that will inform
Members of Congress about terrorism.  There seems to be a basic
lack of education regarding Islam, terrorists, etc. in Congress-
and without it we cannot effectively engage the enemy.  So last
week I sat through meetings with over 20 terrorism experts
(face to face I’ll discuss more) and what was

going on around the world and what they thought we should
help other members

understand.

What I took from the experts (which all had diff. opinions)
and pieced

together what I believe to be- Iraq was the best move we could
have

made. We need a strategic base to send black ops out into
the region.  The

troop force argument is worthless as you look at the big
picture.  While we

sit here and argue troop levels the Iranians are sending
in tons of dollars

to gain political leverage while we send in tons of dollars
to build

infrastructure- which gains us nothing.  Adding more
troops isn’t going

to help or hurt because that’s not the issue.  The
insurgency is going to

keep coming because they want us to stay there longer
so they can get more

political leverage there with the people.  Iran wants
us there because they

aren’t really ready for a war yet.  Turkey wants us
there so they don’t

have to save the Kurds, and Saudi’s want us there so
they don’t have to

start a war with Iran over Sunni’s getting killed.
So the troop argument comes

from the western mindset, while the middle eastern
mindset could care less

about America or its troop levels.  They are set on
killing the other Muslims

so they have dominance and can set up the next part
of the caliphate. The

US is just a fly on their back that must be put up
with until the other ripe

fields are taken over (Somalia, Chechnya, etc.)  I
blame the

administration for allowing this troop level debate to
even go on because they won’t

level with the people that the argument isn’t important
compared to what we

should do in Northern Pakistan, etc.  But yea- we
should get someone who makes

us sacrifice, we should also be teaching anti-terrorism
in schools like we

did with communism.  But something has happened in
America- its like they

don’t believe reality if it challenges their thinking
or happy zone.  There

is some crazy stuff going on over there- and here too-
that have little to

nothing to do with us, yet we think they are fighting

us.  They have not even yet begun to even look at us.  
Right now we are a breeding ground

for money- and will stay that way until they have
taken more steps to build

their Islamic empire.  And they see this is a 100
years war where we

cannot even stomach a 4 year war where deaths are
not that extreme compared to

the other wars we have been in.

We are in trouble because we don’t think like our
enemy’s.  Our news

Feeds us the wrong information.  Our leaders cannot
provide the proper

Oversight to help the intel community do its work.
And our education system is

producing people who are not citizens- they are
individuals (and I’m

putting it nicely).  There is still hope, but it
is fading fast.

Hannibal ad portas!

Conversation: On War

The article that ignited this exchange is here. The conversation follows first me, then the other guy...

yeah ol pat buchanan makes a lot of sense to me these
days.  I like Newt too. 

Not sure about the troop surge idea.  It would seem
the only reason to do that would be if we were gonna
surge 50 or 60 thousand for several months--and it
seems that in order to do that we would need to
institute a military draft.  The National Guard was
not built for the types of deployments they've
received over the years.  I guess the Rumsfeldian view
of smaller and faster has proven to be disastrous--at
least in the short term. 

That being said, I'm not sure what the best option is.
I saw a headline on Drudge that we were thinking
about building up in the Persian Gulf as a warning to
Iran.... probably just speculation.

I think we need a leader who will call for real
sacrifice.  Let's move forward with real alternative
engery plans--within the next decade kinda stuff.
Remove our dependence completely from the Muslims and
then withdraw.  Then if they remain belligerent we
will have the political will to truly wage war. 

I still believe that going in was the thing to do, but
it has been horribly mismanaged.  I'm afraid it may
end up being the "worst strategic mistake in the
history of the United States."  The only thing that
comes to my mind that rivals is the decision to give
Stalin all he wanted at Yalta and not dealing with the
Soviet threat early on.... 

Anyway, just some ramblings from a measly high school
civics teacher.  

Les Miserables

"Will you give all you can give so that our banner may advance? Some will fall and some will live will you stand up and take a chance?"

dt

Fusion.

So, about a week ago an editorial came out in the paper attacking our head football coach. The story ended up being about the fictitious author and the lapse in judgment by the editor, but the piece itself was pretty scathing--typical athletics over academics type accusations.

A week or so before that our school held a "black female forum" in which community and school members addressed issues with that particular demographic. A subsequent email was sent out to the staff explaining the forum from our newly hired African American AP. In that email she called for teachers to spend time one on one with these black females because it is a "cultural fact that minorities respond better to one on one" attention rather than being called out in front of a group.

Well, I take issue with that contention, because I don't think it is a "cultural fact" at all, I think it is a human fact. Any student--any person--would respond better to one on one correction rather than its alternative. But, that's not really an argument that I can take on or win--interesting free speech/lack thereof implications perhaps--but perhaps it's not worth it anyway...

There is a cultural divide. And I wonder what role I--or we--play in perpetuating that gap. After all, athletics do play a huge role in the realities of black students. We have a system in place that encourages and rewards migration from school to school in order to play on a winning team. Winning team = exposure = next level perhaps. But at what price?

Don't misunderstand. I love competition and athletics. I believe in sport. Strongly. But as the marketing behemoth that sports has become I'm not sure the price is worth it.

Am I totally off base? The argument generally is that these kids, if it weren't for football etc, would not be where they are. They learn life skills and such on the field. And they are sure to learn more there than in the classroom. That's the standard explanation. But I'm not so sure I'm buying that anymore.

The reality is that the lure of athletic success is a mirage for 99.9% of people--I mean as a career. Academic preparedness is what is crucial, right?

I suppose I'll leave my thoughts here for now...
dt

Y2K6

shew. just went dang near a week without my pc. while installing a new multi function printer/copier/scanner/toaster/etc it turns out i had a corrupted file. thanks windows. and for good measure my long injured graphics card finally blew up. so 5 days and $89 big ones later i have my pc back and have just successfully installed my new hardware. not to mention i was able to scan myspace again--filters at school have kept me separated. i'm an addict, that's the first step right?

what's more is that i'm coming out of my months long blogging slump. i've had many ideas in my head over the past few days--and wouldn't you know only a pen and paper to write them down with and that's for the birds. so i'm glad to be back in the 21st century and look forward to fleshing out some of the thoughts that are banging around in my noggin.

peace
dt

Civic Education

Another score on the "getting them to think" front today. I used a lesson based on photographs. Students were broken up into groups of 4 (based on birthdays this time) and given a collection of 8 photographs. The pics were Gold Bullion, The Susan Constant, A Slave Auction, Boston Tea Party, Boston Massacre, Albany Plan of Union, Tarring and Feathering, and the Battle of Cowpens.

For the first task the students put the pictures in chronological order. The order was important in the grading, but most important was their reasoning. Furthermore, in order to guarantee full participation it was stated that I could and would ask any member of the group to explain the reasoning behind the order--and the response would reflect the entire group's grade.

The second task was to put the pictures into categories--whatever categories they decided to come up with. And again to present reasons.

Thanks Dr. Oscar Lansen for the idea.

REFLECTIONS

Many of the students didn't get the pictures right. (ie thought Cowpens was the French and Indian War or thought the Gold represented taxation rather than mercantilism) But their reasoning was good. They may have misunderstood the pictures but were able to use their understanding of the concepts. To me that is a good thing.

During the process a student asked if she/they could use their notes. My split second, gut instinct was to say no. But I didn't. I figure if they are going to show the initiative to look something up why would I stifle that? The information is out there they just need to know how to put it together and do something with it. The mantra of 21st century education.

pleased,
dt

Rebellion, the Conclusion

Nothing too spectacular. A few minutes after class started the principal marched "on the classroom" with the SRO, our two ROTC officers in their fatigues, and all assistant principals. The students were a bit shocked, but seemed to grasp the joke from the beginning. They even kinda laughed when the principal cited the school board policies that had been broken and declared all with 12 days After School Detention.

He did give a chance to back out. We only had one Loyalist to break ranks, but the rest of the class did try to put it off on me. Blame the leader--the American way I guess. "He typed it." "It was an assignment, we didn't have a choice."

One thing is clear. The students will remember that the Declaration of Independence was not merely beautiful ideas on paper, but required the sacrifice of thousands, and indeed could have ended with the signers "all hanging together."

dt

Rebellion, part II

The following was the response that I got back from my principal--and former US History teacher--which was sent to all administrators and the Student Resource Officers in the building--even and invitation to the deputy superintendent (what have i gotten myself into?:) The outcome of the rebellion will be posted in part III sometime on Tuesday afternoon.

"Daniel Thomas' first period Honors Civics class has declared themselves in rebellion. They have declared their independence from Crest High School and announced that they are not under my authority any more. (It's an absolutely wonderful lesson.) My attempts to peacefully address their grievances has been rejected. As of this date, I am declaring that room 107 is in a state of rebellion against the lawful authority of this school. I am assembling an army to suppress this rebellion. Please assemble in the main office just after 8:00 AM on Tuesday. We will march on Mr. Thomas' class and reclaim the lost colony. These insurrectionist will pay for this disloyalty with their liberty. Roger Harris The LAWFUL authority of Crest High School 1 September 2006 Dr. Hartness, I don't know what is on your schedule, but do you want to play army with us?"

Rebellion, part I

I have many thoughts to get down this weekend about what went right and what went wrong in this first week with my new lot. But I would like to share--in a series of posts--the activity I did with my Honors Civics class. After putting the Dec of Independence into their own words, the students then listed the grievances they had with the Principal and subsequently drafted their own DoI from the principal's authority. Text of the document is below:

"Dear Principal Harris,

There comes a time when every student should break away from the chains of oppression. We have come to a conclusion, after many debates, that the rules and guidelines of the school are way too strict; and that the opportunities given to us are limited. We shall explain the reasons why we desire to separate from your rule.
We have devised a few simple changes to your despotic system. We base our objections on the fact that we believe that democracy should be applied in this school, because we have natural rights.
The “long train” of our grievances:

YOU have taken away our right to text message and receive cell phone calls at school.

YOU have made money off of our families by charging too much for lockers that do not even work.

YOU have shut off the vending machines from which we obtain nourishment.

YOU have limited our creative expression by enforcing the dress code.

YOU have crushed our freedom by enforcing tardies and absences.

YOU have not allowed the existence of a dance team.

YOU have raised the price of lunch and the quality has dropped.

YOU have stifled creativity by not building an auditorium.

YOU have charged us heavy fees to take elective classes.

YOU have frozen us and given us the flu by not changing the outdated heating and air conditioning units.

YOU have taken away our homework and sleep time by enforcing detention.

Therefore, we the students of Mr. Thomas’ HONORS Civics class hereby declare our independence from your authority. We will seek to fulfill our rights on our own accord henceforth."

10 Years Later.

Went to the reunion for the Crest class of 1996 last night. What a blast. It was great to see people that I haven't seen in years. It was also pretty cool getting down with my people just like it was day one.

I've been thinking about PROGRESS. That is an amazing term. Do you think that humans exhibit progress. If so is it societal? individual? both? I think about other animals and living things and it seems as if they have little purpose. I mean as far as progress goes. Ants and dogs just do what ants and dogs have always done. They don't sit around and wonder why they do those things. They don't ponder how to grow and mature. They just do. They just are.

But humans... I guess a lot of folks just do. Some maybe aren't as aware or cognizant of their purpose or of progress. Maybe they're just good at putting that question out of their minds, because it does tend to bring about anxiety at certain junctures.

This train of thought crept up while I was walking and trying to figure out why what I do is meaningful. I mean beyond job skills and the obvious. What can I do that will truly impact life.

I guess as soon as I figure it all out, I'll let you know.
dt

Optimism.

I love the feeling of the new school year. I'm more experienced. I've read more. I've thought more. Now I'm ready to apply. Here are a couple of pics of my new bulletin boards. I've been experimenting with my crafty side. The Red and Black is a makeshift blog. Our county filter "errs on the side of caution" so blogs, Flickr, Delicious, and of course MySpace are all out. So I decided to make a manual blog. The right side of the board is filled with quotations from the likes of Aristotle, Plato, Thoreau, Uncle Walt, W., Bubba Clinton, Reagan and even Chris Rock. The caption READ, REFLECT, REFEREE and REACT was stolen from my brother who may have stolen it from someone else. But that's the way these days. The white poster board is divided into 3 X 5 squares in which students can respond to the question and to each other's responses. The first question is "Do you think George W. is a good President? Why or why not?"

The Green and Yellow (Charger Gold) board is my civic action board. The quotation is from JFK's inaugural--although I'm not sure he was the first one to say it. The white pieces of paper are articles(1,2,3) in our local paper about community and civic mindedness. The patch is from when my father in law was in Kuwait, and the pictures are of Habitat for Humanity and the One Campaign.

Not sure these are revolutionary, but I've been cutting out letters and pasting and stapling all weekend. I even went to an education store and bought some border:)

dt

Charged.

Well today was our district wide pep rally to start off the school year. Following that this afternoon we had a different type of motivational meeting. Boss man said that we needed to raise our test scores. Social Studies is lagging behind. Test scores are going to become more of a focus for him and therefore for us.

My gut reaction is here we go again. Testing Testing and more Testing. Why is it that so many teachers agree that this current form of education is practically useless, yet we simply accept it and convince ourselves that "it's the way it is." I've heard "I don't like it, I think it's stupid, but we've got to do it" so many times sometimes I'm afraid I will start repeating that mantra as well.

On the other hand, however, the fact remains that NCLB and ABC is the current form and the students are now held to even higher standards. So I'm looking forward to blogging this year's civics classes. And hopefully receiving some beneficial comments--preferably from many of the folks that I teach with...

Of course I will need to find an acceptible blog format because blogspot is forbidden by our county's internet filter.

dt

Really?

This CNN quick vote poll blows me away. I know it's not supposed to be scientific. But does 50% of any population believe that gas prices are a more pressing issue than terrorism? This on a day in which a plot to blow up airplanes over the ocean was foiled.

Of course maybe Rove and the gang are up to it again. They must have planned to disrupt this attack the day or so after Lieberman was defeated. Of course, the master plan to illustrate the weakness of the Dems on national defense.

Look. I know that the administration is weak and less than skillful. But gas prices as important as terrorism? Call it by a different name. Explain the perspective that they are upset because our troops are on their soil. Make the point that our history is rife--is that a word?--with examples of 'terrorism' as well. I'm fine with all of those, but don't make the point that attacks, or potential attacks on us are not as important as how much you pay at the pump.

Confused.
dt

House Built on Sand

The iMonk has a very interesting article which explains the shift in my own thinking as of late. It's worth reading the entire article--though lengthy--and checking out the links especially this one about the possibility of a growing trend. The iMonks conclusion first:

My Conclusion

I am suggesting, therefore, that the increasing interest in the culture war among evangelicals is not an example of a reinvigorated evangelicalism remaking its culture. Instead, I believe the intense focus by evangelicals on political and cultural issues is evidence of a spiritually empty and unformed evangelicalism being led by short-sighted leaders toward a mistaken version of the Kingdom of God on earth.

so that's a pretty powerful statement. it is a tragic statement that the assertion can be made that the islamic right and the christian right are leading towards the same vision of existence... but i digress and leave you with a chunk from the iMonks article.

American evangelicals can point to hundreds of publications and programs aimed at some kind of spiritual formation result. The fact is that any honest, but generous judgement would say that after a century of moderate success, the twentieth century and beyond have witnessed an unparalleled failure of evangelicals in the area of spiritual formation. In other words, evangelicals are increasingly spiritually empty, and they are susceptible to a message that the world needs to be changed rather than themselves.

Both families and churches struggle in turning out disciples. American churches specialize in an consumerized, gnostic, experiential Gospel that is increasingly inseparable form the culture in which that church exists. American evangelicals have become as much like the dominant culture as it is possible to be and still exist at all. In fact, evangelicals continue to exist, in large measure, because they have mainstreamed the culture into their religion so that one’s Christianity hardly appears on the radar screen of life as any in any way different from the lives of other people. We are now about values, more than about Christ and the Gospel.

Evangelicals should come to terms with this: they are in every way virtually identical to suburban, white, upper middle class American culture. They are not as bad as the worst of that culture, but they are increasingly like the mainstream of that culture and are blown about by every wind of that consumerized and materially addicted culture. In fact, go to many evangelical churches and the culture is so present, so affirmed, preached and taught that one would assume that there is nothing whatsoever counter cultural about the affirmation that Jesus is Lord...

dt

Human Condition

This is an excerpt from The Brothers Karamazov. Which as of 300 pages in has overtaken the top spot in my all time favorite books. It comes from the chapter Notes on the Life of a Deceased Priest.

...the isolation that prevails everywhere, above all in our age--it has not
fully developed, it has not reached its limit yet. For every one strives
to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to secure the greatest
possible fulness of life for himself; but meantime all his efforts result not in
attaining fulness of life but self-destruction, for instead of self-realisation
he ends by arriving at complete solitude. All mankind in our age have
split up into units, they all keep apart, each in his own groove; each one holds
aloof, hides himself and hides what he has, from the rest, and he ends by being
repelled by others and repelling them. He heaps up riches by himself and
thinks 'how strong I am now and how secure,' and in his madness he does not
understand that the more he heaps up, the more he sinks into self-destructive
impotence. For he is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut
himself off from the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of
others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his
money and the priveleges that he has won for himself...

also

"Until you have become really, in actual fact, a brother to every one,
brotherhood will not come to pass."

and

"...in truth we are each responsible to all for all, it's only that men don't
know this. If they knew it the world would be a paradise at once."

one more quote from my favorite movie that seems to fall in line with the thoughts above:

"every man lookin' for salvation by himself... each like a coal drawn from the
fire."

dt

Clean and Unclean

The Hebrews 13:11-13 reference in the previous post comes from a message that I heard this past Sunday. These few verses describe Jesus' method. Everything inside the gate was "clean" and the "unclean" were outside the gate. Where was Jesus? He was encamped outside the gate. He wasn't concerned about his reputation. He wasn't concerned with political power--he rejected that temptation from Satan. He was moved to compassion and Love when he encountered the world.

Yet, the Church proper seems to be comfortable inside the gates. Trying to direct morality and truth from within. But Truth and Grace cannot be separated. Faith and Works. The tree shall be known by its fruit. On and on goes the teaching of the Christ.

Yet so difficult to follow. Fear and pride are destructive forces.

The Good must be/should be/is common. Communal. Voluntary community. You before me. Him before us.

I suppose to explain the misdirection in my thinking of late is to admit that I believed that Truth was under attack. And well, I suppose it is and always has been... but the flaw was in believing that Truth could somehow be defeated... and perhaps it was up to me to somehow stem the tide of the advancing corruption. Wow. So much for humility in that line of thought.

"Speak not as one who has the Truth, but as one whom the Truth has." Another quote given to me by that same wise man...

Re Defined II

Yesterday, we went to an upstart in Charlotte. I'd call it a church, but wouldn't that poison your mind with preconception from the start? Well, part of the teaching yesterday was about that very fact. The Church brings with it connotations--and most of the time those are not all that warm and fuzzy.

I remember very clearly the events of September 11. I also remember words from a wise man after that attack occurred. He said, "You've got to temper your patriotism with your religion."

For the past years I have bought into the notion that my enemy was the Islamic terrorists and the Post Modernists who would have everyone believe in--well nothing. Politically, I'm not quite sure what the solution to these particular problems/issues is... but I'm going to retreat from that particular sphere for a while.

So. If those mentioned above are not the enemy, and the enemy is clearly defined... well then?

Pride. Arrogance. Apathy. Avarice. Greed. Selfishness. Prejudice.

The Book explains all this over and over, yet somehow we are willing to miss it. Somehow, we buy into the Us vs Them mentality so easily. Somehow we are enamored with the prospect of political power and influence. Somehow we miss the message of the One who explains it so very simply.

I hope to flesh all of these ideas out a little more in my next few posts with a few quotes from a book I just finished and an explanation and photograph of my brother-in-law's latest work of art.

Hebrews 13:12-13

dt

Re Defined

Isaac Avery (currently the front runner in the name game if our newest is a boy) was a confederate officer who offered this quotation upon his death:

"Tell my father I died with my face to the enemy."

Confession: I have misidentified the enemy.

I thought about creating a new blog for my upcoming line of thought--but why separate?

dt