Happies o' Habitudes

I wrote this after classes on Thursday.

Today I felt like I had my best armor on. It was astoundingly awesome. I really just felt His presence with me all day.

I really am blessed to have a really respectful, on-task, engaged group of eight-graders to work with each morning. Just this morning, I met a new student that was placed in my class. She did not look happy to be there but I felt an instant connection with her after talking with her for less than 2 minutes. I asked where she lived before moving here. She told me Wisconsin. Which immediately made my day! I told her I loved Wisconsin people! Really that’s the truth. : ) Lots of good FFA buddies from my travels to Wisconsin. Then after that brief discussion about all the cool people in Wisco she felt invited into my classroom. And that, my friends, is why I love teaching.

Then on Purple days I get to teach Floral Design. This is going to be a great class. It is already my favorite. We did a habitudes lesson today for the first time. As a class we decided to try to do one once a week, for about 30 minutes a class. So yes a lot of time out of floral design concepts but I can already tell by the discussions going on today that it will be time well spent. Mostly, because He was totally in class today. These kids were even talking about Him!

We did the Habitude Personal Laptop to start things off. Why not, right? It is all about putting good things into your mind because what we put in is actually what will come out of us. It is what we will be. We talked about all the negative inputs we put into out minds: some tv shows, the media, possibly facebook, some friends we may have, things we read, music we listen to, etc. Then we talked about how we have to consciously make an effort to control and monitor these inputs so that we can be assured that we are putting positive inputs into our minds. We are what we read, hear, and think about. Make sure it is good stuff you are putting in.

So we did an opening activity of Big Fish, Small Fish. Then we broke into two small groups for the reading, brainstorming and discussing. I roamed around and dropped eaves on their conversations.

So Happies O’ Habitudes Eavesdropping

-    The God conversation.
o    Students were making a list of all the positive inputs in their lives in small groups. They got about 7 deep in the list and someone says God. Then they all say “I can’t believe we didn’t think of Him sooner.” They laugh about it and someone says offers up a very logical solution, “We better just draw an arrow to the top!” This. Was. Funny.

-    The baptism conversation.
o    After most of the discussion was over and not everyone was back in their seats, we had this conversation with a couple of students and I. This is what he said to me: “Did you know I am not even baptized? Yeah but, I figured that is a good thing I could do. My life is just so crappy but maybe I can do that.” I say, “That would be a very good thing to do. Do you want to be baptized?” He thinks he does. Then another student, “You let me know if you do for sure. Or if you have questions you can talk to me.” Now just how awesome is that?

-    The Martin Luther conversation.
o    A couple of my students go to the same youth group. Apparently, they were required to read the preface of the Lutheran Catechism the night before. However, they were expressing how they were frustrated with not digging deep enough in the meaning and not getting their questions answered. Obviously, this type of conversation piqued my interest quite a bit. I could not help but listen in on this one. It was just good to hear them talking about such a great positive influence in their life. Yes they were slightly frustrated, but these kids wanted to know more! Awesome!

We are also keeping comp books in this class. They serve as bellwork/learning logs, 212/Habitudes reflections, and a great communication/questioning tool. I was very excited to read and write comments in their books to them after today. They all said that habitudes was something they really did enjoy learning about today. I was surprised at some comments left for me. Some of these students really need/want something or someone to help them. Pray that the Holy Spirit can work through me, so that I can serve my students to the best of my ability and that I can bring them closer to Him.