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Category Archives: Life
Teaching Disent
Don’t you just love it when you find a quote to back up your thinking. Currently there is a debate in youth work circles about curriculum and the nature of teaching, Jeffs who is questioning of curriculum cites Stiener “to teach greatly is to awaken doubts in the pupil,…to train for disentâ€? (Youth and Policy Summer 2004) and argues this is a key to education particularly informal education, and curriculum by its very nature hinders this. I love the quote and tend to be in agreement with Jeffs.
I just wonder how much of this critical education goes on in churches or youth work circles. We prop up the status quo so much, when actually called to be a counter cultural movement. The rich young ruler (see eariler post Is the Church the rich young ruler?) had kept the commands but hadn’t been trained to disent and therefore process/critque his actions so was well away from inheriting the kingdom.
justtherev
Check out the 23rd Psalm Bush is my ShepherdjusttherevThis Is Spinal Tap
But I’m Trying to Help!
It’s Fair Trade Fortnight and in amongst it I’ve noticed how many of us think that it is OK to exploit one person as long as we are doing it to help another person.
A vague example: Church A is doing good for poor people M by supplying them with useful thing T. In order to do as much good for poor people M as possible, Church A is buying useful thing T as cheaply as possible. However, this means that Church A is participating in the unfair exploitation of poor people Y.
Hmmm. This is actually incredibly entrenched in our lifestyles and is not just true of the establishment called church, but is also true of the people called church.
I can’t give a pet solution to this, as the only thing we can do is to be 100% sure that we are doing God’s will. Hopefully an awareness of this issue will help us hear…
Why??
Why are there many more adverts on TV for the Army, Airforce, and Navy than for Nurses, Health workers, Teachers etc. Watching TV this weekend I would estimate that the adverts for the forces have out numbered the caring services by about 3 to 1.
I like the ups and downs of life
It has been one of those weeks and it’s only Thursday, I had a nightmare start, forgetting minutes, power cable for the laptop and all those sorts of things. Then some great stuff happened, some fantastic times in lectures, in the past four days it seems that so much has happened. As I reflect on the rapid ups and downs of the last few days I feel far closer to God and as if I’ve been washed around with him in the sea of life. It has been a great process as I think about the current pulls of the tide and even with the stress of having the house on the market and all that entails I’d still rather be in the sea of life than anywhere else at the moment.
Is America being selfish?
I thought it was time for rant, but I was so down about Americas attitude towards climate change and the Kyoto agreement, and hearing the news today about their attitude to Browns proposal for debt relief and the G8 just made want to scream. Is it an attitude held just at the top of government or is it a widely held protectionist position arising from the masses. The few Americans I know are as concerned about debt in Africa as many of my UK friends but what is the groundswell opinion. Has consumerism pervaded so deeply that now it is translated into what I can only describe as an overt SELFISHNESS that seems to be the motivating factor and attitude the white house holds as a plumbline when deciding on most issues but particularly towards debt and climate control.
Make poverty history
Strange how things can pass you by. I finally started looking into the campaign and was very impressed with sheer amount of organisations supporting it. Check out the link it worth a visit.
Pimp my ride
I got my first dose of this MTV show today. Whilst i liked what they did with the cars, the positive use of the word pimp reminded me of a link to the F word site that had a great article questioning the corruption of the word pimp into something associated with style, fashion etc. It reminded me to post the link.
The Tappers
Great night out on Wednesday. The blokes I go to the pub with decided for a Christmas meal. In the end five of gathered for a sharpener in the local, then we taxied to the Cat in the Head (is this the weirdest name for a pub) Great food and five bottles of wine later we returned to the local for a swifty before closing. After good food and conversation we decided to try a new exploit and that in the new year we would inaugurate a pipe smoking club. (not that kind of pipe for all you youth workers on the edge out there) There was lots of conversations about which pipe would suit which person, (suggestions please). In the end we decided that we all main thing that drew us to the concept of pipes besides it general kitschness was we all liked the thought of tapping the pipe. It was ascertained I should be the chairman and in the new year we will have the first meeting of “the tappers�. That’s if anyone else remembers the conversation. There is also a couple of group who didn’t like the idea of smoking and my idea that they could have a liquorice pipe didn’t go down to well, so I need creative input on a way of including those who don’t smoke, any ideas along the tapping line.