Category: Archives

Archived posts featuring content on education and social justice.

What Everybody Ought to Know About God and Justice

February 23, 2017

social justice is not just for liberals

“The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.” ~ Deuteronomy 32:4

“For I the LORD love justice.” ~ Isaiah 61:8a

A picture hangs in the hallway of my school, put there by students completing a project. A three-year-old child named Alan lies face-down in the sand of a beach. His lifeless body looks cold and wet. Arms limp at his sides. I pass it every day on my way to the office, and the picture cries out, “Save me!” in haunting lamentations as I walk.

It’s too late, I think in grief. You’re already dead.

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Blogging Through the New Jim Crow: Thoughts on Chapter 3

January 29, 2017

[Note: This is the third installment in a series on Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. For other posts in this series see:

I’ve moved away from the discussion/commentary structure of my previous posts in this series to instead just listing the main sources that Alexander cites, along with the facts they reference. My impression has been that most people reading this series are scrolling through for relevant information to aid their own research. Hopefully formatting each post to more clearly focus on the sources and facts will be more helpful.]

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In Chapter 3, Alexander focuses her attention on the racial disparities between groups in the criminal justice system that cannot be explained by higher rates of crime, drugs, or other factors. Here are the major talking points and some of the evidence she offers in support:

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Three Words Low-Income Children Need To Hear More

December 16, 2016

The door swung open, and the school counselor pushed a seven-year-old child into the room. As the child’s eyes met my own, his face turned pale white. I groaned inwardly but maintained a stoic expression.

“This one of yours?” the counselor said.

I nodded, and the counselor ushered Dustin to an empty table. He settled down in the back of the room, and I returned to the group of staff members at my own table. These meetings always ruined my day.

Dustin had entered the school a few weeks ago. Quite frankly, I was less than thrilled by his arrival. Thanks to him, my classroom expanded — yet again —to an impossible 28 children, an unacceptably large number for kindergarten. And he wasn’t just the normal addition. He was the kind that liked to curse, punch, scream, run out of the room, hide in various locations, and refuse to listen to any sort of command or request whatsoever.

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Laughing When You Don’t Understand

November 10, 2016

“Don’t laugh at what you don’t understand.”

Okay, so the words sound a bit harsh, but I promise you that my tone of voice and facial expression clearly communicated warmth, love, and kindness. And yes, I did say this to my students. Because my students needed to hear it.

I have avoided talking about the American election with my Korean high schoolers for most of the past few months. It didn’t seem appropriate or even remotely related to what I was teaching. So I just steered away from the topic.

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Things quickly turned political in class today, even though I was only teaching conditional sentences.

But then we began a culture exchange, where they communicate by video with Americans attending high school in the U.S., and one by one my students were shocked to discover that many of these American young people were Trump supporters. Or at least had parents who were voting for Trump.

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Life Will Go On

November 9, 2016

Tomorrow, life will go on.

Teachers will return to their oversized classrooms filled with immigrant students whose lives have been suddenly upended, and millions of Evangelicals will wait expectantly for the Republican President and Republican-controlled House and Senate to deliver on their pro-life promises.

And life will go on.

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The Second Command… I mean Amendment

September 29, 2016

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I was born in America. I was raised to believe that the Bill of Rights was God’s gift to mankind. I grew up memorizing the preamble to the Constitution and thoroughly internalizing the absolute necessity of the “right to bear arms.” I know all about the dangers of tyrannical government and the importance of self-defense. I get it. I get the Second Amendment and all the reasons why people protect it so religiously.

But actually I don’t get it anymore.

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Settling In Across the Ocean

September 21, 2016

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I’m proud to say that Korea is my new home! The photo above was taken a few weeks ago in Jeonju, a traditional/historical district in Korea. While I did participate in the lion dance, the picture is not of me but of two friends instead. I guess I wasn’t good enough to have my picture taken!

My move to Korea has been the culmination of a two-year long process involving much prayer, research, preparation, and counsel from others. If you’ve been in my life over the past two years, you may have been a part of this process! While it is difficult to summarize all of my reasons for moving overseas, I can at the very least try to give you an idea.

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Blue Feed v. Red Feed

June 6, 2016

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One of my favorite pastimes is comparing my largely conservative newsfeed to my roommate’s largely liberal newsfeed. I went to a conservative, evangelical, Christian college. She went to a liberal, highly secular, women’s college. You can imagine our newsfeeds are vastly different.

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Remembering Greenwood: Why the Sins of the Past Still Matter

May 30, 2016

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“Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.”

– Isaiah 1:16-17

Today marks the eve of the worst act of domestic terrorism in American history. The Tulsa Race Riots nearly wiped out the entire African American community in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Angry, white mobs invaded the wealthy community of Greenwood, killed unknown numbers of people, bombed it from the sky, looted its stores, and burned down over 35 city blocks of buildings and homes. For decades after the violence, white women could be seen walking down the streets of Tulsa wearing the jewelry, coats, and clothing of the Black women whose homes were looted and destroyed. Ninety-five years later, the massacre is still disregarded by many as just a bunch of “riots” over race, instead of the terrible act of terror that it actually was, duplicated on a smaller scale in cities across the country.

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What Every Christian Should Believe

May 11, 2016

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“Behold, I am making all things new.”

Revelation 21:5

I’ve only been a teacher in a low-income school for four years, but sometimes it can feel like too long, I’ve started the school year with no supplies, no curriculum, and no principal. I’ve walked into my classroom to discover it had been trashed by “construction crews” the night before. I’ve sent thirsty children to get water, only to discover that the fountains don’t work and the water from the classroom sink runs yellow. I’ve taught over 30 students by myself at one time, watched children with learning disabilities sit in classrooms for years without receiving help, given paperwork for parents to sign that makes them believe their child is getting extra support when no such thing is happening, and seen countless children pushed onto the next grade when they don’t even know how to write their name.

I’ve spent nights weeping after laboring to the point of insanity to do everything in my capacity that I could possibly do, and it still wasn’t enough. It never is enough.

And then I read the words of Jesus in Revelation, “Behold I am making all things new,” and it hurts. It hurts because it is easier for me to believe in the brokenness of our systems than it is for me to believe in the power of God to protect our children from the evil at work in this world. It is easier for me to believe that the world is corrupt than to believe it is being renewed. It is easier for me to see the tears of a six-year-old child because they cannot pass a standardized test, than it is for me to see the fullness of who they are, a fullness that even the worst systems in the world could never take away.

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