From My Front Porch

Life's stories connect lives

Archives for September 2016

With Tears in Your Eyes

finger-pointingThe online school where I teach has a cool tool that analyzes grade book data and recognizes students whose grades have started a downward trend. Most of the time, these grades have fallen because students had a tech issue and submitted the assignment in the wrong format or on the wrong assignment link. Putting a zero in the grade book makes it difficult for students–and parents–to ignore and forget to fix.

For years, I could not bring myself to write that zero in the grade book. It broke my heart. After all, I had no intention of leaving it a zero. Why should I traumatize a straight-A student with a zero? [Read more…]

Less is More

veggies-1 My mother’s birth happened as The Roaring Twenties roared to a halt and ushered in The Great Depression.  Her formative years characterized by want, she learned by her parents’ example to make good use of what she had. She didn’t throw much away, and she also didn’t have resources to become a huge consumer. Being raised with very little made me want the things I never had growing up [Read more…]

Can you feel the rhythm of the house?

rhythm-of-the-heartMost people have a love-hate relationship with the end of summer. Usually I feel the same way, but this year is a little different, and I’m missing the old familiar boxes of curriculum arriving for my four kiddos who have grown up and gone on their ways. Those boxes and all the planning that went along with them marked the return of a natural rhythm of rising, learning, playing, eating, cleaning, and retiring early to begin again the following day. [Read more…]

A Tale of Two Teams

Two schools have blessed me with the privilege of coaching their girls’ volleyball teams, and I have Facebook to thank for reconnecting me with some of them recently. It seems God brought them back to my heart and mind “for such a time as this” in order to allow me yet another privilege: to pray for them in their current struggles. [Read more…]