Birthday Blog

December is always a really strange time for me.

With my birthday falling so close to Christmas, I am normally not able to celebrate it with my friends. They are usually traveling to visit family, or I am at home celebrating with my Mom and aunt, who both have the same birthday as me.

As December 23rd approaches, I usually get a bad feeling in my stomach. Birthdays are supposed to be filled with friends and laughter and well-wishes, and mine normally aren't. I mean, my Mom is awesome, but I spent my 21st birthday in a small bar in Oklahoma having a Bud Light with my Mom.

There's a crazy 21st birthday story for my grandkids.

But this year couldn't have been more different.

I decided that I would try to catch up with 23 people in my life either on or around my birthday. The results have been so uplifting.

I talked with Jesse about his service in the Marine reserves and how his family is doing and how he is transitioning to a new city.

I talked with Billy about his new apartment and his new album.

I talked with Peyton about his semester and his relationship and his goals and dreams.

I talked with Stephanie about her teaching job and about how becoming a curriculum coach changes things. We talked about how sometimes we think we know what we want, but when we go for it, we end up hating it.

I got to catch up with Jared and hear his heart.

I went to a party and spent time with Garrett and his friends, talking about our childhoods and families.

I spent time talking with Paige about her major and how ready she is to be done.

I got to see Blake and Katie, hear about their jobs and their new home, and hear funny stories about funny kids.

I talked with Megan and Luke about their engagement, their plans for Christmas, and, we just got to laugh.

On top of all of that, we threw THE UGLY PARTY, a step beyond the "Ugly Sweater Party," where everyone comes as ugly as humanly possible. The results were unbelievable, and we jammed 20 people into our tiny house.

All in all, this December 23rd has been one for the record books, in a really, really good way.

Thank you to everyone who has spent time with me, celebrated with me, and taken advantage of the "23 by 23." You can bet that I feel loved and surrounded by a great community, and that "24 by 24" is already on the agenda.

For now, I will leave you will some glorious pictures from THE UGLY PARTY.

Peace, love and birthdays.
- Seth

Click for the FINAL image. Enjoy. 

Don't judge a school by its name.

"I teach at a Catholic school in town."

- "Oh. That's nice."

They politely smile, and that is usually where the conversation stops. 

"I teach at the inner-city school down the street."

- "Wow. Tell me more about that. You are brave! That is such a ministry."

They lean in intently, and inquire further. 

We have a tendency to judge a school by it's name.

 If it has the word "Saint" in front of it, or the word "Christian" behind it, the halls are full of compliant kids whose parents have never denied them anything because they've never had to. They are rich kids whose biggest problem is choosing whether they want to wear Nike or Under Armor socks tomorrow. And the people who teach them kick their feet up and earn an easy paycheck. 

On the other hand, If a school is named by its location in town, we imagine the halls look more like a poorly censored MTV show with students grinding through life. The folks who teach them burn the midnight oil lesson planning, grading and worrying themselves sick about their students. 

I believe that those two schools and their occupants are much more alike than we could ever know. 

There are students suffering from the same things at both schools.

- Going unnoticed by adults/teachers who are supposed to care for them

- Resorting to self-infliction to feel

- Struggling to find who they want to be

- Experimenting with drugs, sex and alcohol

- Believing they are incapable of high achievement 

- Wishing to break the system their family is in

- Comparing themselves to other students

- Settling for the same life their parents have

They are the same struggles; they just manifest in different ways. 

I think the teachers experience the same things at both schools, too.

- Striving, and often failing, to connect with broken students

- Feeling like school is all-consuming

- Fearing even more bad news about that one student

- Struggling through relationships co-workers and administration

- Staying at school way too long to make sure everything is ready/perfect

- Resenting teachers who clock in and out at 7:30 and 4:00

The struggles are the same, they simply manifest in different ways. 

I think it is time that we believe this unchangeable fact: students are facing student struggles, and teachers are facing teacher struggles, regardless of the name of their school.

Being a student at one place is just as hard as it is at the other. 

And teaching at each place is truly a ministry, it just manifests itself in different ways. 

* I've wrestled recently with the importance of my job and the impact of it. I find myself comparing my work to work that my friends are doing in different school districts. I wrote this to myself to remind myself that my ministry is important, too. I also think this can apply to many different realms outside of education: ministry, service professions, etc. The struggles are found on each side of the fence. And, people on each side of the fence are doing great things to serve those hurting. 

Bored again Christian.

       I don’t know if you have felt this way before, but I sometimes feel that Christianity is boring. I think that I have felt this way for some time now. I remember being at Kamp and in church and with small groups, and not feeling like what I was reading was making a difference... or like what I was hearing in church wasn’t anything I haven’t heard before... or like every prayer that was said was the same thing that I have heard uttered a million times. "Lord, just bless us in this time. Thank you for my brother so-and-so." You know, the stuff that we are taught to say.

      Sometimes I type up my prayers. This is what I typed the other day:

      I want something to be passionate about. Something to walk with the Spirit about. Something to spark my interest again. I've followed you for nearly 8 years now, and I am... well, yeah... bored. What is the next step? The next phase? The next chapter? What will be the catalyst of change for me? What do I need to do to usher in that change? Open my eyes... ha. I just typed that, then deleted it, then typed it again to make the point that I am always just praying the way that I've heard or been taught to pray. Eff.

     Just this morning I heard a phrase that I have heard a million times. “The joy of the Lord is my strength.” How many times have we sung that line from “How Great is Our God”? Well, Christian music stays popular long after its time has come and passed, so odds are… plenty.

     Then, I got to thinking about that phrase. In my recent church history, I’ve been told about the way God thinks about sin. He despises it. He cannot be in the presence of it. He hates it.

     That would mean that God hates me, right?

     Stop, Seth. You know that My love is powerful. And you know what I love? I love when you choose me. I love when you choose to do the thing that honors me. It brings me joy.

     I believe that God spoke that to me today. Instead of thinking about how my sin saddens God, I will try to think about how choosing him brings him joy.

     And the fact that I made the Lord happy?

That is strong. That encourages me to do it again.

      If you’re like me, maybe the answers to our questions about boredom lie in the things that we find boring. There are some major truths that, even though we’ve heard them plenty of times, we have never understood and maybe never tried to.

Pretty, Pretty Picture

Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences claims that all humans learn through nine (he is still discovering some) types of intelligences. If you're an educator, you were probably introduced to this concept in your earliest teacher preparation courses. The nine intelligences and their descriptions can be found here. 

I've discovered that I possess three of these intelligences: Interpersonal, Bodily/Kinesthetic, and Linguistic intelligence.

Interpersonal: I love learning from others, with others, and about others. One of the joys of teaching is learning alongside your students, learning about them, and learning life lessons from them. I think one reason that I enjoy teaching so much is because there is always something new to learn about the people around you.

Bodily/Kinesthetic: Most likely due to my background in theater, I like to associate knowledge with an action or a movement. When learning and teaching Spanish, I often create gestures that represent the word. For a word like, "bigote" (mustache), I place a finger underneath my nose. My students recently commented, "Mr. Oldham- You are awesome at charades.

Linguistic: For some, language just comes naturally and its intricacies make as much sense as 1+1=2. I love dissecting words. In Spanish, "desayunar" means "to eat breakfast. "Des," is a prefix meaning to undo. "Ayunar" means to fast. Undo + fast= breakfast. Call me nerdy, but I get visibly excited when I learn something like that.

One intelligence that I simply do not possess at all is Spacial Intelligence, namely, the ability to visualize space and manipulate objects or imagine their appearance with their mind's eye. I do, however, admire that intelligence greatly and attempt to play to that intelligence with my assignments and vocabulary games.

I heard a profound statement recently:

"All kids are born artists, but most are educated out of it." 

That is so true of me, and I often wish I could draw...

Which is why I asked my students to draw me some pretty, pretty pictures for extra credit. And yes, I used those exact words. I'm quite the linguist. I discovered that some of my students have the same lack of spatial intelligence that I do, and that others are wonderfully gifted.

Below is a sample of the students' work.

She calls this one: Messed up puppy. 

A portrait of a best friend. Charming, right?

Shark and Narwal meet, and compare retro hair styles. 

"Its a taco and burrito band!" he said. 

Cheesy joke. Ha. 

Jose Jalapeño. Pretty darn accurate. If only he looked a little more depressed. 

Clever representation of my last name. I'm so flattered. 

They found out about my slight infatuation with Beyonce... 

Apparently Jay-Z did, too. 

When we showed these in class, I called it The Gallery of Pretty Pretty Pictures. I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did, and that your Spatial Intelligence develops much more than mine did.

Peace, Love and Art, ya'll.

Seth