A few things I thought you’d be interested in as the new week starts:
First, Dalrock, who writes a ton about the divorce crisis in North America from a secular point of view, profiled me this weekend, referring to my latest marriage Vlog. Take a gander at what he had to say (and the comments are interesting, too). I may write further about this soon.
He writes:
One thing which strikes me about Sheila’s work is how incredibly gentle she is in her pro marriage message to Christian women. At first I thought she was only lukewarm on the topic of marriage, but after further consideration I am convinced that she is accurately assessing the nature of her audience. What she considers “harsh” I would consider walking on eggshells. But as I said I think she has accurately gaged her target audience. Christian women as a group are not used to being told they have any obligations. Ever. Even obligations resulting from a sacred promise they made in the church in front of God and everyone they know. This simply isn’t the way of the modern Christian church*.
Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know.
Second, here’s an interesting study that says that credentials and education are pretty much irrelevant when it comes to how effective a teacher is. 97% of a teacher’s effectiveness has nothing to do with schooling. I probably could have predicted that.
Third, need an online way of organizing your kids’ chores and other rewards/incentives (like for reading, etc.)? Here‘s one that looks promising. If you try it, tell me what you think!
Fourth, do you belong to my Facebook Page yet? Whenever I find something interesting on the internet, about marriage, or parenting, or discipline techniques, or just funny videos, I post them over there. I post more there than I do here! So if you want some quick bites from me, why not join?
I’ll have a longer post for you tomorrow! Have a great start to a new week!
Related posts:
“Christian women as a group are not used to being told they have any obligations. Ever.”
Ouch.
I think it’s true, at least, based on my own life and all of the lessons I’ve had to learn the hard way.
Thanks for continuing to sound the call that it’s not all about me!
“Christian women as a group are not used to being told they have any obligations. Ever. ”
I thought this was incredibly insightful of him. Unless a woman is willing to admit her part in the destruction of her marriage, there is no hope for healing. They usually want to place all blame on the husbands.
Joy and Lori–I know. That is an OUCH comment, isn’t it? But I do think it’s true. In general, the church is very hard on men and very easy on women, and yet it is women who instigate most divorces. We need to get back to the message that we have a responsibility and an obligation to make our marriages work, even if those marriages do not make us happy. But that goes against conventional wisdom, and seems mean. We really are fighting upstream!
I have not used the My Job Chart website, but I have used Handipoints which is very similar in approach. It was very motivating for my kids, but also very distracting. Once they got to the computer to check off a finished job, they were sucked in to play on the site (it has games too). It worked better to print out a week’s chart for each child, but then they were not as excited to use it. Maybe I will try the MJC site sometime to compare. For now, we are doing room by room cleaning together.
SWG: Apropos of nothing, I just wanna say, how weird it is to meet other people from Belleville, Ontario, online. Or to bump into them, rather, when interacting with people from all over the planet. (I live in K-town, now, though.) Cheers.
Hey, I lived in Kingston for six years! So we’re practically neighbours!
I was born and raised in Belleville – well, born at BGH, raised actually in Sidney Township, now Sidney Ward, Quinte West. I’ve seen your column in that newspaper whose name escapes me. Then suddenly I run across you at Terri’s. Small world, eh?
I’m in the EMC! Used to be in the Belleville Intelligencer til they fired me for being too controversial. Tis a small world! I grew up in Toronto, but my husband grew up here, and we love it here.
Good point about 97% of a teacher’s effectiveness having nothing to do with education. I’d almost say it’s similar with nurses, once you get past an obvious basic level of what you need to know to function in that role. Good people skills and an ability to think critically is what makes you an effective nurse, and it doesn’t seem to make much difference whether you have an associates degree, bachelor’s degree, or a master’s degree. Unfortunately, it seems like the educational stakes just keep getting raised higher and higher with each generation. I wonder just how much higher it can go. Will we soon all need a PhD to function in the world??
So true, Allison! I think teaching is a gift, rather than a skill, and a gift can’t be taught. It’s probably similar with nurses. And the creeping credentialism in our world is scary, because it costs so much money and time to get these degrees, and they don’t really accomplish much!
“I think teaching is a gift, rather than a skill, and a gift can’t be taught.”
I agree. To certain extent. Of course you understand that to teach say academics level mathematics, you need to understand matrixes. No amount of people skills ain’t gonna replace that.
On other point, I arrived here via dalrock blog, and I agree with him about the silk gloves. You seem to know your audience, and you act accordingly. But disagreeing with him, I think your way to reach and make change is better. People do need kind of a “middle ground”, something to relate to, something a little familiar, to accept new ideas.
Thanks very much for that encouragement! I needed that. My point on this blog is not to debate; it is to give real answers and real solutions, to make an actual difference. That is what I am trying to do in as effective way as I can.
And I totally agree with you about teaching. You absolutely MUST have a full mastery of the material. But I still think many who are employed as teachers and who have credentials can’t actually connect, and that’s too bad. Welcome to the blog!
One more comment: I guess the question is, do you want to win arguments, or do you want to help save individual marriages? I’m focused on the latter. I fear sometimes that people let the perfect become the enemy of the good. And that’s all I’m going to say on the subject!