Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Monday, October 17, 2011
The gospel of baseball
This is a blog post I've been wrestling with for a week or so now. What exactly it means for me, and how to express it. But the story goes like this.
I love Tiger baseball. And by love, I mean love. We, my family and I, went to the games when we weren't good. When we lost 120 games in one season. When you could get a ticket for $8 and sit in the front row because no one else came to watch. When you could park a few blocks from the ballpark for free.
So when the Tigers made the playoffs this year, you can bet I was excited, even from half way around the world. I hung Tigers gear in my classroom, and my students started asking what it was for. So I told them. I told them about the game, about Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera and Papa Grande. And so we watched, together, as the Tigers defeated the Yankees, and we celebrated. My students became fans. They wanted to know the score as badly as I did, so we paused, shamelessly, in the middle of class to check. And we went on to play the Rangers, and our fandemonium increased. It was all they could talk to me about- at break, at lunch, and they tried- in class.
There grew four groups of students. The first group was mainly comprised of Korean boys. These guys knew baseball before I came around, but they weren't all that into it. I liked talking to this group. I could tell them it was the bottom of the 5th, and they knew what I was saying- I didn't have to translate it into "a little more than half way through". They knew the lingo.
The second group was mostly American and other expat kids. They knew of baseball, and knew a bit about how the game generally worked, but they had never given it much thought until now. One of them, an eighth grade girl, came up to me one Monday morning following a rain delayed Sunday game. "I missed the end of the game!" she exclaimed. "The cut away to a Rugby game when the baseball game ran long because of the rain. I've never been interested in baseball before, but now I am, because of you."
The third group of kids knew nothing about baseball, and really, still don't. They ask me a million questions. Why does NY have more H's then us? What counts as an error? When will the game end? Can you score when you're pitching? Hits. Runs, Errors. Innings. None of it meant anything until I explained it. They don't know baseball, but they became, in many ways, the most rabid fans. They cared, because I cared.
The fourth group of kids were rather amusing. They were comprised of a small group of boys who went out of their way to cheer for whoever the Tigers were playing, just to goad me. They were Yankees fans for a week, then Rangers fans. They worked hard to reject anything I liked, and we had lots of fun going back and forth about it. When they named their Jeopardy teams the Yankees and the Rangers, I wrote them on the board as "Yankees Stink" and "Rangers Stink".
But at some point last week, my aunt put the following comment on our family blog: "Clare your students' enthusiasm for baseball is a good example of the power of modeling, I'd say. And also a good example of why children can not be taught primarily by computers...The relationship with the teacher is a big factor." She was commenting more about the power of the human being vs. technology in teaching, but she inadvertently got me thinking. In her comment about the power of modeling and the relationship with the teacher I realized that though I came here as a missionary of Jesus Christ, for the past two weeks I have been preaching the gospel of Detroit Tiger baseball.
WHAT IF? What if I shared less of my passion for sports (or tea or pink) with my students, and more of my passion for Jesus? What if, when they asked me about my weekend, I told them how excited I was about what God is doing in my life? What the Spirit of God in me shone as brightly as my love for baseball?
I imagine I'd end up with four groups of kids not unlike the four I have now. One group that knows all the lingo, all about God, but needs to connect with him in a real and passionate way. Another group that knows of him, but has never given him much consideration before. Another group who has little idea what the whole thing is about, but they know that they want to know more because of the passion they see in me. And, a group who sees him and fully and completely rejects him. But even in their rejection, they engage with him...
My goal this week? Share my passion for Jesus. Let that invade my mathematics and Spanish teaching. Let that flow out of every pore. Let them see my heart, and see what happens...
I love Tiger baseball. And by love, I mean love. We, my family and I, went to the games when we weren't good. When we lost 120 games in one season. When you could get a ticket for $8 and sit in the front row because no one else came to watch. When you could park a few blocks from the ballpark for free.
So when the Tigers made the playoffs this year, you can bet I was excited, even from half way around the world. I hung Tigers gear in my classroom, and my students started asking what it was for. So I told them. I told them about the game, about Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera and Papa Grande. And so we watched, together, as the Tigers defeated the Yankees, and we celebrated. My students became fans. They wanted to know the score as badly as I did, so we paused, shamelessly, in the middle of class to check. And we went on to play the Rangers, and our fandemonium increased. It was all they could talk to me about- at break, at lunch, and they tried- in class.
There grew four groups of students. The first group was mainly comprised of Korean boys. These guys knew baseball before I came around, but they weren't all that into it. I liked talking to this group. I could tell them it was the bottom of the 5th, and they knew what I was saying- I didn't have to translate it into "a little more than half way through". They knew the lingo.
The second group was mostly American and other expat kids. They knew of baseball, and knew a bit about how the game generally worked, but they had never given it much thought until now. One of them, an eighth grade girl, came up to me one Monday morning following a rain delayed Sunday game. "I missed the end of the game!" she exclaimed. "The cut away to a Rugby game when the baseball game ran long because of the rain. I've never been interested in baseball before, but now I am, because of you."
The third group of kids knew nothing about baseball, and really, still don't. They ask me a million questions. Why does NY have more H's then us? What counts as an error? When will the game end? Can you score when you're pitching? Hits. Runs, Errors. Innings. None of it meant anything until I explained it. They don't know baseball, but they became, in many ways, the most rabid fans. They cared, because I cared.
The fourth group of kids were rather amusing. They were comprised of a small group of boys who went out of their way to cheer for whoever the Tigers were playing, just to goad me. They were Yankees fans for a week, then Rangers fans. They worked hard to reject anything I liked, and we had lots of fun going back and forth about it. When they named their Jeopardy teams the Yankees and the Rangers, I wrote them on the board as "Yankees Stink" and "Rangers Stink".
But at some point last week, my aunt put the following comment on our family blog: "Clare your students' enthusiasm for baseball is a good example of the power of modeling, I'd say. And also a good example of why children can not be taught primarily by computers...The relationship with the teacher is a big factor." She was commenting more about the power of the human being vs. technology in teaching, but she inadvertently got me thinking. In her comment about the power of modeling and the relationship with the teacher I realized that though I came here as a missionary of Jesus Christ, for the past two weeks I have been preaching the gospel of Detroit Tiger baseball.
WHAT IF? What if I shared less of my passion for sports (or tea or pink) with my students, and more of my passion for Jesus? What if, when they asked me about my weekend, I told them how excited I was about what God is doing in my life? What the Spirit of God in me shone as brightly as my love for baseball?
I imagine I'd end up with four groups of kids not unlike the four I have now. One group that knows all the lingo, all about God, but needs to connect with him in a real and passionate way. Another group that knows of him, but has never given him much consideration before. Another group who has little idea what the whole thing is about, but they know that they want to know more because of the passion they see in me. And, a group who sees him and fully and completely rejects him. But even in their rejection, they engage with him...
My goal this week? Share my passion for Jesus. Let that invade my mathematics and Spanish teaching. Let that flow out of every pore. Let them see my heart, and see what happens...
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Ballet, Birthday, Baseball, and Beethoven in Bangkok
Ballet: Last Friday night I went to my first ballet class ever. So fun! I had missed my jazz class earlier in the week since I was still tired and recovering, so went to ballet with friends on Friday instead. I couldn't keep up, of course, but enjoyed it nonetheless. Also enjoyed having dinner downtown afterwards at a Mexican restaurant- fajitas!
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| Clare, Mutarica, and Holly |
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| Enjoying my chocolate lava pancakes |
Baseball: As noted in yesterday's post, it has been a week filled with baseball. Watching, checking, cheering. and now, the fun continues. It is rather inconvenient that all the games occur either in the early morning hours or while I am working, but I am thankful for the technology that allows me to at least watch some of the action. My students are already planning our World Series Victory party. Mostly they're just counting on a day without homework, but hey, whatever it takes to turn them into Tigers fans...
Beethoven: Last night I was able to go to the symphony with a dear friend from work. It was so much fun to head downtown on a Friday night and the venue, the Thailand Cultural Center, was beautiful. We were treated to two symphonies by a visiting Russian orchestra. The first piece I don't remember the name, but the second one was Beethoven's 9th. Which of course means nothing to me, but maybe means something to some of you. My favorite part was the end, which is the song "Joyful Joyful". It was fun to recognize some of the music. It started with just the cellos and basses, later adding the full orchestra AND the huge chorus and four opera soloists (the same group is performing the opera Marriage of Figaro tonight). So the performance ended with this massively talented group of Russians playing/singing in German in front of a Thai/international audience, all the while praising God, "Joyful, joyful, we adore thee God of glory Lord of love...". Absolutely stunning. A very fun night out with another great friend.
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| Kristine and I on the grounds at the Thai Cultural Center |
I have a lot more to blog about, but since it doesn't start with B, I'll just have to make another post...
Friday, October 7, 2011
Tigers Fever!
It's official: my student have caught Tigers Fever! I have been talking up the Tigers for a week now, and hung a few fan towels up in my classroom. At first, they were just curious, wondering what all the fuss was about. They offered me deals: become a Manchester United fan and they would root for the Tigers. But as the week has gone on and we have tracked the American League series scores together and followed each Tigers v. Yankees game, their excitement has been building. Today, we knew, was the day. I was teaching during the entire game, and you would think I'd need to be "sneaking off" every few minutes to check the score- not necessary. They wanted to know as much as I did. So every 15 minutes, all morning, we'd stop and look- and cheer and bite our nails. When my homeroom left for their 3rd period class we were up by 1 heading into the 8th inning. My 8th graders came in and took a quiz. I'd walk a lap, monitoring the room, they stop by the computer to see what had developed. The internet at school isn't fast enough for us to listen or watch, so I had the Gameday feature turned on. The kids finished their quiz with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th, so we put Gameday up on the front projector to watch Valverde's last out together. And the room erupted into yells and applause. A few seconds later the phone rang- it was my homeroom, down the hall in LA, calling to congratulate me on "our" team's success. So now we're all psyched and ready for Texas, me and this crew of 100 international middle schoolers who has discovered the joy of cheering passionately for your team, especially when they defeat the Big Gad Yankees. Go Tigers!
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