Noone Owes You Anything!

On Ash Wednesday Fr. Jarrod gave a homily on rejecting a sense of entightlement. I think most of my Freshmen slept during that homily.

I'm scared for the future of our world and fear the success of those I teach. I fear raising a child some day in this world. I'm discovering that the two biggest problems in our world and especially among our youth are Apathy and a Sense of entightlement. This is why the health care bill passed, this is why we are in an economic crisis, this is why Obama is our president and this why my Freshmen this semester have caused me so much frustration.

I am currently seeing the lowest grades amongst my freshmen than I have in the six years of my teaching career. I am experiencing the largest number of students that I have ever experienced refusing to do assignments and turn in work. On the last unit test I gave I had 70% of my Freshmen get a D or F on it. In previous years on that same test I had 70% of them get an A or a B on it. All I hear from them is complaining and that its too hard and when I ask them if they have done the reading or the study guides (mind you I give them a study guide with every question from the test on it) they say no. I actually had a girl tell me that she would read if the Bible was more entertaining, its just boring so she wasn't going to read it. I told her God wrote only one book and I wouldn't want to be her on judgement day when God asked her if she had read His book and she has to say no. Probably not the most charitable response but what can I say I was frustrated.

I'm trying my best to be loving and patient but I wonder what the most loving thing is sometimes. I think of the story where Jesus went into the temple and knocked tables over and drove the money changers out of the temple, or his harsh words to the Pharisees. These were harsh words but they were loving. I guess I'm reaching the Jesus knocking tables over phaze in the semester and I'm ready to go into the class room and over turn some desks!

Here is what I would like to tell my Freshmen:

Dear Freshmen,

Noone owes you anything. I'm not here to entertain you. I'm here to help you get to heaven and teach you the importance of scripture and the amazing story of how God saved us. If you don't find that exciting and entertaining then I feel sorry for you. I'm sorry you have to use your brains and that there is not a youtube, movie, or video game version of this available! I'm sorry that I can't effectively text you all this information! In Revelation it says that it is better for you to be hot or cold than lukewarm for if you are lukewarm God will spew you forth from his mouth! I hate to break it to all of you but most of you fall into this lukewarm category. I fear for your souls and success in life. You are some of the brightest students I've ever taught yet the laziest I've ever met! I've done everything I can to help you and convey the beauty and importance of the Old Testament and you have refused to put in any work on your part. You expect everything to be done for you and want the easy way out of everything. Well guess what I'm tiered of stressing out over it. I will continue with what I'm doing. If you want to join me great if not you may fail and I will let you. Have a nice life!

Sounds a little harsh huh? Well I don't know if that is the approach to take or not. All I know is that I am at my whitts end and want them so badly to see the importance of the Old Testament. I want them to care and actually put forth some effort. I don't know how to do that any more than I already have. I guess I'm just asking God for patience and perseverence at this point. It has become a battle of the wills and I'm resigning myself to the fact that I can't make them accept this message or work hard. It has to come from them.