America = Needs Farmers

Check out this great video from Kinnick Stadium last Saturday night. Most of the video is during the national anthem, but after the anthem, the cards are reversed displaying "America Needs Farmers" spelled out on one sideline and "Go Hawks" on the other side. There is a round ANF symbol in the endzone, too.

Ever since Hayden Fry put the ANF on the helmets in the 80's, that sticker has been my dad's favorite part of Hawkeye football.

And due to the fact that the 2011 Iowa Football Team is in the midst of a mediocre season, no shot at an undefeated season or Big Ten Title, they actually beat Northwestern. Imagine that...

I Saw What I Saw

A friend of mine who is also a teacher and shares a similar heart for the oppressed our our country, sent me this song after reading my recent blog posts. I think it's a pretty accurate summary of what I experienced. In that message, this friend wrote this to me, "You have had the opportunity to see what many pretend does not exist. I will pray that you heal, but I hope you never "get over" this experience--I hope we will all be haunted by these children until the Church does something."

7 Weeks and an Apology - Part II

Friday was an amazing day for me. My last day teaching in KC,MO brought the return of some things I had taken for granted. During lunch, I found that I was actually hungry. The stress of my job robbed me of my appetite, causing me to lose 20 pounds. On Friday night, I hung out with some friends and felt like a normal human being. I was told by said friends that it is good to have Donnie back with us. Finally, on Friday night, I laughed for the first time in a long time. I watched Dumb and Dumber and laughed almost as hard as the first time I watched the movie. My job was literally taking away my life.

Dawson's biological Grandma, Kim, told me that she was watching me whither away. I was whithering away not only physically but emotionally as well. She said that she was watching helplessly as I was emotionally withdrawn from my family. I didn't do so on purpose, but I had nothing to give my family during the few hours each week I was able to be with them. For that reason, I had to break my commitment and walk away from the mission I had joined.

Really though, I had made that decision years ago at a Promise Keepers convention I attended just before leaving for college. At that convention in Indianapolis, I made the commitment to never put ministry before my family. A former pastor would often share his own similar commitment, asking us "what is the point if I save everyone else's kids but lose my own?" And that is where I finally came down in this most agonizing decision I've ever faced.

I have been miserable since I left for training on June 26th. My heart was torn apart as I watched Erin and Dawson walk away at the airport. While the two free days and the single week of normal working hours that I enjoyed upon returning home were wonderful, they weren't enough. With the exception of that one weekend, I have been emotionally and physically detached from my family since June 26th. And while I'm not working now, I'm still pretty detached. I've got to work through the depression and PTSD while rebuilding a healthy and balanced relationship with my wife and son. I have a counseling appointment on Friday to start the healing and rebuilding process.

I spent the past three weeks seeking guidance from a large number of friends and family members. The overwhelming consensus was "this is too much and you need to put your family first." One notable exception however, were my superiors at Teach For America although I'm not sure whether I'll share the ways they tried to influence my decision. So I did it. I walked out on my classroom because I couldn't be the teacher I was expected to be while also being the father my son needs me to be. With that said, Teach for America is a wonderful organization that is working to keep our nation from becoming an apartheid state. But I have learned the hard way that there is a reason TFA recruits young and single people. The demands of TFA are not sustainable for a parent living in the suburbs. I greatly regret that I wasn't aware of that before I signed up.

The haunting question though, is whether or not putting family first is really biblical. Yes, it's very Focus on the Family-esque and North American Christianity-esque but is it biblical? The call to the gospel put forth by Jesus and Paul is much more radical than what our North American Christian culture would lead us to believe. Sure we find ways to explain it away or ignore it, but Jesus did say "“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple."

And Paul was always letting the churches know about the trials he was facing. From 2 Corinthians 11, "24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. 27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?"

And Philippians 3, "10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead."

But what about the boy I chose to adopt? What about being able to have friends, laugh and serve in my local church?

It is quite possible I made a bad decision and put my own desires above God's plan to use me up and break me for his Kingdom's sake. It's also possible that this is finally God's answer to my almost 3 year long prayer of, "if you don't want me to leave full-time pastoral ministry, please stop me."


I don't have a lot of answers right now. I know that while I have some leads and some savings, I really need a job. I'm quite sure that 10 years from now I will have some regret for all of this but that I won't regret stopping the 14 weeks I missed out on being a dad from turning into 2 years. I also know that if I am walking away from what God has for me right now that doesn't mean he won't open up another door in the future. I also know that having my family taken away from me has awakened me to the need to love them in a better way.

7 weeks and an Apology - Part I

I have an apology to share with everyone who reads this. I'm not apologizing for the fact that I haven't blogged in 5 weeks. Nope. I'm apologizing for the fact that I'm done. Last Friday was my final day at George Melcher Elementary.

I'm not exactly sure how to go about sharing the pressure all the teachers are under. In my last post, I shared the emotional pressure of trying to manage kids with so many issues. But what broke me was all the other expectations placed upon us by the school district. The collapse of the KCMSD has been all over the news lately. First the Superintendent bails, then the state of Missouri strips KCMSD of its accreditation. All of this just adds to the air of desperation around the district, though "desperation" doesn't begin to describe the atmosphere.

The veteran teachers at Melcher said that teaching was always difficult, but the last few years the district has piled more and more work upon the teachers in the hope that the district could climb out of their hole. These teachers, teachers who work 12-14 hour days, stated it is simply impossible to do everything that is asked of them. Two or three times a week, we would get emails from our principal with long lists of things we were supposed to do; things that we were given very little, if any, training on, things that would take a lot of work to complete and that sometimes contradicted what we had just been doing.

Some examples: 1) The schedule changed about every two weeks. Even Kindergartners would have to figure out their new rooms, teachers and schedule. On my last day it was also the last day I would've been with the group with which I started the school year.
2) We were expected to do a six hour online training module for FEMA. Seriously. In order to pass the training, we had to take a detailed test regarding the organization of the National Incident Management System.
3) Due to student violence, we were expected to have a minute-by-minute behavior plan for about half of our students. Before we could send a student to the office, we had to go through a 5 step, several day long process that concluded with a parent's meeting. I often didn't even have the phone numbers for student's parents.
4) One of the other TFA teachers had 3 fights in his room last Friday. He worked until 12:15 that night, was back at school the next morning at 5:15 and still didn't get all of his work done. He was greeted that morning by a lecture from the principal for not getting enough work done and a chewing out by a parent for having an unsafe classroom. Seriously.

It's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, but at a life-destroying pace.

It seems like there are people sitting in office chairs in the KCMSD central office making impossible demands of over-worked teachers and getting paid quite well to do it. And how suffers? Of course, it's the kids. The kids who are doomed to a life of poverty simply because they were born into a school district vacated by the rich who could change things but can also afford private school and run by people who find ways to sneak an extra $20 million into a contract to help out a friend (allegedly).

What finally broke me was the requirements for Master's Degree I was expected to finish by the end of these two years. When I saw my first syllabus, I had a nervous breakdown. I've never had anything happen to me like what happened to me the past two weeks. I'm a bit too proud to share all the details but my wife was quite worried for my health. And last Sunday afternoon, while planning for the next week, we came to the conclusion that while it might be physically possible to continue the cost to our family's health would be too great. So last Friday, Sept. 30th was my last day.

Every single teacher at my school who had kids advised me to put my family first. Some of them stated, "if I could afford to do something else, I would, because I only see my kids one hour a day."

Most of my students were pretty upset. As I shared in my last blog post, I was determined not to be "that guy", yet another male walking out on them. I wish they all had dads who would put them first, but it simply isn't the case. When talking with a group of 5 students, here is what I learned about their dads: 1) My dad was shot in the head 2) My dad is in prison 3) My dad just got out of prison after 8 years 4) My dad is in Mexico. Ultimately, I had to shut of my emotions, let go of those kids and do what I believed to be the best thing for my family and my overall health. Which is why I was able to read through a heart-felt letter from a girl who asked why I had to leave like all the other teachers. Of course, Friday was my last day having her in class anyway, since the administration changed up our classes for the 4th time since the start of the school year.

While I'm certainly not responsible for creating this terrible system, I am responsible for breaking my commitment. I'll have to work through that guilt but I know it is possible. This was not the most noble moment in my life but the decision might have been the lesser of two evils.

I wanted to confront the powers but the powers ended up destroying me. I wanted to be a part of the solution but I was only a part of the problem. There will however, be other problems I can address and other solutions I can embody. This was a terrible and frustrating chapter in my life but it's not the end of the story. Neither is it the end of my blog posts on this subject. I've got a lot more to share and now that I'm unemployed, I've got the time to do so.

Two Weeks

It's Friday night and I'm finally going to get a full night's sleep. All I can really say about these past two weeks is that I've survived. That's all. I have simply survived. Everything inside of me wants to quit and walk away. When kids are mocking me or fighting in the hallways, I think, "I don't need this _____" and I want to just walk out the door. I want to leave WITH ALL THAT IS INSIDE OF ME. However, there is Someone else inside of me, spurring me on. I can't walk out on what God has called me to do. And as one of just three male teacher in this school, I don't want to be like almost every other male in almost every student's life and just walk out. Honestly, the desire to not walk out on these kids is the ONLY thing keeping me here. I have NO IDEA how I'll EVER teach anything.

I have seen things these past two weeks that I can't even begin to explain. I can't believe that the richest nation in the history of the world can allow their kids to be in a system like what I'm seeing. Dear God, how can we treat our poor in this way?

Of the past 14 days, I have only NOT cried for two of them, tonight being the second. I don't mean just a few tears, I mean pounding the table and sobbing. I just can't explain what I've experienced. Last Saturday, it took everything I had to just get off the couch, make breakfast and take Dawson to the park.

To try to summarize a few things, I've got some categories that might give a tiny glimpse of what I've experienced.

Funny
One of the other male teachers, a TFA teacher, has an interesting group of 6th grade girls. These girls enjoy calling him a "dumb cracker."

I had a kid turn and flash me a half cute, half devilish smile and try to sprint out of the school building. He got caught at the door, though.

On Thursday, as I stood in the midst of the swirling hurricane that is my classroom at the end of the day, I had the thought, "no one would ever believe what I'm seeing if I told them." So, I decided to get out my camera and record it. I just stood there, video recording my classroom. Of course, kids freak out because I could show their parents the video, so the kids started crawling back out from under their desks, releasing their classmates from headlocks and actually doing part of what they were supposed to be doing. Due to liability issues, I can't post the video online.

After spending two weeks with one group of kids, I will now begin teaching the kids that are at a 4th grade reading and math level. I have a classroom full of 5th grade textbooks and nothing for 4th grade. I don't know who is in my class or where my 5th grade kids will be going. It all starts Monday. I wish I could also video the mass chaos, and I mean mass chaos, that will be happening in the halls of our school on Monday. Sometimes the only way to deal with the stress and anxiety is to just laugh.

Scary
My fellow 5th grade teacher had a nervous breakdown. She got two days off and went to the doctor. She tried to quit, but TFA wouldn't let her. She's back and looking better. After school today, I said, "you usually look like you've been hit by a MAC truck, today you look like it was just a pickup that hit you. So it's getting better."

Two days ago, as about 200 kids were squeezing through a tiny opening in a chain link fence to get onto the bus, the older kids literally trampled the kindergartners. Seriously, ran OVER them.

Last week, while I was having a breakdown and sobbing in the office, I saw a girl try to attack our principal. It took about four people to restrain her.

I'm not eating much because of the stress. I'm losing a lot of weight and looking pretty sick. But I'm just not hungry because of the tension that is always in my body. I REALLY need some anti-anxiety medicine. I have trouble breathing when picking my class up in the morning.

Sad
The Superintendent of the KCMO School District, who had been working very hard to bring about reform, resigned on Tuesday night. And the poor continue to be forgotten and ignored.

The kids have no playground equipment. I did however, thanks to some money that one of Erin's coworkers gave to us, buy them some playground balls.

There are roaches and rats in my classroom.

Kids have to walk across major intersections, along busy streets with no sidewalks and through parks full of drug dealers to get to school. Seriously. How can that be okay?

Two kids who are way behind and really need to learn are about to get suspended for fighting in my classroom, putting them even further behind.

During worship last Sunday a line from one of our songs made me sit down and begin weeping. It was the line, "break my heart with what breaks yours." If I hurt to see how these kids are treated by our system, how must the God of justice, mercy and compassion feel? Who will have to answer for how we've treated our nation's poor?

Inspirational
My wife. Seriously, I would not still be standing if it wasn't for her. She's running the entire house, planning all kinds of things for my lessons, packing my lunches and ironing my clothes while also propping me up emotionally. Erin has always been a great ministry partner, but she has gone beyond even what I knew she could do. She is also supporting and encouraging the other 3 TFA teachers on my hall, too. She is simply amazing.

Just kissing Dawson's blond head and hugging his little body keeps me going. I've been home by 7 amost every night to spend an hour with him. I need to be with my boy.

Just little things here and there. Last Friday, I got them all to walk in a line without talking, for about 2 minutes. Also last Friday, when I said, "I have an announcement to make" (regarding reading to a Kindergarten class) one student blurted out, "Mr. Miller, are you quitting?" I was so shocked by the question, I just laughed. I just can't be another male who walks out on them.

I greet the kids at the door, have them look me in the eye and shake my hand. One boy refused to do it. "I don't touch other guys' hands." I told him that in my classroom we shake the teachers hand and until he's ready to do that, he needs to sit in the back of the room. About a half hour later he came up and shook my hand. I almost cried. I then had a big classroom celebration to "welcome" him to our class for the day.

As the two kids about to be suspended stormed past me leaving school today, I gave them the candy I had just given to the rest of the class. They were so angry and wouldn't look at me. I had them stop, gave them the candy and said, "this is for no reason other than you're my students and I care about you. I'll be back on Monday." I saw a tiny crack in that hard exterior.

People whom I haven't heard from in a long time (and close friends and family) call or text me to reassure me they're praying for me. Honestly, I feel almost forgotten by God sometimes. But things like the financial gifts, prayers and other really simple acts of kindness are the tiny shreds of hope onto which I cling for strength. God has NOT abandoned me, nor these kids and I'm where I'm supposed to be.

The speech teacher across the hall who watched 5 different teachers rotate through my classroom last year keeps reassuring me that I'm doing a good job and that she's seeing progress. When she saw me break down and cry the other day, she slipped note in my door that said, "you're doing a good job and I wouldn't say that if it weren't true."

I watch a few of the veteran teachers who can really do it. I sit in their classrooms during my plan time. It's so amazing to watch.

At art class, I watched my 17 boys act like little angels. The art teacher assured me, "I've been doing this for 20 years, you've been doing it for 7 days. Just keep going."

Most of the teachers there are Christ-followers. The other day, as I broke down and cried as soon as my students left, a veteran teacher put her arms around me and prayed for me. These "vets" are always praying for us "newbies." They are amazing to watch. They pray for us, give us advice and mostly just refuse to let us quit. One teacher told me I not only need to pray before and after school (and I do pray during my 50 minute drive, I pray to have the strength to just walk through the doors of the school) but to pray during the day. To ask God to give me wisdom and strength. Today, I was staring at some kids who were "acting the fool" and thinking some not nice thoughts about them. I started praying, "Jesus, show me how you see them." And my brow softened, I stopped glaring at them and I saw hurting little kids who are loved by Jesus. Then someone did something stupid and I got pissed again. But I saw them with the right eyes, for just a moment.

I could write all night, but I've got to go to bed. I am finally going to take a Sabbath rest tomorrow. I must do it. Sabbath is a reminder that even when I stop working (and I have SO MUCH to do) God continues to run the world. Of course, very few of my plans ever work anyway.

So tomorrow is cleaining the house, taking Dawson to the park and spending the evening with my wife. Last weekend showed me how much strength I can get from just sleeping, eating and talking with some friends.

Not sure when I'll be able to post again...

My Last First Day

It is 11:15 and I've FINALLY finished planning for tomorrow. Even though I have to get up at 5:15, I wanted to take the time to journal about today.

Today was my last ever first day of teaching. Thank goodness.

I cried a bit on my way to class, out of the excitement and vision for my kids. I cried on the way home out of sheer frustration, exhaustion and sense of being overwhelmed.
Since last Monday, I've probably only had about 5 hours that I wasn't sleeping or working. I'm NOT exaggerating.

This is insane.

And today was insane. We started the day with an incomprehensible crash course in how the day would work. The day ended with me releasing my students at the wrong time to the wrong places. In between we had cockroaches coming from the ceiling, indoor recess because of rain, a flooded boys bathroom, a boy punching the chalkboard, several kids sleeping on their desk and a terrible feedback (due to Friday's lighting strike) from the PA every time the Principal spoke, hurting the kids' ears and preventing us from knowing when and where to release the students.

But a bit of good / funny news. 1) I got asked twice if I was the Principal. Both times I laughed. One mom said, "you just look like a Principal."
2)In the one stretch in which all kids were paying attention, I got to give a speech about the importance of succeeding academically so one can graduate from college.
3) The SPED teacher across the hall told me that compared to last year's first day, I had GREAT first day. Of course, the classroom I'm currently in had 5 different teachers last year.

I can't promise I'll ever get my students to behave or even learn something. But I can promise I'm not going anywhere.

My Boy is Reading!

Dawson is reading!

I wrote down this great memory of which I wanted to hold on to on Dawson's blog. Link

Still Lifting

Over the past year or so, the intensity of my weight-lifting has dropped significantly. I still lift but not as frequent and not as intense as before.

About two months ago, my sister showed me this article from the Hy-Vee corporate magazine. I was glad to read that my former work-out partner is still going strong. Interesting read.