disobedience

ceo for the kids
I thought it only happened to other teachers. I thought my kids would do what I asked them to do. Last week, I experienced outright disobedience in a school purported to be one of the best in the city. My senior bilingual students were required to give a 5 minute speech on a topic of their choice. One girl decided to give a speech on a topic she was not really able to speak about in a non-inflamatory way, so I suggested she find another topic. She did: Barbies. However, she pulled it straight from the internet. So, I assigned her a topic: the value that the local mall has for the city and the surrounding suburbs. Last week was D's chance to shine and wow us with her ideas and opinions. She began her speech by pulling out several Barbie dolls from her bag. I was, shall we say, not overly happy about her choice to disobey. I patiently listened to her "internet copied" speech and decided to think about what her consequences should be. A few days later, I spoke with D and asked her why she deliberately disobeyed my instructions. Her response floored me, but maybe it shouldn't have: "I couldn't find anything on the internet!!!" I told her that was the point; she should use her brain to come up with the speech on her own. She proceeded to break into tears and tell me "I can't think!" I probably should have been more compassionate; here is this poor girl age 17 who is crying in front of me; but I wasn't, and insisted that this week, she will submit the assigned speech or will receive the lowest grade possible. It struck me later that I'm really no different sometimes in my relationship with God; there are times when He is very, very clear about what He wants and I simply choose to disobey and "do my own thing." This was a good lesson for me, once again, of the significance of listening to His voice as He knows what is best for me.