I was teaching typing today, and one of my students started talking about how he'd recently decided what he believes, theologically. Oh! I said. He expanded upon the subject by explaining that he is a four-point Calivinist. He believes in four of the five tenets. The one he doesn't believe in is limited atonement (which, I think, is the idea that Jesus died only for the elect - not for everyone). Now this wouldn't have been that awkward, except that the other student in typing is definitely a five-point Calivinist. I, not being much of a Calvinist, but hiding that fact very carefully while at school, was rather tongue-tied. I just said that we must be sure to base our beliefs on the Bible, and both seemed satisfied with that. Oh the tightropes I attempt!
Another weird moment came after I e-mailed Craig about seeing Dan Jansen in the opening ceremonies. Jansen was a mutual hero of giant proportions back in the day. Oh the depths and heights we traveled with him! Anyway, he e-mailed back, and said he'd told Kayla the saga, since she didn't know who he was. What?! Was it really that long ago?
That weird moment reminded me of one earlier today, when I asked my 7th and 8th grade class which two countries were separated by the Berlin Wall, and realized they weren't even alive when it came down. In fact, they also asked me what the Cold War was! You mean not everyone in this country shared the childhood fear of being bombed by the Russians? I explained it to them, and we practiced hiding under the desks in case of bombs.
9 comments:
Yeah, Kayla was not yet three when he won his gold medal.
And could someone explain to me the Berlin Wall? I get confused about it. It was in Berlin, right? Between East Berlin and West Berlin...but Berlin is squarely in the middle of EAST GERMANY!!! It isn't on the border of East and West Germany...it's far away from it. Or is it? So if Berlin was in communist-controlled East Germany, how was there a West Berlin that was free from communist control? Wouldn't they have been sort of isolated in the midst of evil? How did West Berlin survive in a communist country? Were the West Berliners allowed to travel outside of West Berlin into East Germany? And was there another wall that separated the two countries? I seem to remember watching a movie about East Germans escaping in an air balloon over the wall into West Germany, but they weren't in Berlin. They were in the middle of the woods.
I'm so confused! and stupid...
Craig,
Berlin was divided in half after WWII--West Berlin controlled by the allies, East by the Soviets.
After the war, the residents of East Berlin could travel to West Berlin, despite the Soviet's attempt to thwart them.
(Incidentally, shortly after the war ended, the Soviets hoped to control the west and so they restricted traffic to and from the city, and President Truman ordered the Berlin Airlift, which continued until the restriction was lifted.)
The Berlin wall wasn't built until 1969, in a last ditch effort to stop people from visiting West Berlin and not returning. The wall came down in 1989. ('member Reagan's speech?)
This concludes our lesson on the Berlin Wall.
gimli...i pretty much knew all that, i guess. It's more the question of how West Berlin survived in a communist country. Were they sealed off in their "freedom" and thus a tiny few square miles of the west in the middle of East Germany. Weren't the Soviets afraid of East Germans outside of Berlin escaping to West Berlin, not just East Berliners? And yet the wall didn't SURROUND West Berlin, did it? It kept East Berliners out, but what about other East Germans who live all around Berlin?
And was there another barrier which separated the two countries, besides the one in Berlin? I used to always think the Berlin Wall separated East and West Germany, but it really only separated East and West Berlin.
I should research this myself.
aha! research! The wall WAS built AROUND the city of West Berlin, part of it dividing East Berlin from West Berlin, and the rest dividing West Berlin from the "frontier" with East Germany. So basically West Berlin was sealed off, and this had nothing to do with West Germany. People tried to escape, not OVER the wall into West Germany, but INSIDE the wall into West Berlin, and from there they could usually escape to the West.
So maybe there wasn't a wall between East and West Germany and the movie I saw was about people trying to escape INTO West Berlin from the East German frontier??? The jury's still out on that one. I saw that movie years and years ago.
Andrea, sorry to clog your blog with my personal education!
To expand on gimli's lesson, both Berlin and Germany were actually divided into FOUR sectors, each one controlled by either the Americans, the French, the British, and the Russians. It so happened that the first three countries ended up combining their sections, thus creating "West" Berlin and "West" Germany. During the time the Russians cut off trucks from entering West Berlin, the airlift was conducted through air corridors the Russians had promised to the West, and continued to allow during the time of the airlift.
And the film was a Disney film, Night Crossing. And yes, I think they were going from East Germany to West Germany, not into Berlin.
By all means, keep up the good research work! I was rather fuzzy on it myself... Oh, what an educational site I oversee.
YOU PRACTICED HIDING UNDER DESKS?! Cooooool! I am soooo jealous- of your students! I wish I had you as my teacher!
Well, now THEY[your students] can practice hiding under desks for the day when the Islamic Militants nuke us. Just remind them of that. That'll make their day :-)
hey have you had a sub yet? I could sub for you, cept first I'd want to sit in on one of your classes.
The teachers here at the high school, I'd say to an extent hate being teachers, if onely you taught at our school, if there were more ANdrea's that loved their kids and loved their jobs...sigh... hey that's fun...
Maybe I can be a fun, and loving sub...that's a good aspiration, you've inspiried me, we'll see how far that will go in actually happening, it's differnt being a sub cause you have the teachers's lesson plans to execute:)
cheers to you a wonderful teacher!
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