Just Moments in Time

For the past two years I feel that much of my life has been run based on some future event that is going to happen. Whether it is the end of a quarter, the end of a season in life, the end of a job, or the end of a day, much of my life has been lived impatiently looking forward. I have let myself become bound to the measure of clocks, watches, computers screens or calendars. There have been nights and days where I have dwelled on the future so much that I become paralyzed for doing anything at that current moment. I have felt that if a current moment of life comes, all will somehow come into order: my friendships, relationship with God, relationship with Katie, parent stuff, money. I have been living in the future, not within a current moment of life. Don’t get me wrong, there are times that I feel that I am right in that moment as if all rest of time is insignificant, but over all it pains me to say that this is not true for most of the moments in my life.

As of today I know longer want to be constricted to the impatience which has ruled my life of much of the last two years. I want to live my life in patience. Not the type of patience that is waiting for a future event, like a child patiently waiting for the morning to arrive on Christmas Eve. I want to live a life of patience that calls me to fight against the grain of my natural impulse. As Nouwen points out in his book Compassion, a life of patience enables us to “see, hear, taste, and smell as fully as possible the inner and outer events of our lives,” to “enter actively into the thick of life and to fully bear the suffering within and around us” as we “give up control…entering into a unknown territory.” The patience that Nouwen speaks of reveals a new time, a time of grace. This time is not measured by units or numbers but it is lived in fullness. These moments of time are not necessarily happy, joyful, painful, or marked with struggle. These moments of time are experience in the fullness of there importance. Every moment in life is important, I…we, can no longer afford to live lives of impatience. May you and I live every moment to its fullness, experiencing everything each moment holds within it for the purposes of His glory that is now but is to come…

Is true community possible in the "now but not yet"

It has been a while since I posted...much of the reason for that this because for much of the last 2 years I feel that my life has been a weird balance of fragmented constant change. Moving from quarter to quarter, living pay check to pay check, moving from close friend to distant friendship, and driving place to place. I rarely have the time to just sit and process what is going on as I run through my life. As Katie can confess, this has lead to many nights where I lay on my back, in tears, trying to talk out what I am feeling.
It is about once a year that I really get the time to sit and process life...these last 2 weeks have been this time. During the first 3 weeks of Sept. Fuller usually stops enough while job stuff is in transtion that it allows me enough time to process what the last year has held. Last year, these 3 weeks ended with an amazing trip to CO, spending much needed time with good friends giving me enough strength to run towards the distance finish line. This year, while I have enjoyed not having school or work for the last 2 weeks, I don't feel as if I have recovered enough to keep me going. The only day during these last 2 weeks that I feel that I have really have been refreshed was the day I spent celebrating my 2 year relationship with Katie. (Side Note: I love you babe! and thank you for everything during these last 2 years!) Many of the last 2 weeks have been filled with me sitting on my butt...doing nothing, which if you know me is a quick way to kill me. I thrive off of community, doing, friendship, and conversation with people I love and who love me. My community has of late shrunk to a roommate whom I love, a girlfriend whom I don't know what I would do without, a friend who I talk to on the phone from Central Cali, friends whom I feel I don't really know anymore, what I can make out of the few friends from college I still have and what I can piece together with the new friends who are still to new to amount to much as of now. For some people this might seem like a normal group of friends but for me it is barely enough to survive. Maybe this is what life has come to. It seems that if the days of dreaming of a community of friends has drifted away. As I sat in church today and listened to my pastor Donn, who has been an amazing blessing in my life over the last 2 years, talked about community, I sat there wondering if a biblical community is really possible in our culture and world today? I long for a day where my married friends don't fall into some invisible married cassim of no return. I long for a day where people won't come home and sit in front of a box where they entertain themselves to death. I long for a day where people talk face to face and not read about each other on a blog sites or myspace pages. I long for a day where families of singles, marrieds, kids, and elders can come together weekly in fellowship. Maybe this hope is fleeting? I would like to think not, but it seems that the possibility of a world like this has been drifting further and further away in the "now but not yet."

What happens when the Church and Business Strategies mix

At Fuller Seminary I constantly get asked two questions: Where I did my undergrad? And what was my major in undergrad? As I quickly answer the first question proudly, Azusa Pacific University, when I come to the answer of the second question I almost have to force myself not to mutter it under my breath, Marketing. The silence in the air speaks a thousand words. The silence is usually then broken with an awkward, “really?”

As look back on why I chose Marketing as my major in undergrad I usually have the same response, “really?” It has been two years since I graduated from A.P.U. and since I started Fuller Seminary the fall quarter after I graduated from A.P.U. and what may come to a supervised to some of you, is that I have been indoctrinated with more church/business ties than I ever did at A.P.U. You see it was one reason that I made the move from marketing/business to church ministry was because I couldn’t put together the things I was learning in my mandatory Bible classes with the things I was learning in my Marketing class. It was if Church and Business existed in to different worlds or maybe “spheres,” props to Abraham Kuyper, and they shouldn’t be emerged together. Yet, I soon discovered the world some Biblical studies classes painted for me of how the ideal church or Christian should exist in America is far from anything that it actually looks like. In America lines between the sphere of the church and the sphere of business, which Abraham Kuyper believes should exist, have become blurred more than we would like to think or admit to.

Our current case study A addresses this exact problem. A pastor returning from a pastor’s conference with many new business strategy ideas wants to implement them in his dying elderly church in order to save the church from becoming extinct. In order to do this the pastor feels that the church should translate church/ministry success into quantifiableterms (numbers) that can be measured and analyzed by numbers. All ministries then that do not produce numbers are done away with because they do not fit the strategy of the church, to maximize the church numbers.

So is it wrong for the pastor to want to implement business strategies into his dying church in order to try to save it? I wonder if I frame the question in a different way it might bring to light what I believe are the really questions at hand. Is it okay for the pastor to try to save the dying church, or should the pastor let the church die along with the last elderly member of the church? I don’t think so. Is it wrong for the pastor to want to bring new live into the church in the forms of new members? I don’t think so. I think the question we have to ask though is, does the strategy the pastor wanting to implement belong in the sphere of commerce only or can this strategy also belong in the sphere of the Church?

You see it is not bad that the pastor wants to try to revive his church through bring new life to the church through new members but I think the pastor get into troubled waters when he bring a strategy that was developed in the commerce sphere of the world and implement it into the sphere of the church as the only measurable way to determine if a ministry or church is successful. Ministry should never be based only on quantifiable terms or the numbers of people we can bring to a church or ministry, as it is in the commerce sphere. Yet, the pastor has some things right, sometimes it is necessary for the church to evaluate if a ministry is being successful or not based on certain terms, it just shouldn’t be just quantifiable terms. I don’t have the space or the time to come up with a list of other terms a church can measure the successfulness of their ministries but it is important to realize that there are times when we, the church, need to take a critical look at our ministries in order to evaluate if we are using the resources of our church in the best way we can. Therefore I cannot support the pastor if he was willing to implement a church strategy outlined above.

To answer the last question, what would I tell the pastor if I was on staff at the church, I would tell him my option discussed above. Sometimes in churches we like to play along with things as if arguments or disagreements should not happen with the church, as if we should just go along with what our boss or pastor says because after all he is the pastor. The Church needs to be place where we can discuss, in a loving way, our disagreements. After all that is what Paul did when he confronted Peter and James over the issue of Gentile and Jewish relations detailed in Acts and Galatians. If it came to the point where the pastor and myself strongly disagreed and we could not work it out and I was forced to leave the church because of it then at least I stood my ground because if I didn’t I would be giving up on one of my strongest convictions, that we have to be very careful when the sphere of the church and the sphere of commerce emerge together.

The Theology of the Indie Rock Scene

There is almost on other feeling in the world. You have been standing, or sitting depending on the venue, for what feels like hours, yet you don’t leave because something inside of you is keeping you their. Then all of a sudden the lights go out, everyone in the room quiets down. If you listen hard enough from the back of the stage your hear something. As it comes into focus the words ring out as if they are the clearest thing you have ever hear, “Run, Devil run. Run, Devil run.” The words are chanted over and over again getting louder and louder as three figures approach the stage. They continue to sing as the rest of the band joins them on stage, one by one picking up each of their instruments. Then nothing the band stands on stage quiet. The only thing you can hear is the random screams of “yeah!” from the crowd. Then, at what seems at the prefect time Jenny Lewis, the lead signer, strums her guitar and the experience beings.
While not all indie rock concerts begin like a Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins shows and bands all do have very similar details that make them quit similar to Biblical figures and stories. For one by it’s own definition indie music comes from the margins of pop culture. Indie music also is speaking prophetically into the wider culture of the world, like my Biblical prophets of old. While some might argue this is not the case for all indie bands, and I would not disagree, there are many indie bands where this is the case. Take for instance bands that are leading the way in the indie music scene such as Manchester Orchestra, Pedro the Lion, mewithoutYou, Bright Eyes, Cursive and the band motioned above Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins.
Indie music falls in long lines of great musical movements that have come from the margins such as Jazz, Rap and Punk. Yet, unlike these music genres indie music takes many different musical forms and styles. Somehow dispite the diversity of sounds indie music has created a community of individuals much like that of early movements in the Jazz, Rap and Punk scenes. Take the band Broken Social Scene for instance. This is a band made up of different musicians, all from different music genres, who come together to tour and play music just because of their love for the music and their common social bound.
We though live in an interesting time in music history, because of the rise of music down loading, web sites like myspace.com and purevolume.com, individuals search for something deeper than pop music brings and societies over stimulation of media; the indie music scene is finding itself growing in leaps and bounds. As the growth of indie music communities continue to grow, musicians from around the nation are joining together just to play music they love and music that challenges the norm.
Jazz, Rap and Punk not only find their musical roots from the margins but have historically been partnered with social movements. Yet unlike the urban start of many marginal musical movements indie music comes from suburban areas of our nation. Other than the love music another thing that brings indie musicians and participants together as a community is their stance against the norm of pop culture and the injustice of the world. Members of the indie music scene believe that there are more important things in the world going on. Therefore they look behond their selves, their views on sex, drugs, or religion and join together to fight a common enemy. Indie music has created a community of bands and individuals who are declaring, we are unsatisfied with the norm of society and are working to change things. While all of many indie bands like Bright Eyes and Cursive might be creating social noise and doing little to back it up in practice. There are bands such as mewithoutYou who are leading the way for all indie bands in the scene. Many members of the band mewithoutYou are apart of social organizations that working for social change such as mewithoutYou’s singer Aaron who is apart of the Simple Way Community. By participating in not only prophetic enouncement but social organizations mewithoutYou is declaring, don’t only sing about the social issues of the world but work to change those issues.
As indie communities and bands around the world come together they are marching to a different drum. A drum whos beats sound familiar to those of the early church. Stand against the norm, declare the coming of something different, hear our words because they are important and do not stand in our way because we are about something larger than the America dollar.

Christian College Community

It has been almost two years since I graduated from Azusa Pacific University where I did my undergraduate work. I will never forget that day because I don’t think their will ever be another such day in my life. There I sat in a crowd of people, of which some I would call friends while other acquaintances, knowing these times might be the last few moments in my life that I would be “doing life with” this group of people.

It was six years ago when I shown up on the APU’s campus on moving day. The campus was filled with screaming college students ready to welcome me to my new “home”, crying parents, local business vying for my dollars which they hoped I would give them over next couple of years, and new college freshman and transfers who were filled with so many emotions and thoughts that they could not hope to articulate in one coherent sentence. The one thing that still stands out to me about that day was that no matter where I went everyone was friendly, welcoming me to my new community.

As the weekend festivities ended and college went on as I guess colleges does, I started to establish a core group of friends that I hung out with weekly. We ate together, went to shows together, ran around in short shorts soaking wet in 45 degree whether together, had conversations about life until 4 in the morning together, put a large “BLACK OUT” shirt on the BIOLA Jesus together, suffered through finals weeks together, and just did life together for four years. I lament that their will probably be on other time in my life that I will live in community as I did during my undergrad college years. The structure of our current society doesn’t make community living as easily as I would hope because our society has become way to individualistic and privatized.

This is not right! As humans we have been created to live in community with each other. If we can declare that we are made in God’s image, and that God exists as a divine community than we must declare as God’s image that we are created exist in community with one another.

Christian college community was all nice and good and I have to admit there was something special about living in a community with people that are experiencing similar things as you are, it still creates a false image of Biblical community. Biblical community should look more multi-generational then a Christian college community usually does. As Christians we should not take forsake the biblical model of multi-generational community for what might seem easier or more convenient for us. We need to be community with those who have experienced what we have not, where we can pour into the lives of our youth and children, and where we can sit and hear the stories of our elderly. We need to be in a community were multi-generations can live together and truly be a picture of our savior to the world around us.

As I said above, it has been two year since all of my college friends went our separate ways and while I still talk with some and live with others, my group of friends, that I did life together with during college is gone. I still hope that one day I might live in a community like I did in college, yet hopefully this time it will look a lot more like Biblical community then it did was I was in college.

The last 11 Weeks

Well, I have come to the end of another quarter. This was probably the busiest quarters that I have had a Fuller. I not only was taking 10 units this quarter but the reading and projects for my classes required a lot of extra time. For my Youth Outreach and Evangelism class I had to do 20 hours of observation of youth in a secular area. The youth had to be non-church students. After the 20 hours of observation I then had to lead 2, 30 minute focus groups in order to find out their thought on their family, school, friends, and what they did during their free time. For my Ethics class, Discipleship in a Secular Society, I had to read like 1,400 pages of reading in 10 weeks plus do 5 hours of outside volunteer work, which I did at Harambee Ministries.

Other than taking classes I was busy with at my church. Noah, one of our volunteer leaders, and I started a senior guys Bible study. I feel that the Bible study is going very well. Other than that, church stuff has been crazy with our Mammoth Winter Trip and other drama that will go unmentioned for the online audience. Three weeks ago we started our new sermon serious in which we will be going through the Sermon on the Mount. Janelle and I are very excited to go through all of the great topics and will come up as we go through this serious. We both feel that this serious of messages will help to bring new prospectives to our students as well as help to shape them as they seek to discover what this journey with God is all about. Finally, last Saturday I went with other members of Baseline, the church I am apart of, to a seminar at Fuller. Basline was one of 17 churches invited this all day conference on "Multi-Generational Ministry." I am very excited to see how Baseline starts to implement what we learned this weekend. Over all, I feel that these last 11 weeks have been really amazing. God has been and is doing incredible things in the students lives.

On a more personal level, life has been going well. I have learned a lot in the last few weeks, which can be both good and frustrating. This is definitely a time of preparation in my life. I know that in the next couple of months I will have to make some decisions that will affect my life greatly in the next couple of coming years. I pray that God gives me grace and guidance for I have no other idea how I will be able to make these decisions.

I know I haven't posted as much as I would have liked to over the last few weeks. Hopefully over the next couple days I hope to post more of my thoughts as I process a lot of what has been going through my mind as of late. The two posts that follow below are sections of two papers I wrote this quarter. I just wanted to post them to put them out there. I feel they reveal important information and I also just wanted to see what people thought of my ideas. I hope all you my friends are doing well, may God bless you as you are a blessing to others.

Youth Research Paper ( I didn't edit this version very well so sorry for any errors)
Introduction
At 2 in the morning last night I just laid there, not because I was still excited at my win in an amazing game of H.O.R.S.E. with my roommates, on our houses’ in door basketball hoop. I wasn’t laying their reflecting on an rifting theological conversation that I had just had with my friends over some drinks. I was laying their because I was broken. As I lay there with my eyes closed, my mind drifted off. I started to think about the students at ___________, the sight of my Outreach project. Over the last ten weeks I have been substituting at _____________ Yet this time I wasn’t there just for the money I need to pay my bills. I was there because for the first time since I had started substituting there, I had to start to pay attention to what was really going on in the lives of the students at __________. Why? Because I had to for class, not because I wanted to or I thought it would be a good idea, being that I want to work with students. No, what made me do it was a project for a class. That’s what brought me to this point, a project for a class!
When I started this process I did not know what to expect, yet I never thought that at the end of this project I would feel so hopeless. This is the kind of hopelessness where you feel like no matter what you do you can’t do enough. It is the kind of hopelessness that brings you to tears just at the thought of students that are abandoned by there parents, teachers and any other adults that they might interact with during their day. It was with these thoughts that I lay awake, for how long I don’t really know, who does at times like this. I must have fallen asleep at some point because I awoke this morning, as I do every morning. Now I sit here trying to think about what it might mean to reach out these students. To share with them not only Christ’s love for them but my life, in hopes that I might enter their world as Christ entered this world, and love them as Christ loves them. Maybe then, and only then, will God use me to touch the students at __________________.
Observation
My First four Weeks (week 2 through 6 of the quarter)
I started my observation in the third week of January, exact date is unknown. For the first three weeks my observation was strictly in class or while walking around school to and from classes, lunch, arriving or leaving school. I had not really subbed at this school prior to this assignment, so my goal during the couple weeks was to be seen by the students in a normal substitute type setting. I did not want to move into their space to quickly. I subbed at their school about three times a week during these first four weeks.
Week Five to Nine (weeks 7 through 10 of the quarter)
Starting in week five I started to walk around at lunch. In the fifth week I ate half of my lunch solo and then walked around the campus eating as I walked. I soon transitioned to eating my whole lunch while out and about at lunch time. I would sit at different places during lunch and then walk around when I was done with my lunch I started talking to some students I had meet during class time. During this time I was still working at the school about 3 days a week.
Focus Groups
1st Focus Group
I set up my first focus group over March 2nd, 2007 during lunch. I asked a student that I had established a good relationship, on February 27th, 2007, if she would want to help me out with a project for one of my class. When I told her that I was doing the project to learn about whom high school students were, what they went through, and what they thought about things like school, friends, parents and what they did on the weekend. She was very willing and happy to help me out.
On March 2nd, 2007 I walked over to where she normally hung out at and she had 5 students there and ready to be interviewed by me. As we were walking toward the hall, where we did the interview, she got 3 other students to join the group. I opened up and told the students what I had told the girl a few days before and that they could as open with me as they wished. I told them that I would not tell anyone what they told me, unless it involved them hurting themselves, them hurting others or if it was about someone that was hurting them. From that point they were very open with me about everything, and also very excited to be doing the project. In this group I had 5 guys and 3 girls. The group lasted the whole lunch time, which is a half and hour.
2nd Focus Group
The second focus group was set up by another student that I met in one of my classes. This group was a little more random then the first one. I had been playing phone tag with the student for a week and we couldn’t find a time to meet and do the group. So, I decided to show up On March 6th, 2007 during lunch time and find the student who I had asked to set up the group for me. The student could not really find anyone to do the group with us so it ended up four students: two guys and two girls. Half way through the group a random girl came by and became a part of the group, so then we had five students total.
Questions
Since we are at school, let’s start there. What do you guys think about school?
Do you guys have a favorite teacher? If so why is he or she your favorite teacher?
What do you think are most important things to your parents?
Do you think your parents want the best for you?
Describe your group of friends to me?
Are you guys all good friends?
If you were to get in trouble and needed help who would you call or turn to, why?
Do you trust your best friends more then your teachers?
What do you guys do during the weekend?
Where do you guys hang out during the weekend?
Do you guys hang out anywhere other then your friends houses?
What else do you guys do in your free time?
Why do you guys drink and do drugs?
Do you only do drugs with your friends?
When did you guys start using drugs?
What do you guys usually do to get away from the stress of life?
If you could tell your parents and your teachers one thing what would that be?
Conclusions
The Classroom
Students in 9th grade and 10th grade were more open to trust adults than the 11th and 12th grade students were. In college prep classes students knew what they were suppose to do and did it. You could tell that they felt they knew what they needed to do in order succeed in the school system they found themselves in. The disabilities classes were less trustworthy of adults unless the adult was friendly to them. When the adult was friendly to them, they seem to open up more than other students. The older the student was the less they would interact with me, even if I engaged them first. In classes that were mixed grade levels you could usually tell what grade the students were in by how they reacted to adults.
Student/Teacher
Students felt that teachers do not understand who they are, respect them or care to find out who students really are. One student told me, “they (teachers) don’t think about what is good for us but just what is good for them.” Students feel like if they have a hard time succeeding in a class that the teachers put the blame on them. Student believe that if they are failing in classes it is the teachers fault for not helping out the student, not their fault. “How do they expect me to learn,” one student said, “if all they do is yell at me.” “Yea, like my math teacher,” another student said, “all he does is put the work on the board and expects me to get what they hell he is writing.” “Teachers are just there to get a pay check,” vented another student.
Most students that I observed or talked to said that they would like it more if the teacher was “real with them,” meaning that the teacher somehow becomes more than just a robot teaching a lesion everyday. The students want someone how tries to relate to them, who respects who they are and their differences. A girl I was talking to said that she likes one of her teachers because, “she is young cool and knows what is going on. She tells us what she did during the weekend, if feel like I connect with her.”
Lunch Time
I found it interesting that students would move away from where I was at or turn away from me when talking with their friends. Students that I had, had in class were more open to me sitting by them but seemed to find it weird that I was eating by myself sometimes. This is when I started talking to the students around me; it just seemed to be more natural. During conversations, where I was present with students, students would start a conversation with their friends about a topic but if the topic started to get to personal or to a point that they felt uncomfortable saying around me they would look me up and down, trying to sense something about me, or just strait up ask me if I was a sub. I would reply yes I am a sub, and try to let them know that I was cool, this means that I was trustworthy in a students mind. After students found out who I was, some would go on with their conversations and others would just change the subject. Students were uncomfortable with me being in their space if they could not feel they could trust me.
Music
It seems like every student has an ipod or some sort of mp3 player with them at all times. When students feel uncomfortable or know on one in the class, they put in their mp3 player and just drift away into music land. Students feel that music helps them relax and “escape” for their current situation. Music becomes a way for students to get away from everything else that is going on in their lives. “I just relate to the music,” one student said. Since they feel that almost no one can relate to them, music becomes their passage way into a land where people understand them, their problems and what they go through.
Parents
Students don’t know if their parents or guardians want the best for them in life. One student said, “They (parents) just don’t want me to be their responsibility anymore.” “Yea,” another student jumped in, “maybe my parents should have worn a condom.” For students how much their parents care for them is more about how were they rank on their parents list of important stuff. Students compare their importance to their parents along with the importance of money, their boyfriend or girlfriend, the house, work, and paying the bills. To students the way that their parents show they care for them is by keeping them off drugs, in school, home on time, or away from sex. Student believe that parent create rules because they don’t trust their own children. Over all students don’t feel like their parents understand them. “My mom was never a teenager,” one girl said, responding to the fact that she feels her mom doesn’t understand what she goes through. When students don’t feel that their parents trust them it seems to make students want to act out more to prove their parents right. Many students I talked to suffered through their parents divorces. They now feel that they are fought over for their parents love. “I like that my parents are divorced,” one student said, “I get money from my mom, I get two birthday presents, I get more stuff.”
Adults/ Student relationships (other than teachers or parents)
“A lot of older people just stereotype us,” a girl I talked too said. Students don’t think that any adults really understand them or even want to understand them. When I told my focus groups that I was doing this project in order to understand high schoolers more they were excited that I would want to find out who high school students really are. “I wish I could tell adults how I feel inside and about the world around me,” one student said. Students feel that adults don’t want to understand high schoolers today. Therefore, students don’t feel that they can trust them. Student are weary to let adults into their lives because they feel that they can’t be themselves around adults.
Substance Use
Drug and alcohol has become the social thing to do. For many students’ drug or alcohol use is a weekly activity. They usually do these activities in groups of friends at someone’s house. “We do it to have good time,” one student said, “it not like we are depressed and that is how we get it out.” Student say that they do it because they are bored and have nothing else to do. “It (drugs and alcohol) brings us closer to our friends,” one student said. When student do these activities they feel that they become closer and more excepted by their group of friends. For many students the times they were “wasted” brings memorizes of funny stories and good times, furthering their bonds of friendship. In fact many students said that they started doing drugs or drinking alcohol when they were asked to by either older brothers or sisters or when they were talked into it by friends. No students I talked to started using drugs just on their own, it was always a matter of fitting in with others.
Friend Group
Students during classroom time would act differently in each class depending on who was in the class and how the structure of the class was set up. The more people they knew in the classroom the more they talked. The people they talked to in the class were of the same self-concept level or close to their self-concept level. It was very rare to see them talk to someone, even if they sat next to each other if they were not in the same self-concept level.
During lunch time students would always hang out in the same groups. These groups where based loosely on grade level, race, socio-economic status, language, and interests. Yet, most of their group make up depended on their self-concept level. Most groups seemed too made up 3 to 4 smaller groups of students, or clusters. Some members of clusters would talk to other members of other clusters but not all members of one cluster would talk to all of the members of another cluster. You could usually tell as cluster because it was group of about 4 to 7 students that rarely left one another’s’ side. There was also what I will call floater students. Floater students walk around solo from group to group not really staying in one group for all of lunch.
For some students, friendship is the closest thing they have to safety the feel they have. This is why I believe students have formed smaller groups or clusters, were they feel they can protect themselves. The students I interviewed all said that they feel like they can trust their friends more than they can their teachers or parents. Even though students form clusters; they only have a few close friends that they let see who they really are, if that. “I don’t talk to anyone when I am in trouble or need help,” one girl said, “I just keep it all inside, that is just easier for me.” Another student said that if he needs to talk with someone that he would go to the Internet and talk to friends over the Internet, he feels that it is saver that way. The most important trait that students want in friends is understanding and trustworthiness.
Student Dating
When there is a couple among a group of students, they usually stand off to the side of the group the larger group they were apart of. They are attacked to each to other throughout their time together through hugging and kissing. These students rarely talking to their students around them. Usually the couples’ friends liked or did not like that the couple was together. I could not tell why this was.
Sex/Sexuality
Sex is a semi-open topic for the students. Sexual acts are referred to in everyday conversation but sex between two members as a couple is taboo in open conversation. After the couple has broken up the sexual relationship of the couple is now fare game in conversation. Girls I are degraded to sexual hopes or “sexual conquests” which guys use to elevate their own selves egos.
Ethics
Lying is an everyday activity to survive throughout the day. Students have no problem cheating on tests, homework or class work, whatever they can do to get it done. A student will lie to you strait in your face without even thinking twice. Most unethical decisions are done to protect themselves or other students. One of worst things you can do it to turn in or rat on another student to an adult. There was one instant where I was substituting and two students walked out of the classroom 10 minutes before the bell rang. I did not know who the students were so I asked other members in their class to tell me who they were. The students would not tell me who they where unless I threatened them in some way with punishment. This example shows that students will go to any extent to protect there fellow peers.