To me, Debbie Bumber, this scripture reading speaks to the importance of us all reflecting Jesus' love in all of our interactions with others. As I always tell my husband when he is experiencing challenging moments in relationships with others, the most important mantra to live by is to "choose to love". That is truly what God created us to do in His own image - to be the faces, hands, hearts, words of HIs love for others in this world.
To me, Debbie Bumber, this scripture reading speaks to the importance of us all reflecting Jesus' love in all of our interactions with others. As I always tell my husband when he is experiencing challenging moments in relationships with others, the most important mantra to live by is to "choose to love". That is truly what God created us to do in His own image - to be the faces, hands, hearts, words of HIs love for others in this world.
To me it reminds me that we are not here on Earth on our own accord, we are here because of God, we each have a purpose to fulfill, God is the head, and we are the body. In our line of work, speaking and working with parents, children, and co-workers, we need more than patience, but love, deep enduring love. God told us that it might no be easy at time, but love anyways, always choose love. Keeping in mind somethings may work out, some things might not go as we hoped, but what will console us is that when we spoke up about or said in a conference, meeting, conference, lesson, etc. was out of the love and best interest of the students. Gabriela Gonzalez
This is a great point. One of the skills special education professionals need to practice is speaking the truth in love, as we often need to communicate difficult things for parents, but that will ultimately help the child.
Speaking the truth in love... I think that is a very powerful phrase. In our lives it is not always easy to say the exact truth. We are afraid of hurting or upsetting someone with the truth, or we feel that we want to protect someone from the truth. However, when spoken in love, our message will be better heard. As Christians, we are taught to love one another as God loves and and by always speaking the truth and speaking with love to one another we will be fulfilling that.
Marita, you said what I wanted to say...I agree, speaking with the truth may be frightening because we may hurt or upset someone but speaking it in love is the best way to do it. God is with us and he will give us the words to use to get our message across.
Ephesians 4, as a whole, speaks about community within the body of Christ. It is God who is the giver of gifts and appoints purpose and validity to all. Our job as the members of this community is to validate and uphold others in love. Everyone has a purpose, and by telling the truth to each other, holding each other accountable to live according God's call on our lives, and putting off our human desire for sin, we can help to build that body to full maturity. And full maturity means a healthy, functioning community of faith from which we each can learn, grow, and be utilized to our God given potential. This is a verse those in favor of full inclusion in private, Christian schools use often to support their cause.
Speaking the truth is not always easy, especially when the truth may be difficult for others to hear. I think when we tell the truth out of love, the person hearing the news may not be so open at first but will eventually come around. I think this happens with maturity. If we keep reminding ourselves that God wants us to speak the truth all the time, the consequences from others won't hurt so much.
It is hard to communicate difficult information. When I need to have these difficult conversations (even when they aren't received well) I take comfort in the fact that I spoke honestly and lovingly.
If we make sure that how we act and the way we speak is out of love, we will grow closer to God. We should consider this in every thing we do, especially as teachers, keeping in mind the care and concern we should have for our students.
To me this scripture reflects the way we should interact with all people. I think Marita said it best, "We are afraid of hurting or upsetting someone with the truth, or we feel that we want to protect someone from the truth. However, when spoken in love, our message will be better heard."
I think this scripture is really talking about being truthful in a caring way is the way that Jesus spoke to others. In doing this with those around us, we will grow to be more like Christ. It definitely is hard to do and like Marita said, I think we are afraid of hurting others feelings. I know that I am guilty of this often. Reading this reminds me that there is a way to be truthful and caring at the same time. Brooke Kline
I can relate to not wanting to hurt others' feelings. When I get scared of this, I think about the greater hurt I may cause years done the road for this family if I didn't say anything.
I feel that the scripture is telling us to be kind in the way that we speak to one another even if and or when the truth can hurt someone. If we take a step back and think about how we treat one another and to remember the golden rule we will not only grow as a person but we will grow in the image of Christ.
Love is respect, it's kindness, it's patient, it's not rude. This verse really relates me back to 1 Corinthians 13 when it talks about all the things that love is, and sometimes isn't.
This verse relates to our course content because we will have many opportunities to interact with parents, students, and other teachers and specialists. It's important to remember that we should interact with these professionals from this standpoint. The truth we present based on our knowledge, expertise, and data collections should be shared in love... to understand what that means, it isn't a meek and mild or apologetic sharing of truth. It's shared with courtesy, respect, and also of necessity when situations warrant hard truths and facts being shown.
In my opinion, to speak the truth in love is to speak with good intentions. Some things may be difficult to explain to a parent as it relates to their child. As a teacher who plays a role in that same child's life, we must be an advocate. We must not only lovingly talk to parents about the education for their child but we must also become an advocate for their child. Our job is to speak truthfully and to collaborate within the team to make the best decisions for the student.
I think this reflection gets to the essence of our role as professionals. It's not enough to be loving to parents when communicating, as that might allow us to withhold needed conversations. It is also not enough to speak the truth, as speaking the truth without compassion is dangerous also. We need to do both---speak the truth with love.
I agree with Kate, speaking the truth with love is truly one of the best ideas. Unfortunately, there are many things that teachers need to discuss with parents that can be hard for the parents to hear. Sometimes the truth can hurt or offend the parents we have to work with. For those reasons, I believe that it is always best to be honest with parents, but try to be positive as well. I always start conversations with parents on a positive note and end with a positive note and I feel that it has helped get a lot of parents on my side to do what is best for their child. Even the worst kid in your class does at least one positive thing and recognizing that positive thing and telling the parent about it can really make a difference.
I think this passage means that when we practice being Christ-like through actions and words, we help build up God's grace around us. It helps to unify us and and build relationships with one another, which is important in our roles as teachers. We must remember to be understanding and compassionate when dealing with students, parents, and colleagues because we are ultimately all working towards common goals. It's important to speak the truth in love, because we deal with difficult or sensitive situations in special education and often times by empathizing with others and being compassionate for them it can help ease the tension of difficult or stressful topics.
This passage expresses the importance of being honest and truthful, which is especially important in the field of special education. As educators, we are partly responsible for the success of our students, and in order to achieve that success, we need to be honest with the student, their caregivers, and ourselves. It is essential to create achievable expectations and goals, and their achievement in the classroom can be predicated on their relationship with their teacher. That relationship needs to be built on trust, and good intentions that the student and their caregiver can sense.
This passage expresses the importance of being honest and truthful, which is especially important in the field of special education. As educators, we are partly responsible for the success of our students, and in order to achieve that success, we need to be honest with the student, their caregivers, and ourselves. It is essential to create achievable expectations and goals, and their achievement in the classroom can be predicated on their relationship with their teacher. That relationship needs to be built on trust, and good intentions that the student and their caregiver can sense.
I think that this passage, as everyone else has been saying means to speak with kindness and from your heart. When we take into consideration the affect our words have on other people, there is likely to be less hurt with words. I agree with Kate when she said, speaking the truth in love is to speak with good intentions. As educators, we should always have the best intentions in mind for co-workers as well as our students and their families.
Our words do have an affect on others. I think we can all remember an experience where a person spoke in an unloving or disrespectful way towards us. Those encounters tend to stick with us, and we don't know parents' memories of us (or their child's education) to be negative.
Our words do have an affect on others. I think we can all remember an experience where a person spoke in an unloving or disrespectful way towards us. Those encounters tend to stick with us, and we don't know parents' memories of us (or their child's education) to be negative.
I think this passage has strong meaning. When you speak the truth out of love, you are speaking with good intentions. As professionals, we need to think carefully about how we word things, to our students, parents, and other professionals working with us. Sometimes, saying something truthfully is hard because we do not want someone to get their feelings hurt. I think this is the hardest situation. We must find a positive, and not intrusive, way to communicate something that may not be what the other person wants to hear. I think speaking kindly and truthfully are really the key to a positive community with coworkers, students, and parents.
I think we often worry about hurting others' feelings. I think just that very fact that we are worried about that is the first step in speaking truth in love. We obviously don't want to hurt those that we are talking with, so that will help choose our words and message wisely.
I think we often worry about hurting others' feelings. I think just that very fact that we are worried about that is the first step in speaking truth in love. We obviously don't want to hurt those that we are talking with, so that will help choose our words and message wisely.
To me this scripture means that we should do all things with love including speaking to others. I agree with Gabriella, we are here for God on his account, he wants us to love everyone. Sometimes I don't think we realize how we could hurt someone with just our words. As educators it is important to be mindful of the way we communicate to our students, parents, co-workers, and the people in our community.
This scripture really speaks to me this week. At times whether in a personal situation or in the school community, we tend to not always be truthful or withhold information to protect ourselves or others. Although, I have come to find through scripture and experience, speaking the truth with good intention, we can more effective as a person, educator, and as a person in the community.
I believe this scripture is speaking to us in how we should be truthful and respectful when we communicate with one another. As educators we will communicate with a variety of people, from parents, to special service related individuals, and also administration. While we speak the truth about our students sometimes it may not be received or addressed as it should be. However, we must continue to keep in mind the scripture and continue to speak the truth in love regarding our students even when opposition may be against us.
Ephesians 4:15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
This is a very powerful phrase and something that we need to keep in mind as educators when communicating with others. We collaborate so much, and it is not always with people we agree with. It is so important to be truthful and respectful in those situations. Speaking the truth can be hard, especially when is goes against the grain of what others think. If you believe in it, make sure it is heard for the better of our students.
Ephesians 4:15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
This is a very powerful phrase and something that we need to keep in mind as educators when communicating with others. We collaborate so much, and it is not always with people we agree with. It is so important to be truthful and respectful in those situations. Speaking the truth can be hard, especially when is goes against the grain of what others think. If you believe in it, make sure it is heard for the better of our students.
To me, Debbie Bumber, this scripture reading speaks to the importance of us all reflecting Jesus' love in all of our interactions with others. As I always tell my husband when he is experiencing challenging moments in relationships with others, the most important mantra to live by is to "choose to love". That is truly what God created us to do in His own image - to be the faces, hands, hearts, words of HIs love for others in this world.
ReplyDeleteTo me, Debbie Bumber, this scripture reading speaks to the importance of us all reflecting Jesus' love in all of our interactions with others. As I always tell my husband when he is experiencing challenging moments in relationships with others, the most important mantra to live by is to "choose to love". That is truly what God created us to do in His own image - to be the faces, hands, hearts, words of HIs love for others in this world.
ReplyDeleteTo me it reminds me that we are not here on Earth on our own accord, we are here because of God, we each have a purpose to fulfill, God is the head, and we are the body. In our line of work, speaking and working with parents, children, and co-workers, we need more than patience, but love, deep enduring love. God told us that it might no be easy at time, but love anyways, always choose love. Keeping in mind somethings may work out, some things might not go as we hoped, but what will console us is that when we spoke up about or said in a conference, meeting, conference, lesson, etc. was out of the love and best interest of the students.
ReplyDeleteGabriela Gonzalez
This is a great point. One of the skills special education professionals need to practice is speaking the truth in love, as we often need to communicate difficult things for parents, but that will ultimately help the child.
DeleteSpeaking the truth in love... I think that is a very powerful phrase. In our lives it is not always easy to say the exact truth. We are afraid of hurting or upsetting someone with the truth, or we feel that we want to protect someone from the truth. However, when spoken in love, our message will be better heard. As Christians, we are taught to love one another as God loves and and by always speaking the truth and speaking with love to one another we will be fulfilling that.
ReplyDeleteMarita, you said what I wanted to say...I agree, speaking with the truth may be frightening because we may hurt or upset someone but speaking it in love is the best way to do it. God is with us and he will give us the words to use to get our message across.
DeleteEphesians 4, as a whole, speaks about community within the body of Christ. It is God who is the giver of gifts and appoints purpose and validity to all. Our job as the members of this community is to validate and uphold others in love. Everyone has a purpose, and by telling the truth to each other, holding each other accountable to live according God's call on our lives, and putting off our human desire for sin, we can help to build that body to full maturity. And full maturity means a healthy, functioning community of faith from which we each can learn, grow, and be utilized to our God given potential. This is a verse those in favor of full inclusion in private, Christian schools use often to support their cause.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking the truth is not always easy, especially when the truth may be difficult for others to hear. I think when we tell the truth out of love, the person hearing the news may not be so open at first but will eventually come around. I think this happens with maturity. If we keep reminding ourselves that God wants us to speak the truth all the time, the consequences from others won't hurt so much.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to communicate difficult information. When I need to have these difficult conversations (even when they aren't received well) I take comfort in the fact that I spoke honestly and lovingly.
DeleteIf we make sure that how we act and the way we speak is out of love, we will grow closer to God. We should consider this in every thing we do, especially as teachers, keeping in mind the care and concern we should have for our students.
ReplyDeleteTo me this scripture reflects the way we should interact with all people.
ReplyDeleteI think Marita said it best, "We are afraid of hurting or upsetting someone with the truth, or we feel that we want to protect someone from the truth. However, when spoken in love, our message will be better heard."
(This is Erin Miller. Costigan is my maiden name.)
DeleteGotcha, thanks for letting me know!
DeleteGotcha, thanks for letting me know!
DeleteI think this scripture is really talking about being truthful in a caring way is the way that Jesus spoke to others. In doing this with those around us, we will grow to be more like Christ. It definitely is hard to do and like Marita said, I think we are afraid of hurting others feelings. I know that I am guilty of this often. Reading this reminds me that there is a way to be truthful and caring at the same time.
ReplyDeleteBrooke Kline
I can relate to not wanting to hurt others' feelings. When I get scared of this, I think about the greater hurt I may cause years done the road for this family if I didn't say anything.
DeleteI feel that the scripture is telling us to be kind in the way that we speak to one another even if and or when the truth can hurt someone. If we take a step back and think about how we treat one another and to remember the golden rule we will not only grow as a person but we will grow in the image of Christ.
ReplyDeleteLove is respect, it's kindness, it's patient, it's not rude. This verse really relates me back to 1 Corinthians 13 when it talks about all the things that love is, and sometimes isn't.
ReplyDeleteThis verse relates to our course content because we will have many opportunities to interact with parents, students, and other teachers and specialists. It's important to remember that we should interact with these professionals from this standpoint. The truth we present based on our knowledge, expertise, and data collections should be shared in love... to understand what that means, it isn't a meek and mild or apologetic sharing of truth. It's shared with courtesy, respect, and also of necessity when situations warrant hard truths and facts being shown.
Good verse!
In my opinion, to speak the truth in love is to speak with good intentions. Some things may be difficult to explain to a parent as it relates to their child. As a teacher who plays a role in that same child's life, we must be an advocate. We must not only lovingly talk to parents about the education for their child but we must also become an advocate for their child. Our job is to speak truthfully and to collaborate within the team to make the best decisions for the student.
ReplyDeleteI think this reflection gets to the essence of our role as professionals. It's not enough to be loving to parents when communicating, as that might allow us to withhold needed conversations. It is also not enough to speak the truth, as speaking the truth without compassion is dangerous also. We need to do both---speak the truth with love.
DeleteI agree with Kate, speaking the truth with love is truly one of the best ideas. Unfortunately, there are many things that teachers need to discuss with parents that can be hard for the parents to hear. Sometimes the truth can hurt or offend the parents we have to work with. For those reasons, I believe that it is always best to be honest with parents, but try to be positive as well. I always start conversations with parents on a positive note and end with a positive note and I feel that it has helped get a lot of parents on my side to do what is best for their child. Even the worst kid in your class does at least one positive thing and recognizing that positive thing and telling the parent about it can really make a difference.
ReplyDeleteI think this passage means that when we practice being Christ-like through actions and words, we help build up God's grace around us. It helps to unify us and and build relationships with one another, which is important in our roles as teachers. We must remember to be understanding and compassionate when dealing with students, parents, and colleagues because we are ultimately all working towards common goals. It's important to speak the truth in love, because we deal with difficult or sensitive situations in special education and often times by empathizing with others and being compassionate for them it can help ease the tension of difficult or stressful topics.
ReplyDeleteThis passage expresses the importance of being honest and truthful, which is especially important in the field of special education. As educators, we are partly responsible for the success of our students, and in order to achieve that success, we need to be honest with the student, their caregivers, and ourselves. It is essential to create achievable expectations and goals, and their achievement in the classroom can be predicated on their relationship with their teacher. That relationship needs to be built on trust, and good intentions that the student and their caregiver can sense.
ReplyDeleteThis passage expresses the importance of being honest and truthful, which is especially important in the field of special education. As educators, we are partly responsible for the success of our students, and in order to achieve that success, we need to be honest with the student, their caregivers, and ourselves. It is essential to create achievable expectations and goals, and their achievement in the classroom can be predicated on their relationship with their teacher. That relationship needs to be built on trust, and good intentions that the student and their caregiver can sense.
ReplyDeleteI think that this passage, as everyone else has been saying means to speak with kindness and from your heart. When we take into consideration the affect our words have on other people, there is likely to be less hurt with words. I agree with Kate when she said, speaking the truth in love is to speak with good intentions. As educators, we should always have the best intentions in mind for co-workers as well as our students and their families.
ReplyDeleteOur words do have an affect on others. I think we can all remember an experience where a person spoke in an unloving or disrespectful way towards us. Those encounters tend to stick with us, and we don't know parents' memories of us (or their child's education) to be negative.
DeleteOur words do have an affect on others. I think we can all remember an experience where a person spoke in an unloving or disrespectful way towards us. Those encounters tend to stick with us, and we don't know parents' memories of us (or their child's education) to be negative.
DeleteI think this passage has strong meaning. When you speak the truth out of love, you are speaking with good intentions. As professionals, we need to think carefully about how we word things, to our students, parents, and other professionals working with us. Sometimes, saying something truthfully is hard because we do not want someone to get their feelings hurt. I think this is the hardest situation. We must find a positive, and not intrusive, way to communicate something that may not be what the other person wants to hear. I think speaking kindly and truthfully are really the key to a positive community with coworkers, students, and parents.
ReplyDeleteI think we often worry about hurting others' feelings. I think just that very fact that we are worried about that is the first step in speaking truth in love. We obviously don't want to hurt those that we are talking with, so that will help choose our words and message wisely.
DeleteI think we often worry about hurting others' feelings. I think just that very fact that we are worried about that is the first step in speaking truth in love. We obviously don't want to hurt those that we are talking with, so that will help choose our words and message wisely.
DeleteTo me this scripture means that we should do all things with love including speaking to others. I agree with Gabriella, we are here for God on his account, he wants us to love everyone. Sometimes I don't think we realize how we could hurt someone with just our words. As educators it is important to be mindful of the way we communicate to our students, parents, co-workers, and the people in our community.
ReplyDeleteThis scripture really speaks to me this week. At times whether in a personal situation or in the school community, we tend to not always be truthful or withhold information to protect ourselves or others. Although, I have come to find through scripture and experience, speaking the truth with good intention, we can more effective as a person, educator, and as a person in the community.
ReplyDeleteI believe this scripture is speaking to us in how we should be truthful and respectful when we communicate with one another. As educators we will communicate with a variety of people, from parents, to special service related individuals, and also administration. While we speak the truth about our students sometimes it may not be received or addressed as it should be. However, we must continue to keep in mind the scripture and continue to speak the truth in love regarding our students even when opposition may be against us.
ReplyDeleteEphesians 4:15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very powerful phrase and something that we need to keep in mind as educators when communicating with others. We collaborate so much, and it is not always with people we agree with. It is so important to be truthful and respectful in those situations. Speaking the truth can be hard, especially when is goes against the grain of what others think. If you believe in it, make sure it is heard for the better of our students.
Ephesians 4:15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very powerful phrase and something that we need to keep in mind as educators when communicating with others. We collaborate so much, and it is not always with people we agree with. It is so important to be truthful and respectful in those situations. Speaking the truth can be hard, especially when is goes against the grain of what others think. If you believe in it, make sure it is heard for the better of our students.