My Last Post

Since I have not posted in quite some time and since there simply isn't anything worth posting lately, I have decided to close this blog for now. In the future I may start a new one up when I have more time or if interesting things start happenning in my life again. Life has been good though! Teaching is great and I am much looking forward to the end of May! This summer I will be working on my Master's degree while enjoying my summer off from work! I am planning on returning to teach next year at LCA and will be continuing with my Master's degree throughout the school year. If any of you have facebook, I keep that updated pretty often so you may find me on there. God bless and take care!

An update!

Well I have decided to come out of the silence and write something new...

Let me first say that teaching is amazing! I truly do love it. My students are all great and we have a great time in Bible class. All of my 8th graders seem to like me and I have already had a lot of compliments from students, parents, and the administration. Ok, enough bragging about myself. It is lots of fun though and I am in the right place. In 8th grade Bible we are studying through the Gospel of John and it has been cool to see the light bulbs turn on as my students are faced with the reality that Jesus was tortured and died on a Roman Cross for their sins. If they forget most of the things I say... and they will most likely my hope is for them to walk away from my classes knowing and loving Jesus more.

Well anyway, outside of school ,life is good and I have decided not to do any work on my Master's degree right away as teaching is taking up a lot of time! I basically have no curiculum for my classes so I am developing all of it. 8th grade has some but it is pretty out-dated. I am using some of it but am trying to make it relevant for today's generation. I am showing lots of media and trying to facilitate lots of class discussions. Any ideas?

First Week of School

So I know I have one day of school left in the week but I thought I would go ahead and update the blog since I am motivated. So far teaching is awesome! My students are great and already I have had parents telling me that their kids have come home saying how much they love my classes! This is kind of surprising because I really tried to come across as strict my first week so that they would respect my authority from the start. Well they do respect me very well and we are having a great time. Ha ha, I have to tell this...
Today out of the corner of my eye I caught a boy throwing a wad of paper half way across the room into the trash can but he missed. So I told him, to hold on to his paper next time but if he is going to try to throw it into the trash to at least make the shot next time. Well this got a few laughs and then this girl says, "Mr. Buckley...did you just say if you can't make it to the bathroom to go in the trash can?" How this girl got that from what I said I have no idea but we all got a good laugh out of it to say the least!

Well anyway I am so glad tomorrow is the weekend as it has been a busy week and I am tired! All those papers to keep track of and organize! That really is the hard part. The teaching and the students are the fun parts. We will see if I still say that a few months from now!

new teacher orientation

This week has been new teacher orientation at Liberty Christian Academy. So far all is good except for it's a lot of information all at once. There are so many procedures for teachers to follow! Today we went over emergency procedures and I cracked up at the form you are supposed to fill out if there is a telephone call about a bomb threat. You are supposed to ask the caller all these details about the bomb, where it's located etc. then ask the caller who they are and where they are calling from. Yeah right! Like the bomber is going to tell you all of that! I wish I coudl remember all of teh questions. They were hilarious! I saw the classroom I am supposed to be getting today! It is huge! There is even a huge window looking out accross the campus! I hope it's true and I get that room. Right now it's still being finished as it's brand new and so nothing is really set in stone. We will see! I will post pics soon of LCA and my class room once I get moved in.

Well I am thinking I will change the direction of this blog to stories from the classroom as I am now a teacher! I will try to keep it updated more and include humorous stories from my classes leaving out the names of course. Let me know what you guys think. First of all does anyone still read this blog? If you do let me know.

It's official!

It's official I have been hired as a full-time Bible teacher at Liberty Christian Academy! I am so excited! The past few years I have really found a love for teaching and now I will get to teach my favorite subject every day. As far as I have been told I will be teaching 8th grade Bible which is great as this is my favorite age group. In addition to this I will be starting on my Master's degree at Liberty University since it will be free! So I will be very busy starting the middle of next month.

Right now I am in Lynchburg for the weekend looking for an apartment and on Sunday I will be signing my contract with the school! Camp has been going well although this week seemed long and tiring. I did switch from 13 year olds to 9-10 year olds and the younger ones require more attention and TLC. The 13 year olds are very independent and needless to say I will be switching back to them this next week. Man I need to post some pics. I will soon I promise!

A quick update!

Well this is going to be a quick update as it's 12:30 at night and I have a new week of camp starting tomorrow but a quick update is better than no update! the past three weeks of camp have been so much fun! The first week I had what was described as the worst cabin of 13 year olds the camp has ever seen! This camp has been around since the 1960's just to give you an idea! They really weren't that bad but it was a cabin full of skater punks with bad attitudes. When we would catch them breaking the rules they lied to get out of trouble and one or two even sneaked out in the middle of the night to meet up with a girl at the riffle range in the woods. Of course they lied their way out of it. Some how through it all the kids all liked me and they all said I was a cool counselor. The last two weeks were great though and I had great kids who were all just there to have a good time at camp.

In other news, I have applied to two Universities to start working on my Master's degree in the fall. I have already been accepted to Liberty University where I got my undergraduate degree from and I also applied to Regent University in Virginia Beach. So far Liberty is looking good as I have also interviewed to be an 8th grade Bible teacher at Liberty Christian Academy. If I get hired I would get free tuition at the University as a benefit which would be huge! I could get a free Master's degree while working as a teacher teaching my favorite subject. This Thursday I have my second interview and I should know a few days after that if I am hired so I will let you all know.

Off to Camp

As of this past week I am officially finished with the school year and my temporary job at Worth Your Wait doing the abstinence education! So tomorrow I leave for Virginia Beach to work at a camp as a counselor for the summer! I will have my own cabin of boys ages 8-13 as well as an assistant counselor most likely a high school student. Camp lasts for one week so each week I will have a new group of campers. It is a Christian camp so our goal is to share the gospel with the kids and hopefully to see campers come to know Christ.

This summer I will be praying about where to attend school in the fall for my Master's degree in Pastoral Studies. I have applied at both Liberty University and Regent University and am praying for God to direct me to one or the other. Regent is in Virginia Beach and last week I went for a visit and later that evening I was walking on the beach and I was sure that God spoke to me that I was to attend school there but I think it was the ocean talking, hmm. Well we will see.

I won't have many opportunities to update the blog this summer but I will try to post pics from camp from time to time.