Ashes to Ashes

          As a little girl I was raised Lutheran.  As a grown adult I'm not on the church council and actively involved in many different things at church.  When first dating my husband he was very gruff and said, "if you want someone in your life that will go to church with you, we better break up."  I didn't think it was the biggest breaking factor and I didn't think that it was important to me.  He had enough other redeaming qualities that I was willing to live with the fact that he didn't go to church.  As the years have progressed, he now goes to church with me, sometimes even without me.  Not too shabby for a conversion in only five years:). 
          I digress, the entire purpose of this post is this.  Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent.  I didn't realize it was  Catholic thing, I have always done it.  But when I went to class last night, having missed any kind of service myself with my crazy schedule, someone else had been able to make it.  I smiled, I knew what that meant.  But then as someone asks her the question of what it is for, I realized that it must be a secret club or something.  The other girl had no idea what it all meant.  Someone else pointed out that they didn't either.  Something so ingrained in my life, something that means so much, and not everyone even knew what that meant. 
          So I started thinking about how in a way we all go through life like that.  Thinking that we are part of a big group, and we may be, but in ways there are so many that don't have any idea of the underlying factors involved.  Teaching adolescents is similar to that.  In fact I would say it should be like that.  We should be able to point out to them, to help them find, the ways that they are like their peers, then the sense of isolation may be gone.  Ashes is an outward, easy sign to find, most aren't like that.  As teachers we need to find those.  Help the students connect to one another and connect to the world at large.  How best to help a student become an upstanding citizen?