Jesus was big on children and believed that they had some special insights about faith. Overlooking the fact that Jesus did not have kids, and thus was spared changing dirty diapers and dealing with a two year old who have just learned the word "no," let assume he was right. I have put my keen intellect to the task and come up with several "insights" about faith that I discovered while working in my daughter's Kindergarten class. Here we go:
#5 Raise Your Hand, Even If you Don't Know What the Question Is
I have taught at the university level before. In my class there is a certain pattern. I ask the class a question, they wait to hear the question, those that actually listened to my question might raise their hand to answer, if not I call on some unlucky victim. Its all so civilized.
I have not taught Kindergarten before. There are reasons for this. Many, many reasons. One is that the whole question/answer dynamic is messed up. In my daughter's class, the teacher starts to ask a question and, I kind you not, before she is three words into the question half the class has their hands up. They have no idea what the question is and even less of a clue about the answer. In fact, I am convinced that as soon as their hands go up their ears shut down. It must have something to do with blood pressure levels, but the hand/ear coordination is tied into how high in the air their hands are. The bigger the reach towards the sky, the less likely they are to listen.
The real fun begins after the teacher finishes asking the question. At a minimum the first five answers are wrong. Dead wrong. That is assuming they have an answer. It is not unusual for a child to get called on and have absolutely nothing to say. These are the kids that have not learned to wing it...yet. They did not hear the question and thus have no idea what the answer is or should be.
For the first nine months of school I found this very frustrating. Then it dawned on me that answering the question, while nice, is not the goal. No, the real objective is to get called on, to be recognized by the teacher. Getting the answer right when you are called on is icing on the cake, the cherry on top, but not at all essential. Why? Because even if they get the answer wrong they have learned that there is no punishment and that the teacher will call on them next time.
Even as adults we continue to crave this kind of recognition. Yet we live in a society where it seems like you only get noticed if you get the answer right (or really wrong, in which case law enforcement gets involved. Not fun.) Now, lets be clear, I like it when I get the right answer to the question. I really like it when my students get the correct answer. Any I really, really, really love it when they get the right answer to the question I actually asked. And I think that God likes it when we get it right as well. Yet, even when we get it wrong God still loves to call on us, to say our name, to let us know that we are alive and that we matter. That is the attitude that we seek to emulate as people of faith. In our communities we strive to value people for who they are, right or wrong (though we try to help folks get it right). We work hard at finding ways to call on people and to just celebrate that they took the time to raise their hands. Because sometimes it is more important to be recognized than to be right.
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