Conversations

Teachers in public schools have to be careful about what they say when it comes to religious topics. Pretty much as long as you don't bring it up and the kids are the ones doing the talking though, we're ok. That's what made yesterday kind of fun...

We were doing calendar and I reminded the students that we didn't have school on Friday. One student raised his hand and asked "why not?". Several hands went in the air accompanied by "Ooh, ooh, I know, I know." I called on a student who proudly announced that it was Good Friday. "What's Good Friday?" another student asked. Again, the hands go up in the air and I call on someone. "That's when Jesus raised from the dead." Another student interjects, "No it's not; Good Friday is when he died on the cross."

A few minutes later we were adding April-related words to an April poster (that I should have done earlier in the week, but forgot about it until yesterday). The kids were suggesting words to add to the poster. One student suggested "Passover." Again the questions, "What's passover?" The student who suggested the word went on to tell the whole story (the parts that she could remember) about the Passover with a little help from another classmate. When she finished I told her that she knew her Bible stories pretty well. At which another student asked where in the Bible that story could be found. A student tried to answer him and he responded, "I'm going to read the whole Bible so I can find that story!"

In one day we had two separate conversations in my classroom that I barely spoke a word in. All I did was allow my students to answer each others' questions. That was kind of fun.