I am now the lone Sunday School educator of 15+ 14- and 15-year-olds. This should be an adventure. After nearly a year of every-other-week responsibility, I'm now on the every week schedule. And there is no relief in sight for them. Poor kids are stuck with someone who likes teaching but is incubating a kiddo that is going to rival Einstein in smartness, given the number of brain cells it feels he/she is leaching from her brain.
I do love it though - it is my favorite church calling EVER. And that is saying a lot, because I've generally won the lottery when it comes to church callings over the last several years.
What I don't like, is being stumped. Not just because I don't know the answer, but because it is a question I have had as well - one that has niggled at the back corners of my brain every time I've heard the story of the organization of the Church (this week's lesson subject).
One of the girls - smart, sophisticated, talented - passionate about pursuing a career on Broadway - raised her hand when we were talking about the first members and asked, "Why weren't there any women?"
I stopped. Thought. Stopped. Looked at her, the bishop (pastor's) daughter, and wondered what on earth I could say to answer her that wouldn't get me strung up my my toenails. I settled with, "I really don't know. And I've wondered the exact same thing."
This bunch might look like the typical average group of American teens - defiant, wickedly talkative and mired in pop culture so deep they all come sporting their "individuality" that looks remarkably just like the "individuality" of everyone else their age, but underneath lies a brilliance that scares me a bit.
It wasn't just the "stump the teacher question" - asked because she genuinely wanted to know (so do I, I just don't think the answer is out there), but the initial question I asked at the lesson's beginning - where do you want to be in ten years? The answers astounded me. More than that, their plans for getting there astounded me.
I hope I don't have to teach the same group when they are my age. I'll have to submit my resignation, as their 30-year-old version of "stump the teacher" questions, still just as valid and complicated, will not only be ones I don't know the answers to, but will be questions I hadn't even considered.
It was one of those days where I certainly learned more than they did.
1 comment:
I guess that since Sara said something about the answer I gave, I'll post it here.
"If you guys were wondering about why the Church was organized with 6 men, I think I have an answer--or an answer that was once given to me. It's because that was the law at the time in New York. Any 6 men could organize a church. Remember, you are talking about the 1830s--before women's suffrage."
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