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Sunday, October 12, 2008

Teacher, leave those kids alone

Seminary continues apace. We've instituted all sorts of (somewhat kosher) incentive programs to encourage good behavior, like points for thoughtful questions and/or answers or parties for a set period with no tardies. So far, our efforts have been more or less successful, which is good. We've also had parent/teacher conferences with almost all the parents, an unheard of practice for seminary, but I come from the world of secular education, and teenagers are still at an age at which I want to be face to face with their parents once in a while. We also thought that with this particular group of rambunctious boys it would be prudent to be in contact with their parents sooner rather than later to encourage lots of communication back and forth.

The conferences have been illuminating. It's interesting to hear the parents' takes on their son's actions/personalities and to compare those with what we see. I think all the parents were surprised we asked to meet with them but all also seem to have left the meetings feeling like they were worthwhile, which is good.

And now, two moments of teenage Zen:

While discussing the rich young man who asks Jesus "What more can I do?" to which He replies "Give all that thou hath to the poor" (I'm paraphrasing, clearly), one of our students exclaimed fervently "The problem today with giving all you have to the poor is that they're just going to use it to buy drugs!" There are no words.

While discussing which talks they remembered/liked from conference, one boy told me he had missed most of one session because he'd felt sick to his stomach and gone to, ahem, take care of it, but he'd had cheese, so it took about an hour. To ME he said this, in all seriousness, as a point of information. Again, I found myself at a loss for words.

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