Childhood Experiences
Written on Oct 20, 2019
Our Friday group continues to be such a source of profound joy. A few weeks ago we started to talk about "what you sow, thus shall you reap", "whatever is lovely, honorable....think on these things", self-fulfilling prophecy. It was just an off hand remark, but the two friends locked eyes with each other and then turned to us with mouth agape.(I do not know if I have ever said, or written "with mouth agape" before, but they literally had their jaws hanging open.) They blurted, "No one has ever told us this before." They said it was a life changing concept to them. They had no idea what they fed upon, would be what they became. How can this be? It is deeply embedded in Scripture, and also in psychology. How can they not know this? But they brought it up the next week again. They often say that they wonder what they were taught in school, that our hour on Friday nights are the best education they have ever had. We assume they are being thankful for C teaching, but they also just make reference to general adult concepts. We are just astounded at times. So thankful to have this opportunity and these people in our lives.
On another note, my students just turned in their narrative/descriptive essays. They were to write about an incident from their childhood that had a deep impact. One of the essays told me a story that was exactly the same as a story told to me last year. It was unusual enough that I remembered it. I do not think that the student necessarily directly copied the English words, (there seemingly were too many mistakes for that to have been the choice), but the ideas were plagiarized. This made me suspicious that more of the students were not telling me stories from their childhood, but rather stories that were good stories and exemplified possible childhood lessons. I became a little jaded in my reading. Many told of running away, or changing a score on a test paper to take to their parents, or taking money from their parents, and so on. Inevitably the parents did not scold them but rather had platitudes to tell them about honesty, and fairness, etc. The students purportedly turned over a new leaf after that. I started to think about my own childhood and how I treated my own children ....and I and they would have been in lots of trouble, not given platitudes. And then I thought about Chinese Tiger Mothers. I raised children in Taiwan and I am well aware how most children are treated, and maybe spoiled at times, but not kindly and gently. I have to do some thinking about how to address this to the students. There is no way that I can prove that their stories are not true, except for the one story that I remember directly, but I know that this is a deep issue. Teaching on any level is never without some difficulties.
On another note, my students just turned in their narrative/descriptive essays. They were to write about an incident from their childhood that had a deep impact. One of the essays told me a story that was exactly the same as a story told to me last year. It was unusual enough that I remembered it. I do not think that the student necessarily directly copied the English words, (there seemingly were too many mistakes for that to have been the choice), but the ideas were plagiarized. This made me suspicious that more of the students were not telling me stories from their childhood, but rather stories that were good stories and exemplified possible childhood lessons. I became a little jaded in my reading. Many told of running away, or changing a score on a test paper to take to their parents, or taking money from their parents, and so on. Inevitably the parents did not scold them but rather had platitudes to tell them about honesty, and fairness, etc. The students purportedly turned over a new leaf after that. I started to think about my own childhood and how I treated my own children ....and I and they would have been in lots of trouble, not given platitudes. And then I thought about Chinese Tiger Mothers. I raised children in Taiwan and I am well aware how most children are treated, and maybe spoiled at times, but not kindly and gently. I have to do some thinking about how to address this to the students. There is no way that I can prove that their stories are not true, except for the one story that I remember directly, but I know that this is a deep issue. Teaching on any level is never without some difficulties.
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