5th grade music today:
I’m trying to explain the concept of culture so that my students understand more of the differences that they will hear and see during the lesson.
I explain what “culture” I know best, setting up the explanation by telling my students that my dad is a preacher and that I have, therefore, been to a lot of different churches in my life.
“There are some churches that I’ve been to where, if I, as a female, would have worn pants, then I would have been out of place. The culture of those churches is one where people are expected to wear their very best and women are expected to wear dresses. There are other churches that I’ve been to, though, where I could wear jeans and it be perfectly acceptable. Neither of those things is wrong. It’s just a different belief system—a different way of doing things—a different culture.”
The kids seemed to understand what I saying, so we moved on.
Then a kid raised his hand.
“Do you remember when you were talking about the church that didn’t want women wearing pants? That’s because it’s in the Bible that women shouldn’t have anything between their legs.”
Umm…I’ve heard a lot of things that the Bible says that the Bible really doesn’t say, but I’ve never heard that one!
Trying to keep a straight face and not show my surprise and possible dismay, I very calmly responded, “That’s actually not in the Bible—at least not the Christian bible—but…” and then I quickly moved the conversation to how clothing has changed over the years and reminded the boys that boys used to wear gowns to bed. We’d learned this fact while learning about Beethoven.
Fast forward to 3rd grade music:
I’ve been trying to help my 3rd graders learn their continents, only they get really confused about the difference between city, state, country, and continent. I’m also trying to help them learn their planets—but we haven’t focused on the latter as much.
We’ve been working with information about the continents for a couple of weeks now, though. We’ve sung and danced and rapped and watched videos and played games.
So toward the end of the lesson today, as I was transitioning to the planets, I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked at what happened next.
I said, “So. We know that there are seven continents on our planet. But remind me what planet we live on?”
In response, I had a whole bunch of students yell, “North America!”
In that moment, I gently hit my forehead and asked again, “What planet do we live on?”
“The United States of America!” “No,” I pitifully shook my head and asked one more time, “ What planet do we live on?”
Then someone said, “Earth! We live on planet earth!”
Thank God!
Friends:
My school is in the city of Cameron in the state of North Carolina in the country of The United States of America on the continent of North America on planet Earth.
And the Bible says nothing about women wearing dresses because women are not supposed to have anything between their legs.
Please pass along this information as you see fit.
Especially to the children in your life!
:-)
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