Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Put it in your own words, Please!?
I was reminded today about a challenge that Joshua is having in his schoolwork. He just can't seem to put things into his own words. Here's an example from today's work. He was supposed to put Colossians 3:2 into his own words. The verse says "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things". First Joshua thought 'above' meant upstairs, and then Caleb piped up that it means heaven, and then Joshua got so caught up with insisting that "How do we know that heaven is above?" that he couldn't move beyond it. I then thought, okay lets see if I can get him to put the second half in his own words, and we then got into a debate on what constitutes "earthly things" and "what if someone who is not following God, does something good to someone else, then is it still an earthly thing?" Ahh, by this time he is getting frustrated because he thinks he'll never get this page finished, and I'm frustrated because I can't seem to help him 'get it.' In the end, his answer read "think about things above not earthly thing" which is almost the word for word what the verse said in the first place. Anyone have any suggestions?
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Thank you for this insight into the life of your little family. May I, as an old teacher, offer the comment that in seeking to have Joshua put things in his own words, you are very much on the right track (though I don't have any magic answsers as to how to do that). But I was fascinated with his questions, which raise issues that even adults debate. He is a bit young to understand those issues in depth, admittedly. But sometimes a detour is at least as interesting as the main road.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ted for your encouraging words.
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