Does Our Teaching Have An Impact?

photo by Phillie Casablanca

It's good to know your teaching is making an impact. I read the following post on my daughter's blogsite, Way of Shiloh, and with her permission I decided to share it with you.

Earlier today during school, I checked my agenda to see what I had next to do. I swallowed as the words "Geography Test" screamed out at me.

1 1/2 weeks into the school year, I have decided that geography is my least favorite subject so far. It just bores me. I'm never going to visit 99% of these countries, so I really don't see the point in being able to know all those teeny tiny countries I've never heard about. I know the general area of these places. You ask me where anything that ends in "stan" is, I know it's in the Middle East.

However, my younger brother (I can't say little brother anymore cuz he's now taller than I am) loves it. It's his favorite. You can ask him where anything is and he'll tell you.

Mom decided to take a little different approach for the geography test (James and I were taking the same test at the same time). She made it into a competitive game. She brought a bell down, placed it on the coffee table, and had me and James stand in the doorway several feet away. I knew I wasn't going to like this. Mom explained the rules: she would ask a question and whoever knew the answer had to ring the bell first and answer it. photo by Jon Marshall

Well, this is nice.

Half the stuff I'd learned flew from my mind as the questions were read off. The only couple times I did ring the bell was when James let me out of pity. I didn't enjoy the game at all and I felt frustrated beyond belief when it was finished. Why was my younger brother smarter than me? Why couldn't I grasp geography? Why did he seem like an absolute genius compared to me? And why did Mom pit him against me when she had to know how much better he was than me?

In other words, I felt miserable. I felt stupid. I felt embarrassed for feeling miserable and stupid. Why did it have to be this way?
photo by tsechuen26
Then God smacked me over the head. Rachel. Obviously I have not gifted you in geography. I gave you the gift of music. Quit being jealous.

Of course. While James smoked my butt in the geography test, he can retain just as much about music as I can about geography. I don't know which country is Niger, and he doesn't know how many flats are in the B flat scale. I can't remember what the sea in the Atlantic Ocean is (James keeps telling me it's Sargasso, but I keep thinking Sargento...then Mom tells me that's a cheese), and he doesn't know what Andante Moderato means.

The body of Christ has many parts. And I have to get it into my head that I can't be all the parts all at once. Not to say I shouldn't try (because I have to complete geography in order to complete 10th grade), but it's not my best subject and that's okay. God gifted me in music. So I shouldn't have been so selfish during the game. I should've been happy for James - he obviously enjoyed it.

One body. Many parts. Something I think a lot of us have to accept.

Related Articles:
The Fine Art Of Manipulation
Doing The Hard Thing
Nobody's A Super Christian