Sunday, June 12, 2011

A Sunday Discussion and Protest

I am the Primary teacher to the five turning six year olds in our ward to a very energetic group of seven children. They have keen insight and interesting comments to share. So this was how one of our discussions went today (names have been removed to protect the parents)
Child #1: Why are we called The Latter Day Saints?
Me: Because we are in the latter days or the last days.
Child #2: This isn't our last day. We have a lot more Sundays to come to church, like until we die.
Child #3: No, we don't have to come to church after we are parents. We can just take our kids to church, drop them off, and then go home.
Needless to say, I told Child #3 this story, and they were a little bewildered that this was their child's take on coming to church on Sundays.
And now for the Protest. Olivia has a lifelong friend, Charles, who she has been in charge of since they were babies. I have informed Charles that he can speak his mind around Olivia and that she is not in charge of him, but he's dealing with a strong personality. So in singing time at Primary, the chorister divided the kids into boys and girls so that there could be a competition to get the kids to sing (BTW, I know that there is not supposed to be any competition in Primary). Unfortunately, there were about nine girls on this day and four boys, two of whom were in my class and are challenged in the singing department, so it was really two boys trying to out sing eight very vocal girls and Olivia, who can out sing anyone. When the competition was over, the chorister declared that the girls were the winner. No surprise. But Olivia was not going to take this information sitting down, because, after all, her dear friend, Charles was singing his heart out. She turned to Charles and said "Charles, do you think that's fair? I don't think that's fair. There were a lot more girls than boys and you didn't have a chance." She then pleaded her case to the chorister and told her how she was not doing her job right because really, there should not have been such an imbalanced competition, and to make it fair they should have divided into equal groups. I never pictured her as a lawyer, but she's got her first case.

2 comments:

  1. I'd like child #2's name. I'd like to send him/her a gift. Love that.

    Competition alive & well at church. No competition at church? I think primary is where I LEARNED to be competitive.

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  2. Strong personality AND a sense of fairness? Great combo!

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