At the end of church today, a little red-haired girl stood up to make today's announcement. She is a Kindergartner and told us about her class' mission of learning service. Their project this year is about animals. They were visited by the Humane Society and are learning about how to treat animals (and by proxy all of mankind). She bravely read aloud from several pages of notes, telling about learning how to train dogs for tricks, what service organizations like the Humane Society do, and what is good stewardship of animals.
This little girl was amazing. She spoke with confidence and read the sentences from the page like she had them memorized. She put emphasis on the emotional words and paused between paragraphs.
At the end, the entire congregation applauded. The priest remarked how well the Kindergartners were spelling, writing, and reading and joked that the First Graders must be learning particle physics. Indeed, the devotion to education of this girl's teachers and family were evident.
The lesson for me was two-fold. I was again reminded that service and stewardship are important at each stage of our life according to our abilities. These 5 and 6 year olds were practicing kindness and care of animals. As we grow and move forward (even sometimes backwards) in life, we should be contributing to society according to our ability.
The other message that spoke to me was the importance of literacy. It is a gift that I take for granted. I remember when I was in Kindergarten and my teacher pulled me aside to read from a book. She was testing my reading skills to determine my placement for that subject. But that teacher was foreboding and I was scared of her. So to get away as quickly as possible, I pretended that I couldn't read any word on that page. I can still see in my mind the words "cat", "stop", and "go". I thought that if I said those words aloud that I would have to spend extra time with that scary teacher, and I let the weight of that fear win out over my love of the printed word. I was not brave that day.
Let us not give in to our fears. And let us advocate for education. It should be an exciting life-long adventure that makes us feel powerful, intelligent and wise. We can change the world though literacy and knowledge. The more we understand the complex global interactions in this world, the better we can fight wars with diplomacy, disease with medicine and science, loneliness with tolerance, crime with technology.
Bravo to the brave little red-haired Kindergartner today. May she continue boldly with her education. May she change the world.
This little girl was amazing. She spoke with confidence and read the sentences from the page like she had them memorized. She put emphasis on the emotional words and paused between paragraphs.
At the end, the entire congregation applauded. The priest remarked how well the Kindergartners were spelling, writing, and reading and joked that the First Graders must be learning particle physics. Indeed, the devotion to education of this girl's teachers and family were evident.
The lesson for me was two-fold. I was again reminded that service and stewardship are important at each stage of our life according to our abilities. These 5 and 6 year olds were practicing kindness and care of animals. As we grow and move forward (even sometimes backwards) in life, we should be contributing to society according to our ability.
The other message that spoke to me was the importance of literacy. It is a gift that I take for granted. I remember when I was in Kindergarten and my teacher pulled me aside to read from a book. She was testing my reading skills to determine my placement for that subject. But that teacher was foreboding and I was scared of her. So to get away as quickly as possible, I pretended that I couldn't read any word on that page. I can still see in my mind the words "cat", "stop", and "go". I thought that if I said those words aloud that I would have to spend extra time with that scary teacher, and I let the weight of that fear win out over my love of the printed word. I was not brave that day. Let us not give in to our fears. And let us advocate for education. It should be an exciting life-long adventure that makes us feel powerful, intelligent and wise. We can change the world though literacy and knowledge. The more we understand the complex global interactions in this world, the better we can fight wars with diplomacy, disease with medicine and science, loneliness with tolerance, crime with technology.
Bravo to the brave little red-haired Kindergartner today. May she continue boldly with her education. May she change the world.
