Catechism Capers

Yesterday Palm Tree Fan was at home with her new puppy, Leo. Partly this was to see how he would adjust, and partly it was to see how her first dog, Buddy, would adjust. Here is a picture of the boys in her backyard.

Leo and Buddy

And this is a picture she took through a knothole in a covered bridge. It has nothing to do with this post, other than that it is a very cool picture.

When A-Fooze and I were proctoring Rich's exam for his Catechism students, we looked over the tests as the students finished. All three children are Mexican, so when Rich wrote one question that said: "Bad angels are also known as 'Vikings.' True or false," they had to ask us what a "viking" was. A-Fooze said it was men that wore hats with horns, and I tried to clarify that it was a Norwegian pirate, but apparently all they heard was "horns," and then they must have thought of demons, because they all said True. Another question they all answered True to was: "There are three types of sin: venial, mortal, and deluxe." (Maybe that falls into the category of Things That Aren't True but Should Be!)

Kids can certainly come up with some interesting answers to questions; when I was teaching catechism and asked the class the first day how many gods there are, I got all kinds of numbers. They also have a tendency to think "God" is the right answer to ANY question. The worst thing is trying not to laugh about some of the answers they give you. Once a little boy told us that the first commandment is: "I am the Lord thy God and thou shalt have no strange gods before me." We were amused by his overly formal language, which led us to believe he had just memorized the commandments and didn't actually understand them. My co-teacher asked him, "That's great, but what does that MEAN?" and he thought very hard for a moment, brightened, and said, "You can only have strange gods AFTER Him!" Another time one of my kids said to another one who kept talking out of turn, "Man, you're the most annoying robot I ever created!" Say what? Of course, this was the same kid who, when another kid forgot to put his name on his paper so that I had to do it, said to him, "Man, you're always making her do your dirty work for you!" However, the single funniest moment may have been when I was giving the kids a test that the catechism director had written, and one of the kids complained about a question on it. I wasn't sure what to say, since the question really was ambiguously worded, and the kid realized I was sympathetic to his complaint so he stood up and began punching his test. When I asked him to please sit down and finish his test instead of beating it up, he replied, "But it said somethin' bad 'bout my Mama!" I couldn't help it - I laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

You will be relieved to know that I am no longer teaching small children how to be good Christians.

Famous Hat