When to Teach? When to Tell?
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“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
A day off. From school. From work. And we are here. At home. Living. Loving. Learning. Always learning.
They are but two and four. Young. Budding bites of brilliance in human form. Aware of much. Ignorant of more. When is the right time to teach, to tell? That this is not just a day off, but a day to remember, to ruminate, to revere. A day to be thankful for dreams hatched and distance traveled. For steps taken. For progress. For the tower of today.
I don’t know, but not yet. Today, I will swaddle them in warm winter snuggles. Today will be more about family than history. Today will be more about us than him. A man who spoke and sacrificed and stepped bravely.
But still. I know what they do not. It is about him. This day. This dream. It is.
And one day, maybe even next year, I will sit them down. I will look into blue eyes and plunge into young souls and I will teach, I will tell. I will take a small step, a clumsy step, a blind step, on that staircase of life, of love, of learning. That staircase that remains largely unseen. And I will do so with faith. That they will understand, pinch by pinch, inch by inch, year by year, the importance of this day.
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How do you plan to spend this day? When is the right time, the appropriate age, to teach our kids the history behind these holidays?
Everyone struggles and...
The book,”My Brother Martin” is a wonderful book. It introduces the children to the history of today. I read it to my son in kindergarten and we like to revisit it once in awhile. I highly recommend it.
It is very good to always remember history and how we got “here”.
Lucky your family is home with you. My husband has to fly across the country today for a business meeting. He did not get the day off.
So hug those loved ones a little bit tighter. It is always nice to have your family home with you.
Thanks for the book suggestion above. We are together, huddled inside as it’s a whopping 3 degrees outside. I feel a little guilty I had not thought of MLK. I just asked my kids though and they (6 and
know exactly who he is and what he did. Seems we don’t always have to do the teaching.
I think this is one that we wade into slowly. First we talk about how some people are treated differently, and how that is wrong. Then we talk about how people stood up for what was right. Then we talk about the power and charisma of one man. Each year we give them more and each year they’ll understand more.
But I think what’s most important is that once our kids hit that late elementary/middle school age and have the historical facts in place we don’t quit teaching. That’s when you really have to reiterate it because kids at that age are so absorbed in their own lives it becomes easy for the earlier lessons to be forgotten in the midst of pre-teen angst.
You’d be surprised how much is taught in school. Once your little ones hit kindergarten, the questions will ratchet up considerably. It’s very exciting to follow their lead as they ask, and as you struggle at times, to find the right words.
I live in a part of the country where diversity is and always has been an everyday thing – along with our friends, teachers, the kids in school. If anything, my kids are the minority and always have been. It’s amazing how much living together in a diverse are teaches, in the best possible way.
Love the staircase quote. And most of the time I can barely see the next step, let alone the staircase. I like answering questions. They come. That tells me the moment is right. Sometimes I’m tired, but it’s better for me to rouse than force.
My kids started learning about MLK in pre-school and it has continued every year. The thing about school is that it begins to take some of these decisions out of your hands.
It is not always because the teachers instruct the students. Oftentimes it has more to do with being exposed to children who have older brothers and sisters.
My first grader learned about what happened in Tucson on the playground. She came home and asked me why a man shot all the ladies. I don’t know how the conversation started or what was said, just what she retained.
It led to a long conversation about good versus evil that I really need to blog about.
Anyhoo, I’ll never forget when my son came home and used the following expression, “Dad you lied to me. A white man killed MLK.” He was 5 and we had spoken about the day, but I hadn’t told him all the details. But he found out from a classmate whose mother had told him.
Information moves quickly.
My son first learned about MLK in kindergarten last year, and his teacher was actually an African American woman in her 60s. I was floored when he started telling *me* about MLK one day, and how his teacher couldn’t go to certain restaurants, etc. In the 1st grade they talked some more about it, and then we had a short conversation at home. The most touching part is the look of disbelief in my son’s eyes every time we talk about this, about what used to happen to people who were “different.” I hope this whole generation can remember that shock and feeling of wrongness and carry that into their adulthoods.
I think at their young age, I’d start with the injustice that they might see with their own eyes, rather than something abstract. Perhaps some money given to a homeless person, or a food bank. I do understand the desire to protect them from all unpleasantness, but really, they understand more of that than we know. They feel injustice all of the time, though not in the same degree.