What do you want to be when you grow up?

If you ever need a good laugh or a smile ask a five year old what they want to be when they grow up and how they are going to get there. Some responses from the lunch dates I have been having with my kiddos....
Spider man... I need to get big
Batman.... I need a car and to be big (I tried to steer this conversation (unsuccessfully) towards the importance of protecting people and how we could do this in the classroom since this child happens to be a behavioral issue most days)
Cheerleader
Doctor
Diver (this one was one of my favorites)
Watch out world an entire generation of new superheroes is coming!

One more vignette from this week. Every morning I write a message to the students, usually talking about one of our Viking Virtues and someone in our class or in history who has showed this virtue. A couple of days ago I wrote a message about the reunification of East and West Germany because they had been reunited on the same day 60 years ago to talk about perseverance. Explaining these concepts to 5 year olds can be tricky but I had a spur of the moment thought that went pretty well. I told them what happened in Germany would be like if I cut the carpet that they sit on in half and one group of students would be with my co-teacher and one group would be with me. They would never get to see each other and they weren't allowed to be friends. I didn't know if what I said sank in until today during math meeting when we were talking about another war and one of  my students said " like when some scholars were on one side of the carpet and we were on the other side", which was followed up by another student who raised her hand and said if my brother was on the other side of the wall I would crawl over it to get to him. I love it when my kids really "get it".

On a different note two of the students I ate lunch with today talked about how their parents were in jail. My heart broke as they talked about a parent knocking on the door and beating up the mom. It wasn't just what they said... but how they said it, as if this were how normal life should look. I asked them if they were scared and they said yes. It is times like these that I pray that the comfort of Jesus and his protection is finding a place in their homes even if I can't talk with them about it at school. Please join me in praying that the families I work with would come to know Jesus and that the kids would be safe.