Why not What

Last night, Steve and I went to our first ever middle school Back to School Night. Our dear oldest son left us a hand written class schedule on his desk in his homeroom, knowing that we would be the only ones to show up without a copy of it on our own.

We strolled from class to class listening to each teacher. We live in a very large school district (last year’s graduating class had over 1100 students in it) but we were thrilled to learn that Noah’s largest class has 17 kids in it and his smallest has 12. Apparently, many of the 7th grade teachers retired recently, so we were doubly thrilled to find young, passionate, capable teachers that still love kids. It was exciting.

The American History teacher is also the football coach. He is big and kind. One thing he said really grabbed my attention.

“Frankly, I don’t care if the kids learn the exact year that the Boston Tea Party occurred, although we will look at the events of that period on a timeline. I am far more interested in whether they understand WHY – what motivated the people to throw all that tea in the water? What were the repercussions of their choices? How did it contribute to shaping our nation? How do we make similar statements in America today or do we?”

I once heard about a man who was a student of the Book of Revelation. He had charts and graphs and timelines and lots of predictions about Armageddon. He argued his perspective endlessly and certainly knew his scriptures by heart. He was harsh with his children and they couldn’t stand him, however, and were estranged from him as adults. But, by golly, he knew when Jesus was returning – within a century or two.

Don’t worry so much about the what. Explore the why.