Adventures in Teachering

Back a few years ago I was teaching the sixth grade.  It was awful.  There is a special place in heaven for people who teach junior high.  I won't be invited there.

I was teaching social studies and it was a fun class to teach.  The curriculum was general concepts, different cultures, and world religions.  It just so happened we were studying Christianity around the time of Christmas so it was appropriate to have the kids make a nativity scene similar to the one kids make in Italy. 
The cute little sixth graders were cutting and pasting to their little heart's content.  One girl was keeping up a steady stream of conversation with herself while she was working and I stopped to listen in.  She had lost one of the pieces and kept saying, "Where is Jesus's daddy?"  "Where is Jesus's daddy?"  I tried to keep going and just not comment, but I couldn't. 

I said, "You know, Joseph was not Jesus actual father?" 

She gasped - horrified.  "He wasn't!?  Did he know?"  Despite the fact I had already taught the basic beliefs of Christianity she thought the story was going to unravel like a soap opera, or maybe a Maury Povich show.
I soldiered on, "Mary was a virgin."

Of course the child didn't know what a virgin was.  That would have made it too easy. I tried to explain, "She did not get pregnant in the usual way." 

Questioning looks from the girl. 

"Christians believe God is the father."

Even more confusion.

Finally some smart alec in the class hollered, "She didn't have sex, you dork."  I am not sure if he was referring to me or her, but I hadn't had to say "sex" to a class of sixth graders and I was relieved.

She however was not.  Her eyes about bugged out of her head as she shouted incredulously, "THAT HAPPENS!!??"

"Just the once!"  I assured her. 

The same girl later went on to be VERY interested in Buddhism which the sixth graders insisted on calling, "Booty-ism."   I often wonder now is she is meditating somewhere with a bald head thinking that Christianity is just way too confusing. 

(Looking back now it seems amazing to me I wasn't burned at the stake for teaching Christianity that year.  It was in the curriculum, but now my own kids aren't even allowed to sing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas in the school choir at the Winter Concert.)