It was time to teach our big one—the class of 44 kindergarteners. (Yes, all in one class.) Just then we heard it—a loud, high pitched wailing coming from a group of children returning from recess to their classroom down the hallway.

My first thought when I teachers' lounge-1heard the crying was, “Bless those teachers’ hearts.” Before long, though, I realized that the noise was coming from our class of 44 kindergarteners. Now I was thinking, “Bless our hearts!” and dreading what was to come.

The teachers told the crying boy to stay in the hallway while the other kids filed past him into their classroom. Once he could calm down and listen, he would be allowed to go in and sit down. I sensed God wanted me to stop and talk to him, so my teaching partner went in to start the lesson while I talked to my new friend Bryson.

I asked him if he knew why he was in trouble. He told me it was because he didn’t listen to his teacher.

“Why didn’t you listen?”

small group-1With tears streaming down his face he explained, “ I don’t know how to listen. My mom never taught me how.”

That broke my heart. I remembered the listening game we play at Bible club: touch your head, touch your ears, touch your knees. I decided to try it with Bryson, and then we talked some more. When he was ready to go back to class, I asked him what he was going to work on this week. Without a word, he touched his eyes, then his ears, then his nose.

Huh?  What kind of response was that? Then it dawned on me, he was doing our listening game! He knew he needed to work on listening.

For the rest of the class he was super attentive while we taught. It’s amazing what God can do through just one conversation with a child. Brenna Rawson

 

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