How Kids Think

...For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these... (Matthew 19:14)

We have been doing a lot of thinking about our thinking at VVA. Every 2 weeks or so we focus on a different “habit of mind” among the House Groups. You may be wondering about these terms, so let me explain. The school where we teach secondary students, connect with other disciples of Jesus, mentor children, and where our three kids have the opportunity to learn and grow is called Virunga Valley Academy, or VVA. VVA has programs for preschoolers up to high school. Most students are in primary (K-5) as the school is young and has been growing over the past few years. Seventh through ninth grades have about 6 students per class.

All students at VVA are divided into one of four House Groups, named after the four volcanoes that surround Musanze. Each House Group includes children from kindergarten through the oldest secondary students. House groups meet three times a week and are like mini families within the school. I am a part of Muhabura, Mary Hope is in Sabjinyo, Hannah is in Bisoke, and Thom is in Gahinga. Every two weeks or so, the House Groups focus on a new habit of mind and work together to present these habits to the other houses in a type of competition. Habits of mind include the following (among others): listening with understanding and empathy, persistence, managing impulsivity, striving for accuracy, and thinking about our thinking. This last one has been insightful for me, as I think about my own thinking. It dawned on me just today that, as I’ve gotten older, my “adult” thinking has not always resulted in the best outcomes.

We adults have learned to use our brains to think like adults - to show maturity, to think through cause and effect, to make logical decisions. While this may sound like a very appropriate “adulting” activity, I think unfortunately I have learned quite a few bad habits and poor cycles of thinking along the way. A lot of our “adult” thinking can also be known as worry, rumination, too much concern about how one is perceived, and overall just attempting to control situations and people. As I think about my thinking, I realize that I actually want to think more like a child - where grievances are voiced and then let go, where emotions are explored and shared, and where concerns are not cycled in and out of our thoughts multiple times over.

One day Mary Hope asked me to help her draw out a calendar. I didn’t really understand why until I found this paper in her room (below). It seems she has been exploring her own emotions and writing them down. This was not prompted by me or Thom at all. How great it is to think about how you feel, write it down to share it, and then move on. I need to do the same.

Mary Hope’s emotion calendar

Hannah has been writing down her thoughts and questions about Rwanda in a journal. Mary Hope adds things to this list sometimes, as well. Mary and Hannah ask and share pretty much anything you can imagine. Usually they start with, “Mommy, I need to tell you something.” Or, “Daddy, can I ask you something?” Example questions include the following: “Why do the kids on the street have holes in their dresses?” “Why does the water go out here but not in the U.S?” “Gaella always touches my hair. Why does she do that? I do not like that.” “Why do we have gates in Rwanda and not in the US?”

Sometimes we as adults don’t ask enough questions. Maybe we just don’t ask the right questions. Even more than that, perhaps we don’t listen very well to the answers. I think much of why we get caught up in our own thinking and our own spirals and our own habits is because we are thinking too much about ourselves.

Mary Hope shared in the car last week on the way to school about how she used the fruit of the Spirit to help her calm down before we left for school that morning.

“Mommy, can I tell you something? I was getting upset and crying, and then I remembered about the fruits of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control - self control! And I thought, I have self control. Then I calmed down!”

Wow. As she said this, I just looked at Thom in awe - first that she was able to identify the fruits of the Holy Spirit and then was able to apply what she learned by seeing them work in her own life. (I will stop here to thank the teachers and friends and family members that have sealed this in her brain along the way!). Why is it so hard to share like this as adults?

That same morning, the P.E. teacher at VVA and our friend, Rutendo, shared something beautiful about grade 3 at VVA. She had asked her P.E. class to meet together in their teams before the football game and prepare for the game. They, on their own, chose to pray for each other and for the other team.

Jesus said that the kingdom of Heaven belongs to people like these: like little children. As I get caught up in my own concerns - in worry about what will happen, in trying to plan out the little and big things of life, in caring more about pleasing others than pleasing God, in holding onto things and ruminating - I’m reminded how children think. They love big, they voice their concerns, they need to be heard, they are honest, they forgive quickly. They are open about their feelings (usually), but also need to be taught this by us adults (who are sometimes terrible at this). They don’t hold offenses. They ask big questions.

I pray that I can think and love and care as deeply as my kids can.

-Bekah

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Bonus Points

Thom here! As Bekah mentioned the habits of mind, I wanted to share a brief video from this week.

As our STEM class that meets on Wednesdays has continued to explore various types of engineering domains, we’ve spent a few weeks refining water bottle rockets. Last week we used a new PVC launcher to fire off the latest versions of our rockets and measure their flights. My students have really enjoyed working on their rockets and regularly talk about how much they love STEM, which is a great reward for the effort put into making it delightful for them.

Usually on Monday’s our principal Steve Greek leads a whole school assembly in which he provides more context around our current habit of mind. Due to a preplanned Thanksgiving vacation, Steve is out of pocket and asked me before he left to share a rocket flight with the whole school at assembly to demonstrate the “Striving for Accuracy” habit of mind.

During the assembly, I shared about some of the fine tuning characteristics of our universe that make life possible. How as Christians we believe that God created this place “just so” to support life and existence as we experience it. In this way, as we practice striving for accuracy in the things we create, we are reflecting the image of God in ourselves as creators. But of course, our water bottle rockets, as proud of them as we may be, fall so far short of the ideal we are striving for in their flights. Even this makes for an object lesson for all of us that things aren’t perfect immediately but things take time for us humans to get right!

After sharing my thoughts, the students circled around our launcher, I pumped a rocket full of pressure and sent it soaring. Thankfully it’s easy to impress kids in primary school!!

Love you all.

-Thom