Dedicate Home (Sharing Observed Poverty) 2

A Personal and Observed Poverty: A Narrative (Part 2)

I taught catechism to young children of ages of 7-12. My post was the communities' city run day care center, which was basically a room on the ground floor of a 2 storey concrete structure. The room was small. It was about six square meters, and had 2 windows and a door. One window was facing Adriatico, and the other window, along with the door, was facing the fronting unnamed eskinita. The educational tools available were merely a table, a stack of chairs, and a bookshelf filled with books much too complicated for children of such a young age to understand, and thus for the most part, they were left unused. As an example: The first copy of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace that I had read was from said bookshelf. It's ironic really, the day care worker who was assigned to assist me said to me that the books were donations from the city government. If the government expects day care students to read Tolstoy and Austen, then they have no idea about the current educational system. The classes I taught were from 2 to 4. 20 kids per class, 2 classes a day. It was easy to motivate the kids, and I had no problems with attendance. They all came day after day for the 3 weeks we were supposed to be together. If anything, what made me return there daily (sans a few absences on my part) was the expression on the children's faces after a heartwarming lesson. The senior instructors had warned me that teaching the younger batch would be difficult, but I didn't mind the awkward questions (nagdudugo pa ba si Jesus?) and the indiscriminate quarrel between classmates now and again. They were children, and it was precisely this fact that made teaching Catechism all the more easy. These children believed in what I taught, and were ready to accept the willful behavior dictated by adopting the Catholic faith. It may seem shallow, but a single "magagalit si Jesus" would be enough to tear quarrelers apart. This simple naiveté, a simplistic fear of God is precisely what in that moment would bring them to heaven versus me to purgatory.

I taught catechism to young children of ages of 7-12. My post was the communities' city run day care center, which was basically a room on the ground floor of a 2 storey concrete structure. The room was small. It was about six square meters, and had 2 windows and a door. One window was facing Adriatico, and the other window, along with the door, was facing the fronting unnamed eskinita. The educational tools available were merely a table, a stack of chairs, and a bookshelf filled with books much too complicated for children of such a young age to understand, and thus for the most part, they were left unused. As an example: The first copy of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace that I had read was from said bookshelf. It's ironic really, the day care worker who was assigned to assist me said to me that the books were donations from the city government. If the government expects day care students to read Tolstoy and Austen, then they have no idea about the current educational system.

The classes I taught were from 2 to 4. 20 kids per class, 2 classes a day. It was easy to motivate the kids, and I had no problems with attendance. They all came day after day for the 3 weeks we were supposed to be together. If anything, what made me return there daily (sans a few absences on my part) was the expression on the children's faces after a heartwarming lesson. The senior instructors had warned me that teaching the younger batch would be difficult, but I didn't mind the awkward questions (nagdudugo pa ba si Jesus?) and the indiscriminate quarrel between classmates now and again. They were children, and it was precisely this fact that made teaching Catechism all the more easy. These children believed in what I taught, and were ready to accept the willful behavior dictated by adopting the Catholic faith. It may seem shallow, but a single "magagalit si Jesus" would be enough to tear quarrelers apart. This simple naiveté, a simplistic fear of God is precisely what in that moment would bring them to heaven versus me to purgatory.