Choice Fruit

Mat 7:15-16  "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.  (16)  You will recognize them by their fruits.

Recently the teachers at my school attended a Teacher Training Workshop called, “Capturing Kids Hearts,” in which we studied ways of creating a learning environment based on relationships and caring interactions between students and teacher, and between students themselves.  One of the activities involved developing a “social contract.”  We would brainstorm how we would want to be treated under a variety of conditions and agree to treat each other in those ways.  Then we’d make a big poster and everyone would sign it.  This would become the basis for classroom rules, consequences, and discipline.

Well, anyone who works with kids knows that you can’t just sit down without any input and ask kids how they want to be treated.  You’ll end up with a poster that says, “Everyone Will Be Nice.”  That doesn’t work in a classroom situation.  You’ll spend the rest of the year defining the word in increasingly complex scenarios.  So I was casting around for some vocabulary development ideas to give them a richer canvas on which to paint, when an unexpected thought popped into my head.  “Galatians 5:22.  The fruit of the Spirit.”

What?  Teach the fruit of the Spirit in public school?  Why not?  They’re just words, right?  And good ones at that.  In fact, they accurately define the learning environment that our workshop set as a goal.  So we spent a week on some new vocabulary words; love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, patience, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

But how do you break those down into actions that can be visualized and carried out in a practical way for fourth grade?  It isn’t easy.  I decided that each one had to demonstrate an active choice we make when confronted with a real-life, daily situation.  In struggling with this I learned a lot more about these qualities than I had ever realized before.

It came out like this (sort of.  The language level for them was sans “God”, and a little lower – but not much):

Love
Choosing to care about someone else more than I care about myself.

Joy
Choosing to ferret out the positive and dwell in it, no matter how overwhelming the negative seems.

Peace
Choosing to remain calm inside no matter how crazy the outside gets.

Patience
Choosing to wait quietly behind the wall of God’s grace.

Kindness
Choosing to treat someone else better than they deserve to be treated.

Goodness
Choosing to do what’s right no matter what the consequences will be.

Faithfulness
Choosing to be loyal and honorable even when everyone else gives up and falls away.

Gentleness
Choosing to control one’s strength and authority, channeling them into care and tact toward other people.

Self-control
Choosing to put the spirit in charge of the mind and the mind in charge of the body.

These are the things that a real relationship with God through Jesus Christ develops in our lives.  They don't just magically appear, you have to "work them out with fear and trembling."  You have to CHOOSE, and then act under God's power.  Jesus makes it pretty clear that if our good works don’t produce these virtues, said works are “dead.”  Diseased trees don’t produce good fruit.  You cut them down and burn them.  And a day will come when some will list the amazing things they did in His name (prophesying, casting out demons, etc.) and He will say, “I don’t know you.”  Why?  Because they did a lot of good stuff, but it was all self-motivated and self-obsessed.  In other words, it produced no fruit.

So I thought it would be fun to write a snippet or two about each of these.  I don’t know that it will be as much fun for you to read, but if not it will be an opportunity for you to work on forgiveness.

Comments

[Raj]

What a great idea! Are you going to actually try to use these? If so, let us know how it goes. Should be interesting. I get the feeling that out of hostility toward the Bible, people will find themselves opposing these virtues, which should be quite the logical contortionist act.

[Les]

Hey Raj!
Yeah, they are actually on a poster in front of my room now. When we read a story out of our anthology, we discuss the characters and how they display these strengths in the stories. It's very cool.

I've actually told some trustworthy colleagues where they come from. I'm fortunate that my school is still progressive in a REAL sense, so I get no flack here. Parents like it too.

It gives me many opportunities to talk to the kids about how to treat each other in real life, and they do their best to achieve these standards. They're proud of themselves, for example, when they do something kind for someone who "doesn't deserve it." And that, of course, makes my day.