Stephen*

I think I made a girl cry today, Teacher.
These were the words of one of my after-school students whom I'll call Stephen. We had some very interesting conversations after school yesterday. Stephen is one of my best students and has a special place in my heart because I taught him during Winter Vacation. He is a very creative student and as I've been recently learning, quite a deep thinker.

Before our class yesterday, he told me about how he made one of the girls in his class cry. He was just treating her the same way he would treat any of his guy friends. He couldn't seem to understand why this was a problem. I couldn't help but smile before proceeding to explain that it's not a good idea to treat girls the same way he treats his guy friends. I tried to tell him that girls need to be treated more gently because it's easy for our feelings to be hurt sometimes [sorry for any feminists that may be offended by this]. It was definitely an interesting conversation.

I was reminded once again that my students are MIDDLE SCHOOL students - going through so many changes and learning so much about life. It's easy for me to think of them as younger students because their English levels are more like young children.

Teacher, WHY?!
After our class was finished, this same student said to me, Teacher, are you a Christian? He told me that he had recently started to read the Bible and had all sorts of questions like...

• Teacher, why did God tell people not to kill each other, but then helped the Israelites kill entire nations?
• Why did God bless Jacob since he was such a terrible man?
• Why are humans born with sin?
• What happens to people who never ever hear about Jesus?

Stephen's questions really surprised me. I had no idea that he was even interested in spiritual things. And I certainly didn't know that he is such a deep thinker. We talked for nearly a half hour after class. He also told me that he's also been reading Dante's Inferno. Our conversation reminded me of conversations I had in college... definitely something I wouldn't have expected with my middle school students. I was both encouraged and challenged by our conversation. More encouraged than anything else, though. God is at work!

*I've changed his name for the sake of privacy.