{"id":25625,"date":"2025-07-25T01:08:41","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T05:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/?p=25625"},"modified":"2025-07-25T07:52:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T11:52:55","slug":"i-wanted-to-teach-a-geography-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2025\/07\/i-wanted-to-teach-a-geography-class\/","title":{"rendered":"I Wanted to Teach a Geography Class"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

I wanted to teach a children\u2019s geography class.<\/h3>\n

This just might be the silliest idea I\u2019ve ever come up with, and I\u2019ve had some whoppers.<\/p>\n

Adrienne had been in school for a year when I thought up the idea. I didn\u2019t exactly miss homeschooling\u2013 I certainly didn\u2019t miss English and Math lessons, at least. I didn\u2019t miss the loneliness or the constant feeling that I was doing something wrong. But I missed social studies. I just loved making up a little curriculum to teach about a different interesting country every week, reading stories from that culture, learning a bit of the languages, the music and the dances. I liked to look up the capital city on Google Maps and show a street view of the places we\u2019d read about. I liked seeing that look of excitement, and realizing I\u2019d connected with somebody in such a special way. Adrienne was fascinated by something that fascinated me. That was gone now. I moped around the house feeling elderly and depressed.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a church outreach near here that gives underprivileged children free after school lessons, in whatever subject they can find a teacher to teach: martial arts, dancing, gardening, story time. I talked to the pastor and asked if there was an empty slot for me to have a geography club\u2013 while conscious that it was one of the dumbest ideas I\u2019ve ever had. What child would look at an activity list and choose a class called \u201cgeography,\u201d when they could go to story time?<\/p>\n

To my surprise, the pastor took me up on the offer, for the beginning of the next school year.<\/h3>\n

I spent the few weeks before that day planning my lessons picking out countries that fascinated me and studying all about them. I dusted off the books from the homeschooling cupboard. I found fun videos, and Adrienne helped make slideshows on the laptop. I ordered a set of pretend passports that were blank inside, and a big paper map. The first day of classes, I stood in a Sunday school classroom right out of a storybook complete with a colorful stained glass window, wearing my very best dress and good shoes, equal parts excited and terrified.<\/p>\n

There were only three students, one of whom blurted out within the first minute that he was only there because the pastor offered him a snack as a bribe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s okay,\u201d I said, handing him a blue booklet with \u201cPASSPORT\u201d written on it. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have a good time. Here\u2019s your passport for taking notes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get to learn about passports?\u201d said the boy in awe.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething like that.\u201d I handed out the lollipops I\u2019d brought as well. \u201cNow, before we become world travelers, I\u2019m going to teach you about the seven continents. Let\u2019s play a game. I want you to pretend that this map is really the earth, and we\u2019re up in space trying to land a rocket.\u201d<\/p>\n

We played the game. We successfully landed the rocket. I read the picture book \u201cHow to Make an Apple Pie and See the World.\u201d I showed them the Google Map with the church on it and how we could zoom around to other continents on the computer. We danced to the video of Yakko the Animaniac naming the countries of the world. By the end of the class, the children were beaming.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell your friends,\u201d I said as they left for the next thirty-minute session. \u201cNext week we\u2019re going to Ghana.\u201d<\/h4>\n

The next week, none of the original three children were there, but I had five new children. I showed them the map of Africa and a silly vintage Sesame Street sketch about what Africa looks like. I read them a story about Anansi the Spiderman and then watched a scene from the Marvel Comics\u2019 Spider-Man so they could see that both kinds of Spider Stories are about a clever little man who defeats enemies much stronger than he is. We learned to sing and dance \u201cFunga Alafia Ashe Ashe.\u201d When that class was over, my new students were beaming.<\/p>\n

The third week, as I was coming in, I saw the little boy who had been bribed to sit through my original session. His face lit up when he saw me. \u201cOh! You\u2019re the class I wanted to take! Can I bring my friends?\u201d<\/p>\n

Next thing I knew, more than ten children were piling into the classroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so glad you\u2019re here! Today we are going to go to TANZINIA and meet a group of people called the MAASAI,\u201d I said, annunciating the new words carefully like an old-fashioned teacher from a movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou sound like an old-fashioned teacher from a movie!\u201d said one girl in the front row.<\/p>\n

As I opened up the map, and helped them find Tanszinia, I glanced around at twenty pairs of eyes.<\/p>\n

I saw it again: the excitement. I\u2019d connected with twenty other people in that special way. A whole roomful of children were fascinated by something that had fascinated me.<\/p>\n

I felt happy, for the first time in a long while.<\/p>\n

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Mary Pezzulo is the author of\u00a0Meditations on the Way of the Cross,\u00a0<\/a>The Sorrows an<\/a>d Joys of Mary<\/a>, and\u00a0Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, donate to \u201cThe Little Portion\u201d on\u00a0paypal<\/a>\u00a0or Mary Pezzulo on\u00a0venmo<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I wanted to teach a children\u2019s geography class. This just might be the silliest idea I\u2019ve ever come up with, and I\u2019ve had some whoppers. Adrienne had been in school for a year when I thought up the idea. I didn\u2019t exactly miss homeschooling\u2013 I certainly didn\u2019t miss English and Math lessons, at least. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2694,"featured_media":25631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[13,396,10272,15923,115],"class_list":["post-25625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motherhood","tag-children","tag-fun","tag-geography","tag-midlife-crisis","tag-teaching"],"yoast_head":"\nI Wanted to Teach a Geography Class<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I wanted to teach a children's geography class.This just might be the silliest idea I've ever come up with, and I've had some whoppers.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2025\/07\/i-wanted-to-teach-a-geography-class\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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