so little <\/em>about their Faith, their Church and its history, I consider it a minor miracle when they can all recite the Hail Mary.<\/p>\nSo I hatched a plan. An unauthorized plan neither provided for in our study guide nor sanctioned by the Vatican. But I thought it might be fun. At the beginning of class, I handed out paper and pencil and asked the class to imagine that the twelve of us (five kids were absent) had been stranded on a desert island. \u201cOh, Mr. Bull! You mean like Lost?!<\/em>\u201d \u201cExactly, J. Like Lost.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nThen I asked them to imagine that they had to come up with rules for living together, so that no one would get hurt and everyone would be happy. I asked each child to begin one rule with the word Always <\/em>and a second rule with the word Never. <\/em>Then I collected the papers and chose from their answers our class\u2019s very own Ten Commandments:<\/p>\n\n- Always be nice.<\/li>\n
- Never leave the group.<\/li>\n
- Always sleep until at least nine o\u2019clock.<\/li>\n
- Never chew gum.<\/li>\n
- Never steel [sic<\/em>] from one another.<\/li>\n
- Never pick your nose.<\/li>\n
- Never kill anybody.<\/li>\n
- Always take a shower with clothes on.<\/li>\n
- Never go anywhere without a partner.<\/li>\n
- Never eat the tiny fish.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Say what you will of my method, I had their attention, at least for a few minutes. We talked about how <\/em>we had come up with these ten laws. We moved to the way our Congress and President create laws. Finally, we moved to God and Moses on the mountain.<\/p>\nWe ended with a simple point. The real Ten C\u2019s begin with three rules about God and one rule about our parents. I pointed out that none of the children\u2019s rules mentioned God, mother, or father. Next week, we\u2019ll see what they make of bearing false witness<\/em> and coveting. <\/em><\/p>\nI love teaching this class. <\/em><\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_dmDaLWNETzg\/S0VMPDy0DJI\/AAAAAAAAAz0\/Eyep8SUUdbw\/s200\/TenCs\")
<\/a>As usual, I entered the class with a bare-bones mission: Spend the next two or even three weeks going over the Ten Commandments. These children know so little <\/em>about their Faith, their Church and its history, I consider it a minor miracle when they can all recite the Hail Mary.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/6738513599344023043-8014461482997159676?l=yimcatholic.blogspot.com\")
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