The purpose of this blog is to get everyone's 2-bits at the Shabbat table. Please print and share.
OK, here is a pair of questions for your table that are sure to stir up discussion:
1. Why do parents always ask their kids, "What did you learn in school today?"
2. Why do kids hate this question?
While I eagerly await the results of your own dinner-table poll, here is my 2-bits, as my grandfather would have said.
(By the way, the reason 2-bits became the nickname for 25¢ is a complete tangent, but it's an interesting bit of triva. Don't rely on Google or you'll miss this one. [But you coudl read this and this.] Dollars used to be solid silver, with tremendous purchasing power. The most common silver dollar then is the one pictured here, the Spanish Piece of 8, aka Peso. This coin represented four days' labor for the average worker, not so convenient for small purchases. So they would cut it into 8 pieces or "bits". So 2-bits - a day's wage - meant a quarter-dollar.)
I suspect that the answer to question #1 is both genuine interest in the lives of our children, and a desire for them to appreciate what they accomplished.
And the answer to #2 may be because too often, kids have a hard time recalling what they learned. Learning is often accumulated in such small steps, and unless the teacher posts, discusses, summarizes and reviews a daily "learning objective", it can be hard for a student on her own to articulate it.
But....
I recently discovered with our almost-eight-year-old that a slightly different question can get a consistent daily engagement with her father:
"What chesed did you do today?"
In case she hesitates, I prompt a bit further: "Did you help anyone? Did you play or sit with someone who was all alone?"
Now, the third question for your table is Why does she respond so well to this question?
Again, I can give you my own theory, but feel free to disagree.
My theory is that doing an act of chesed is a complete, self-contained accomplishment, and it feels complete. In contrast, whatever you learned today may be such a small increment toward a long-term mastery that it doesn't feel like such an accomplishment.
Fourth question for your table: Imagine you got a phone call from God. Not a prank call, it's the real thing! The voice on the other end proves itself to be God with all kinds of knowledge that no human could ever know about you.
So you're in the middle of this conversation when the doorbell rings. You peek out the window and see that it's a poor person collecting tzedaka. You can't do both - you cannot stay on the phone and help the poor person. You must decide - talk to God and get all of your questions answered, or hang up and go help the poor person.
What would you do?
Shabbat Shalom
OK, here is a pair of questions for your table that are sure to stir up discussion:1. Why do parents always ask their kids, "What did you learn in school today?"
2. Why do kids hate this question?
While I eagerly await the results of your own dinner-table poll, here is my 2-bits, as my grandfather would have said.
(By the way, the reason 2-bits became the nickname for 25¢ is a complete tangent, but it's an interesting bit of triva. Don't rely on Google or you'll miss this one. [But you coudl read this and this.] Dollars used to be solid silver, with tremendous purchasing power. The most common silver dollar then is the one pictured here, the Spanish Piece of 8, aka Peso. This coin represented four days' labor for the average worker, not so convenient for small purchases. So they would cut it into 8 pieces or "bits". So 2-bits - a day's wage - meant a quarter-dollar.)
I suspect that the answer to question #1 is both genuine interest in the lives of our children, and a desire for them to appreciate what they accomplished.
And the answer to #2 may be because too often, kids have a hard time recalling what they learned. Learning is often accumulated in such small steps, and unless the teacher posts, discusses, summarizes and reviews a daily "learning objective", it can be hard for a student on her own to articulate it.
But....
I recently discovered with our almost-eight-year-old that a slightly different question can get a consistent daily engagement with her father:
"What chesed did you do today?"
In case she hesitates, I prompt a bit further: "Did you help anyone? Did you play or sit with someone who was all alone?"
Now, the third question for your table is Why does she respond so well to this question?
Again, I can give you my own theory, but feel free to disagree.
My theory is that doing an act of chesed is a complete, self-contained accomplishment, and it feels complete. In contrast, whatever you learned today may be such a small increment toward a long-term mastery that it doesn't feel like such an accomplishment.
Fourth question for your table: Imagine you got a phone call from God. Not a prank call, it's the real thing! The voice on the other end proves itself to be God with all kinds of knowledge that no human could ever know about you.
So you're in the middle of this conversation when the doorbell rings. You peek out the window and see that it's a poor person collecting tzedaka. You can't do both - you cannot stay on the phone and help the poor person. You must decide - talk to God and get all of your questions answered, or hang up and go help the poor person.
What would you do?
Shabbat Shalom
1 comment:
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