Shades

Do the questions about different races, ethnicities, and backgrounds ever come up in your classrooms/homes? I teach in an inner-city district where we have many different minority groups and ethnicities that make up the framework of our district's children. Every once in a while I have a group of students who are very curious why  we are all a little different. What are your responses to those questions? I know EXACTLY what I would say when I am teaching Sunday School or what I would say to my own children. But in a public school setting...it's well a little different.

Without going into detail, one of my students didn't want to sit next to another due to the difference between their skin. My policy in my classroom has always been that skin color DOESN'T matter. I don't look or judge them according to the color of their skin. I love them all for who they are on the inside.

I always use this opportunity to bring up the book A Bad Case of Stripes  and ask my students if I came into school with stripes all over my skin would that change who I was on the inside?  Would I still be their teacher with crazy curls? Yep. Our skin is our body's LARGEST organ that is integral to keeping out germs and protecting us from harm and keeping our internal organs safe. I explain that it's not the wrapping that we really care about but what the wrapping is hiding (the inside!) that counts.

When I got home, I was still thinking about what had happened in my room while making dinner. Our not so cute chicks (let's face it they are awkward adolescents at this point) are finally laying eggs and we are LOVING having farm fresh organic eggs right in the back yard. I looked down at the carton of eggs my hubby had washed the night before and this is what I saw. (Ignore my ugly counter top, my kitchen is still in the stages of being remodeled!!)

I had pieces of egg shells lying on the counter. All different shades. Some light. Some dark. Some with speckles. Some with spots. Once they were all cracked open and on the griddle, they all looked the same and I couldn't tell which egg came from which shell.

 

 

I showed this to my class to make a point the next day. I don't like one chicken better than the other for the color of the shell because the shell isn't what I care about. I love each of them for who they are as a person and if they walked in with stripes, polka dots, feathers, or fur I wouldn't care.

We were made perfect in His image and if He thinks we are perfect just as we are...who am I to judge?