kindergarten teacher for four years. I used to say it was the four longest years of my life, but it really wasn’t. They were four wonderful years because I was finally, by God’s grace, with a group of people I could relate to. And it was an all-day kindergarten. So the very first day of every year, the very most exciting thing on the very first day was lunch, because for the first time, these children, who had chosen a very special lunchbox that they wanted, were carrying with them their portable cuisine without their parents. And I had made cubbyholes for all of them to put their lunchboxes in, and I had lined them up in a single file line to get their lunchbox, and they’re sitting around this long table, all of us together. I was thinking we were going to experience kindergarten lunch blitz. I told them not to open their lunchboxes until I had prayed. I prayed, and they immediately tore into their lunchboxes. Billy is sitting next to Susie, and he immediately looks at Susie’s lunch and says, “My lunch is better than your lunch.” Now, why would he say such a thing? It’s not enough for Billy to have the ‘bestest’ lunch in all of kindergarten; that’s what he wants. He wants to have the best lunch. It’s not enough for him to have a lunch that his mom and dad have provided for him. And he looks at Susie’s lunch, and he says this, now holding up this beautiful, plump, fried chicken leg in a plastic bag. He looks at Susie’s lunch and says, “Peanut butter, oooh!” Susie burst into tears because she now knows she has parents who don’t truly love her. And all of a sudden, everybody’s comparing lunches with everybody else, and half of the class is crying; Billy is still holding up his chicken leg; it’s the trump lunch; I don’t think he’ll ever eat it. He’ll carry this for weeks! About six weeks into class, a mom comes to me, and she says, “My daughter has lost her watch.” Now, I don’t know why parents of kindergartners buy them watches; they can’t tell time. It’d be better to glue a peanut butter cup to their wrist—at least they would have sustenance in moments of hunger--but they do. I ask around, and six children had lost their watches. I knew there was a little larcener in the class. And so, I asked around to all the children, and I finally came to Jimmy--he was the tallest kid in the class. (You have to look at my posture here.) I said, “Jimmy, do you know where those watches are?” And he said, “No! No, I don’t!” Well, he was denying involvement, but he looked guilty. And so, without even debating with him, I said, “Jimmy, would you take me to those watches?” He had just denied all knowledge of their existence, and he did this—walked down the hallway, up the steps into the boys bathroom, across from one of the urinals was where the water meter was; he opened up the door and lying over the water meter were six watches. Now, what was the plan? I’m going to fence them to a third grader? You see, Jimmy couldn’t abide somebody having something he didn’t have. Listen, envy is always shockingly selfish. About six months into class, a mom came to me, and she said, “My daughter’s having a birthday this week. I
would love to be able to use the classroom for her birthday party.” I said, “That’s fine as long as you invite all the children in the class.” She’s said, “I’d be glad to do that.”
Well that day, I occupied the children while she turned that classroom into birthday kingdom. We walked into that classroom, and we were sitting along the same table; and at the end of the table was the seat for the birthday girl, and there was this big pile, inordinate pile, of gifts in front of her. Around everybody else’s seat was a bag of party favors--two tootsie rolls, two pieces of gum, a lollipop, and a plastic whistle. The purpose of party favors is to remind you, “It’s not your birthday!” And Johnny is sitting directly down the length of the table from birthday girl, and he’s looking at her big pile of gifts and his little sandwich bag of items not totaling seventy-nine cents. And he’s feeling completely ripped off, and he begins to harrumph, “Harrumph, harrumph, harrumphphph.” Well, there’s a mother who had enough of him ‘harrupmphing,’ and she walked the length of the table, and she
Transcript: Session 3
WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?
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