Teacher preacher

I have been wrestling with teaching kids "science" now for years, and it comes down to this:
If a child has no real connection to the natural world, all I can do is preach.
And preaching does not work.

We got plenty of preachers telling all of us what to think believe.
And most of us are devout believers in things we hardly recognize as dogma.

Turn the sound of your television.
Watch the images stream by.
They define us--if they did not, we would not watch them.

Any child with a true interest in the world of the senses, the world of touch and taste, sound and smell and sight, the world that (for whatever reason) flows within patterns of the physical and physics, well, that child has a chance in developing interest in the only real world we have.

A child who  learns to manipulate symbols for extrinsic gain--first to please her parents, then to make a living--can become a proficient scientist without knowing the world. We have plenty of professional preachers who have little connection to The Christ.

If you can't find the ground beneath your feet, you are lost.

(Doesn't mean she will become a scientist--
no one has an obligation to professionalize wherever joy takes them. But she will be a better citizen.)