The Great Gender Relations Council of Excelsior

Before I begin I'd like to thank everyone who has been reading for the last 2 months with me.  I really appreciate your feedback and encouragement.  Over the course of 60 posts we are almost to 1000 page views.  Thanks again to the readers and to anyone who has shared the blog with friends.  Feel free to do so if you think anyone else would enjoy reading it. Or hate reading it that could really get the comments going!

And now, let the good times roll!

Tonight I participated as a panelist in the Great Gender Relations Council of Excelsior.  As a condition of my participation I requested a glass of water, a name placard and a microphone with a flexible handle so that I could palm the head of the mic and push it away when I needed to have a private word with a fellow panelist.  All of the conditions of my participation were met (to varying degrees) and the council proceeded and concluded with great success.

In actuality the gathering was put together by a friend for her girls discipleship group.  The girls, all sophomores at a Christian high school wanted to ask questions about teenage boys and be answered by people who used to be teenage boys. Their main goal was to relate better with boys and also avoid difficult and potentially regrettable situations. 

What struck me most was just how smart these teenagers were.  The simple act of asking questions and listening to answers showed so much about their desire to learn and their ability to engage in productive conversations.  I had the chance to talk with a few of the teens about their classes at school and it turned out that evolution is the topic of study in biology right now.

I learned just a bit about how the subject is being addressed at the school (which has been described to me as “pretty conservative”) and I was surprised to hear that it was pretty much being taught as is and without comment.  The student I talked to suspected that at the end of the unit the teacher would draw some conclusion about how the science of evolution exists with the Christian faith, especially as it relates to the creation accounts in the Bible. 

My final question was about the tenor of the learning.  The mood was described as more tense than harmonious because the scientific ideas seem to be contrary to what the student had been taught for so long.  I’m interested in following up on this and I think it is past due time for me to talk with some more teens about their perspectives.  I’ll report more as those conversations materialize.