Teaching Adults is Easier

Since "retiring" from my full-time job to stay home with the children, I have done various types of contract work part-time.  Some of my favorite assignments have involved instructing adults.  I wrote training materials for seven different energy management workshops and enjoyed teaching business owners how to reduce their electric bills. I have also delivered a number of leadership development, team building, and communication classes for manufacturing professionals.  The most challenging aspect of each of these assignment was that I was delivering information to an audience comprised of people older than myself.  It did not take long to find common ground, however, and simply showing proper respect to my senior clients for their vast experience and expertise removed that obstacle.

Teaching little ones, on the other hand, is much more challenging for me.  I like to deal pragmatically with issues, but children do not have fully developed reasoning capabilities.  With adults, there is the possibility that I will be asked a question for which my knowledge is too limited to answer.  With children, however, attempting to communicate logical answers to their whimsical questions can sometimes render me dizzy and exhausted.

Joey, circa 2007

Example
My 5-year old, who is referred to as "Joey" on this blog, recently initiated the following conversation with me:

Joey:  What would happen if I flew into outer space with a water gun and sprayed water on the sun?

Me:    The sun would continue shining.

Joey:  But doesn't water put out fire?  

Me:    How much bigger is the sun than the earth?  How much bigger is the earth than those water droplets?  Your water gun is no match for the sun!

Joey:  Well....what if I had a water gun that was bigger than the sun?

Me:    How would you fit a water gun that size in your little hands?

Joey:   What if I had a water gun as big as the sun with handles as small as my hands?

Me:   What would happen to the earth if you did indeed quench the sun?

Joey:  We would have no light or heat. But that's okay, because we could always set Jupiter on fire and let it be our sun.

Me:   But Jupiter is a planet, not a sun. 

Joey:  We'll turn it into a sun.

Me:   (Giving up that argument and trying a new approach)  If the earth was located closer to the sun, what would happen?

Joey:  We would burn up.

Me:   If the earth was farther from the sun, what would happen?

Joey:  We might freeze.

Me:  So God positioned earth at just the right distance from the sun to support life.  Are we the right distance from Jupiter should it become a sun? 

Joey:  I don't know.

Me:  Then let's just not tamper with God's design, okay?