When Johnny Hates Math
and all the other subjects too
Ordo amoris.
A famous phrase that connotes the right ordering of our loves. As parent educators we feel the heavy weight of ensuring that our children’s loves are indeed rightly ordered.
The task itself implies that currently their loves are disordered. Easy enough, then; we know what our children ought to love, we know what the Beautiful, Good, and True things are that they ought to appreciate. So we make our list and start teaching them those things: math, science, literature, languages, poetry, writing, music, art, Shakespeare, nature lore, etc, etc.
We gather our resources and begin to execute our plans, fully expecting our offspring to fall in line and fall in love.
And for awhile they are compliant enough. But eventually there comes a day when we hear the dreaded words,
“I hate [insert most important subject]!”
Whether that subject be math or reading or science or whatever, sooner or later we find ourselves up against a wall of intense dislike.
Sometimes we are blind-sided. Other times we totally saw it coming. So what do we do when this happens?
Do we ignore them and power through? Do we give up?
Maybe a new curriculum is the answer. Perhaps the lessons aren’t entertaining enough (because of course only entertaining things are worth loving, right?). Are we confusing education with entertainment? Maybe there’s just something wrong in our execution.
All these questions and more may yield solutions to our conundrum. We must take into account circumstances, personalities, limitations, and past experience as we search for a way forward.
We also have to acknowledge the possibility that we may not find a way forward at all. It may be that Johnny will just never love math.
But in an effort to go deeper and get to the heart of the matter, let’s consider such questions as these:
How do we cultivate a love of learning?
How do we cultivate a love of anything?
How does Jesus cultivate our love for Him?
Ah. Here we are then. The God of love knows all about ordo amoris. He knows how to nourish and develop our love for Him, and for every piece of his creation, including math.
Invitation, welcoming, hospitality, allowing space both for rejection and acceptance, without force or coercion.
Yes, our children still have to study the things we tell them to study, whether they like it or not, but our job is not to force the liking or the loving. We create the space, we require the work, we leave the rest in God’s hands. Once more, we find ourselves faced with the truth that ours is the work of hospitality.
Work enough, indeed.