Dendrites and Other Fruit
There is a certain anticipation that begins in a particular heart every August. It’s my heart and the great awaiting is the arrival of my class roster for the new school year. It is incredibly exciting to build a vision for each child’s formal educational experience. Soon we meet, get to know each other and embark on our journey with, “Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.”
It is well documented how humans gather, sort and store information in their brains. Being a teacher of five and six year olds means helping them learn to perform this natural process in an efficient way. Starting with very basic ideas such as slanting lines and straight lines, children begin to apply attributes to the world around them and build mental files they can retrieve and use. Soon, short sticks, circles, arcs and paper with lines are added. The adventure with written print and all its components has begun. Within a few short months a child goes from investigating all the beautiful things a pencil can do, to using it for expressing themselves and relaying and gathering useful information. This simple process has a name, dendritic, or branching…..going from simple to complex, complex to simple. River systems, trees, the blood vessels in your body all depend on branching as does your ability to learn, store, recall and use knowledge.
Here is a clearer picture of dendrites. A tree has a trunk, the largest part of the tree. From that trunk, branches shoot outward. From them, smaller branches continue until the system is complete to the very last tiny twig. River systems begin high in the mountains as small trickles of snow melt. Gravity pulls these trickling streams toward the sea as they join together making larger and larger bodies of water until finally they reach the ocean. For teaching kindergarten? A child must understand that an ‘A’ and an ‘H’ are not the same even though they have identical components. So we begin with basics, sticks and circles, to complex, how they connect and represent sound.
Jesus has something to say about dendrites too. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine and you cannot be fruitful apart from me. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:4-5
Jesus is complex. We are simple, we are the branches. He wove the world together, we did not. We do not need to understand the secrets of the universe, we just need to know the One that did and remain so connected to Him that when He moves, we move. He is the True Vine and He is calling us to a relationship that depends on Him alone for the resources needed to perform life’s purpose and be producers of His fruit……..love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. This fruit will not come about apart from the True Vine.
Simple is good. Too much clutter in our brains and hearts distracts and defeats us. Remain in the Him, He’s got it all under control. Go where He sends, do what He asks, love as He loves, be His fruit and produce His fruit.
Love,
Gretchen