Questions Students Ask

Have the questions that kids and youth ask in the classroom or on a Friday night changed in the last 10 years?

Youthworks College graduate Tom Owen found himself asking this question. Tom is a chaplain at Macquarie Anglican Grammar School in Dubbo, and he was struck by the changes he had noticed during his 10-15 years of school ministry.

One day, Tom was looking at a lesson plan he used in the early 2010s on Mark 5 (The Demon Possessed Man). He remembered that students used to ask questions like, “are spirits real” or “wasn’t he just disabled?”. In the 2020s they were asking him, “why would Jesus kill those pigs?” “Why didn’t God direct the spirits elsewhere?” The students were more interested in ethics than facts.

Tom noticed a big increase in questions about whether the stories in the Bible were ethical. The students asked the same sort of questions about the Noah story, they were less interested in whether it was true and more interested in whether God’s actions were fair and just.

Even when they were asking questions about the cross Tom says, “students weren’t asking about the historical accuracy, they were asking about fairness and justice. A lot of the questions started with ‘Why would God do ‘x’? Why doesn’t God do ‘y’ instead? Why would God do that to his son?’ It was almost like God was on trial and they were questioning his character not only through stories in the bible but the state of this world and the plight and grievances of humanity.”

This realisation motivated Tom to do some research so he could prepare answers to the students’ questions in his teaching units. He asked the Christian Studies teachers to collect all the faith questions that kids were asking in class and the playground for three terms. When he analysed the questions, he saw that his original intuition was right and saw some definite patterns.

Not only had the questions changed, but the types of questions were different as the students moved from kindy to year 12. In Tom’s curriculum it was in years 9-10 that the apologetics and evidence type units were taught. But now he saw that at this age they had moved on from apologetics; and they were asking questions that were more ethical. For example, there were a lot of questions about porn and sex.

In response to his research Tom changed the scope and sequence of the units. It would now cover apologetic questions in years 5-8 and then move on to ethics in year 9. This realisation helped him ‘to be prepared to give an answer’ (1 Peter 3:15). Tom says that he is “not good at thinking on the spot but I see the value in having stories and analogies ready for key questions I know kids will ask.”

But Tom warns us that in different contexts the questions may be different. For anyone who wants to teach young people about the gospel, doing some research into the questions they are asking and whether there are trends within different age groups will be valuable.

“We want to teach the one unifying story of the bible, I get that, but we also want to be teaching and answering the questions kids are asking, otherwise they will look elsewhere to seek those answers.”

Below is the list of the most popular questions that Tom collected from each age group.

Questions Students Asked at Macquarie Anglican Grammar School

Kindy:

Where is God now?
What does God look like?
How did God make the world?

Yrs. 1-2:

What is heaven like?
Is Jesus God or God’s son?
Who made God?

Yrs. 3-4:

How was God made?
How do I get to heaven?
What happens to bad people when they die?
Who made the Bible?
Do pets go to heaven?

Yrs. 5-6:

Did miracles actually happen?
Is it all real?
Why do bad things happen?
What about dinosaurs?
Is heaven real?

Yrs. 7-8:

Is there evidence?
Doesn’t science disprove God?
Why does God allow suffering?
If God is real how come he doesn’t answer prayers?

Yrs. 9-10:

Why does God want a say in my or anyone’s sex life?
What have Christians got against porn?
How can a good God let bad things happen?

Yrs. 11-12:

What does the Bible say about money?
Can I be rich and a Christian?
What does the bible say about marriage?
Is the Bible sexist?
How would God/Jesus vote on ‘x’