Sunday School Teaching

When I stopped serving as Second Reader in my church I was asked to go back into the Sunday School to teach the youngest class. My first thought was: “Oh no!” as I had been Sunday School Superintendent immediately before being elected Second Reader and I had hoped to be asked to do something a little less demanding.

However, in I went. I was asked to take over as Sunday School Superintendent last year and I began to experience problems with the two boys who each wanted one-to- one attention and who did not like sharing. And the age gap between them made engaging both of them at the same time tricky.

Then the younger boy’s two-year-old sister demanded that she be allowed to “go to nursery too” and be with her brother. This made proper teaching almost impossible because suddenly there was a three-way split and an even bigger age gap. During one class the oldest boy acted up and ran around paying no attention at all while the younger one was asking questions. Then, while my attention was with the little girl, the older boy so upset the younger one that he burst into tears and rushed out of the room slamming the door. Ouch!

My fellow teacher, who remains calm at all times, quietly went into the nursery where my poor pupil was crying and took him across to join her pupil who is in her late teens. His little sister went with him leaving me with the older boy who behaved as if nothing had happened. Father-Mother, help!

Afterwards we teachers talked about the problem. It was decided that the best course of action was to separate the boys and have them attend separately on different Sundays for a while. However, I was not completely happy with this solution because the older boy, who has no father, brothers, nor sisters, is being home-schooled by his mother and does not have regular inter-action with other children. When this was explained to me I felt very guilty but I knew I needed to work on discipline before letting the children come together again so I let the arrangement continue.

Then just three weeks ago, all three children were due to come. The Board asked me if they should call one of the parents and ask that their child stay at home. Turning children away seemed wrong to me and I said I would teach all three. Then an usher said that the older boy was distracting the congregation during the last hymn and the readings at the end of the service and asked if he understood the importance of this quiet time. I let that rankle and felt judged for a few days. I have been struggling with a physical problem for two years and this criticism on top was hard to bear.

I determined to ask the Board if I could stop teaching because I felt trapped in the job and unequal to its challenges. No surprises then that the material condition started to give me night terrors, waking me up shivering and shaking and making it difficult to get back to sleep.

Then an angel member lovingly gave me work-sheets and thought-challenging activities to help me plan my lessons. Early on the morning of the three-some I thought about the work-sheet I had chosen: love and respect each other. The fun activity was to decipher a coded word by matching pictures with letters of the alphabet. The word was “welcome” and I suddenly woke up! I had needed to learn a lesson. It was not up to me to decide who should come and when but that I should do as Jesus would: welcome everyone unconditionally.

Then another thought came: “do not desert your post.” I remembered Laura Sargent recalling Mrs Eddy stating: “If attempting to run away from your duty, then you will have to return to the difficulty and master it or lose Science. One can no more flee from a difficult moral problem, forsake their post of duty where God the Principle of their being has put them and called them, nor lose sight of their errors and so believe they have conquered them, than a student can turn from a difficult problem in mathematics to one less difficult, remain working in that rule, and still think he is going on solving numbers.” Wow. No more thought of running away!

When the boys arrived the older one seemed to hesitate but continued to come in warily watching the younger boy who stared back. We decided to read a hymn instead of singing it and I asked the older boy to help the younger one to read it while I read the hymn to the little girl. As class started I asked the boys to shake each other’s hand as though they were meeting for the first time. Then they shook the little girl’s hand. I explained that I had learned to welcome everyone to the class with no conditions, just like Jesus would. And then the older boy took my hand and shook it. Joy!

The session went well with some gentle disciplining from me that was accepted with no comment. And it ended with us all working on a picture of the story of the Good Samaritan that the older boy and I had been working on for a few weeks. I had chosen it when I discovered that he and his mother were looked down on by their neighbours. And this story illustrates how to love everyone whoever they are. This story has a prequel and a sequel. The poor man who was robbed may have thought Samaritans were not fit to associate with him. We think he learned to change his thinking after the inn-keeper told him who had helped him.

Teaching young children is so worth it especially if the teacher is willing to learn too!