Teaching Children

When I was working on my masters degree in Biblical Studies, one of the advisors was helping me decide on electives when he used the words "You'll just be teaching women and children." 

No. Absolutely not. I am not "just teaching women and children". I am teaching women and children. This is not a lesser ministry than teaching men. Yes, it's not at the same level as the pulpit ministry, but it's not somehow less important than every other ministry in the church.

Mostly I teach children, so that's probably a level under teaching women. After all, it's mostly just child care with some nice little Bible stories and games and crafts and cute songs, right? 

I am so thankful for a church where Scripture is so important and is part of every ministry. Our women's study is on year 2 of an in-depth study of 1 Corinthians and the women are in the word weekly. 

The younger half of the Sunday School program are learning Bible stories so they know what is in the Bible while getting to know about the God of the Bible. The older years are building on that and learning about salvation and sanctification. I've started creating a new curriculum that goes through biblical doctrine and teaches the children to know Scripture more fully.

Teaching children is a huge responsibility. They don't have as many critical thinking skills and can't go to the Bible to see if what we say is true (some of them can't read yet). Everything we teach them needs to be backed by Scripture and we need to make sure we're clear and precise. 

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the responsibility. I have 114 children under my care this year (I don't teach them all, but I do oversee the Sunday School program). We're helping raise the next generation of godly men and women who will then help raise the next generation....all the way until Christ returns. They need to know God and His word so well that they can stand firm for the truth, boldly, courageously, in the face of opposition.

No, I am not "just" teaching children. I am teaching children. 

Subbing in the Kindergarten Class

I sometimes sub at one of the Christian schools in my area. It's fun to teach for a while and it's nice to go home after and enjoy the quiet. This year all of my subbing (all 2.5 days) has been with the kindergarten class. There are around 19 of them (maybe 20, but they've never all be there) and they're all pretty good kids on the whole. There is the occasional dispute over toys, but those are easily handled. There are sometimes tears for whatever reason 5-year-olds get emotional (partly because change is hard), but they are also easily dealt with. The kids are also very sweet and I got a lot of hugs on Friday!

These kids are also pretty smart. They told me all the letter sounds, including short and long vowels, and were able to read words and simple sentences. They are also learning how to tell when a vowel makes a long or short sound. They know their numbers and can count to 60, and backwards from 10. 

What they did not know was where food comes from. We were talking about where their snacks came from. They're city kids, so for them, food comes from the store. It took an extra question: "Where was it before it got to the store?" for them to remember that apples and oranges come from trees and cheese and yogurt come from milk which comes from cows. (There was the suggestion that cheese also comes from trees, but he may have been joking.) Bread was a bit more complicated, but we managed "bread is made from flour, flour comes from wheat, and wheat comes from the ground." And yet they had not problem with "Carrots come from in the ground".

It was a crazy, busy, noisy, tiring day, but I quite enjoyed it. I don't think I'd do it for a living, though. I would do much better with older students on a regular basis.