Teaching, No Greater Call

Chad thought it would be funny to put my name on the "willing to sub in primary" list at church. Low and behold, he gets called to sub in the adult Sunday school class. We both thought it was poetic justice. I must admit, I gloated a little as he stressed for two weeks over preparing his lesson thinking, "glad it's not me!" So this last Sunday was the day. I tried to get the kids ready for church as he put the final touches on his lesson. I was really starting to look forward to hearing him teach, having never had the pleasure. Then I got a call from a sister in primary asking me to sub the 7 year old class that day. As I printed the lesson out, I thought "gees, it's a good thing I forgot to shave my legs! At least it gives me a few more minutes to prep." It seemed straight forward enough...

I am terrible at teaching children, my own included. I can't come up with fun little attention grabbers, either on the fly or with preparation. They used to even scare me, literally.

But, I committed long ago to never turn down a church assignment. So Sunday only re-confirmed my lack of talent with teaching kids. They abused every opportunity with a clueless teacher and their attention was gone pretty quickly. At the start of the lesson, we held hands walked a circle in the hall (the room was too small) and walked back to the room, to make a point. It derailed of course. The primary president (she was asked to be president about a month ago) saw the mess and stepped in saying, "Will, Johnathan, who are you?" She reminded them that they were children of God. And that was about it. They shaped up long enough to get back into the room. They were rowdy; I tried to control them, to no avail. So I taught the few that were willing... but toward the end, even they said, "when are we going to be done?!" But the worst part was, at the end apparently they get smiley faces if they behaved well so that they can get candy from the bishop. How can I label a child good or bad after knowing them for less than an hour?! It was awful! They were sweet kids, really. I couldn't blame them for being restless after 3 hours of sitting in church. At the end, I just had to sigh and say, "Ok, glad that's over."

OK, so I have talents, they just lie elsewhere. I'm OK with that. Really. But considering most of the callings in church involve teaching, and considering I am a mother-who's main responsibility is to teach her kids, I do wish I was better at it. If one of my kids really needs to be home schooled, I DO NOT know what I'll do! The purpose of this post is not to complain or even "vent". It is to say to those of you with this talent (mom, and just about everyone I knew in IN,) or even just a love of teaching, I applaud you and remain in awe of you. Seriously, thank God for it, because truly there is NO GREATER CALL.

PS) Everyone at play group today said that Chad's lesson could have been pretty controversial, but he did a really really great job with it. So yay Chad! I'm totally bummed I missed it.