Teaching kids...

Back at the start of the year, I promised Petrina that I'd teach a term of Sunday school - partly to help out 'cause I see how hard it can be to get enough teachers for the term, partly to show (I hope) that it doesn't have to be the same people over and over again, and that it's OK to do something different to what you normally do at church.

This idea was fine until a couple of weeks ago, when I realised just how close the start of term 4 was.  Saturday was kinda stressful - although I was working off material that other very experienced teachers had prepared, I was still quite uncertain about how I'd go actually teaching it to kids. 

By the time I got to morning tea after church, I was in a state of mild shock.  And somewhat puzzled by reactions when I told people I'd been teaching the 8-11 year old boys.  Everyone seemed to think it would be incredibly hard work, but I didn't think so at the time and I don't think so now.  Short version is that they scare me the least.

As for how the lesson went, well with a grand total of one week's experience, I've learned:

• Even with a class of 3 it takes effort to engage everyone equally
• Distractions can come in any number of forms
• Confiscation is generally an effective way of dealing with distractions
• Half an hour is not very long
• Everything takes longer than you think, especially if you haven't memorised the whole lesson beforehand.
• For these kids at least, saying "that's a tough question, I really don't know and the Bible doesn't say much about it" is an acceptable answer (the prep notes didn't mention that when discussing how Christians will see Jesus again when we die, the class may ask if suicides go to heaven or not)

Now to see what next week's lesson will bring...