Sunday School

Greetings Blog Fans,

Sorry I haven’t done anything new for a couple of days. I guess I am in something of a slump. Yesterday I slept in until 5:00 and Sunday I stayed in bed until 6:00! Sunday I had kind of an excuse, though. Saturday night we (my family plus Ashley) stayed up past one working on a fruit basket mobile for Sunday School. This may not sound like a lot of work to do but when you have to make enough for 30 kids it takes a while. They liked them, though. We had little paper bowls that we punched holes in and then pasted the fruits onto old manila envelopes and tied strings to them and knotted them together. The kids had to color them and tie the strings to the baskets. It should have been done sooner but you know people’s schedules often reflect the fact that they are human. It was a lot of fun.

It was our monthly “Homespun” class where our pastor’s wife takes all of the married couples and has classes on a variety of subjects. The unfortunate thing for our class is that we are directly above them so when we sing, “Father Abraham” or “I am the Lord’s cowhand, yeehaw!” or “I’m in the Lord’s Army” we tend to be a little disruptive. Anyway, on these days I am back in my old role as head teacher and I wind up working with someone from the “College and Careers Class” and whoever else they can draft. Not just any old body can be a Sunday School teacher, either. Of course I am responsible for everything that happens or doesn’t happen.

We sang “He’s a peach of a Savior” and a few other songs then Ashley read them a short story from Bill Bennett’s “Book of Virtues” about a boy whose “please” didn’t get enough exercise in his mouth. Great story. I had this empty basket and a bag full of fruit I had labeled with the names of the 9 fruits, Love, Joy, Peace, Longsuffering, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, and Temperance. Well, kids like visual things. They learn better the more of their senses that you involve. So seeing, smelling, tasting, the fruit made the lesson more tactile and 3-dimensional.

I made Longsuffering a lemon and told about how my Grandma had taught me to make lemonade. Many of them had similar experiences, which they shared. Six and seven year olds have a lot to share. Actually that part of the lesson was for me.

Okay. I can still pop my cheek and am a little kid myself. That’s why they like me and talk to me and why I get in trouble sometimes. Kids have to see what’s going on so they all scramble to the front of the room, which makes a bunch of noise downstairs. While this was going on one of the little girls fell down. A child who is occasionally dramatic and needed comforting from one of the teachers while I went on with the lesson. Well, the little girl falling distracted me and my rhythm was off, so when i reached into the bag and pulled out the Apple of Goodness it slipped out of my hand, flew across the roomful of kids, which started them screaming and clonked a boy in the front row right on the head. Well, we were all laughing together out loud when the door was opened and an usher walked in and said we were making too much noise. Here was an opportunity to show firsthand what “Meekness” is.

We all settled down, went on to make the craft at the end, which the kids thought made much cooler hats than mobiles, and had “Fruit Cocktail” for a snack.

When I get done with Sunday School I go home and crash. It is exhausting and I do not see how schoolteachers do it. While I am not a fan of the public school system, I do think the teachers are often vilified for things they have no control over. Obviously with any job or any group of people, you will always have lemons and clunkers, but I believe that most schoolteachers are sincere, honest people who do an incredible amount of work for very little pay, especially if you add up not only the hours worked in the classroom, but the preparation time and everything else. Usually it is a school board or a principal or the Teacher’s Union that is behind the problem. Those things and parents who are uninvolved and unconcerned and uninterested, until little Herkimer comes home with a bad report card which must be the teacher’s fault even though nobody ever made Herky do his homework or talked with him about what he was learning or anything else.

So anyway, teach your kids their Memory Verse for Sunday School and talk to them about their homework and remember, as the good book says, “If you’re having a bad hair day, put a wig on it and smile anyways.”