Teaching Sunday School
Yesterday morning, the ten members of my Sunday School class were given the opportunity to teach the Pre-Teen Boys Sunday School class.
“How hard can it be?” Dr. Pell prodded. “We outnumber them two to one.”
I was not in top form. I had gotten to bed around 3:00am after catching up on the reading for our class at 8:30am. Dr. Pell had asked me to do the Pre-Teens’ bible study portion of the lesson, so I had that to look forward to. I wasn’t initially sure I wanted to participate, and I was hoping I could bow out and argue that I wasn’t really yet an accepted member of the group (though after Dad told Dr. Pell we were itching for things to help out with, that wouldn’t work well).
My brother Benjamin (11) is in that class, though, and he cornered me after my nap last Sunday afternoon and said he’d heard I was teaching them this week. I said I wasn’t sure yet.
“It’d be really cool if you did,” he said sweetly. “Then I could tell people I went to Daniel’s class.”
I didn’t really have a choice after that exchange, so I went to the planning meeting and studied the lesson a couple of times. How hard can it be, I thought. It’s all scripted out for me.
The actual class time was for me A) very educational and B) brought back painful memories. I think I learned more about Benjamin in that half-hour than the class learned about Jesus healing the Leper. While some of my classmates led the first activity, I sat watching Ben try to gain his classmates’ acceptance. Hearing them actually say “I don’t wanna sit next to him,” (meaning Ben), and seeing them act disgusted when he tried to participate, and generally behave like obnoxious seventeen-year-olds, I was suddenly able to vividly share his feelings. It made it hard to concentrate on teaching.
I’d forgotten, after 10 years, what it was like. There had been nothing in my — or Ben’s — prior experiences to prepare me to deal with children who didn’t act like children. Critics will say that insulating children is home-schooling’s fatal flaw, and that there is no other way to teach real-world politics and struggles. But many times, parents begin home-schooling because they want to keep their child protected, to train them the way they feel is best. Who wants to have 12-year-old kids that cynical? I sure don’t. And I don’t think it’s fair for Ben to have to be jolted by encountering them only in Sunday School.
An ideal solution would be to teach the other kids a thing or three about respect. But since they’re not my kids, that isn’t really feasible. Alternatively, we could put Ben in a situation where he’d have to deal with kids like that all day every day. But, he’d begin to mirror their characteristics and over time would become just as cynical and disrespectful as they are. Or, we could just not go to Sunday School. Pity.
Dr. Pell just smiled and shrugged when I mentioned it. “Well, they’re pre-teen boys.”
Nonsense. I have known plenty of well-adjusted 12-year olds who, though not perfect, are at least pleasant to be around, can speak with adults, and can participate in class without being hit over the head with a hymnal.
Most of them are home-schooled.
Think of that.
Kids these days! 
(note to hyperactive lawyers: that bit about the hymnal was satire.)
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