Teaching the Way my Mother Taught

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.
Proverbs 1:8-9

Often I hear from people when they find out that I homeschool, “wow, I could never do that, I am not a
teacher, how do you do it,” etc. I chuckle to myself because I too am not a teacher. So, I was thinking last night, how do I do it? I know I do all things through Christ Jesus, but practically how do I do it. So, I realized I do it the way my mom taught me to teach. Here are the things I learned from my mom either by watching her teach, or actually from her instructions to me on how to teach. Growing up in a pastor’s home, we learned to start teaching young, either teaching Sunday school, children’s church, or at VBS, or just wherever the need was. I think I first started teaching, of course at home, with my younger siblings.
But, it was very young that I started teaching at Bible clubs, VBS, and such, maybe around 10 years old. We learned to teach others practical skills, Biblical training, and academic tutoring. So, here is what I learned.

Practices of Purposeful and Productive teaching I learned from my mom:

1. Be Passionate –

I watched my mom teach kids to sing and praise God even though she is not gifted in the area of music (sorry mom, but you know it is true.)  Those kids she taught never knew she wasn’t a great musician because she was so passionate about the songs, and the words of Praise to God. She taught motions, and always was animated in her face and body as she taught. I remember once coming home from teaching a Wednesday night children’s program, and saying mom, “they aren’t listening, they aren’t interested.” She said, “Kate, you
have to be passionate about every part of the teaching. If you believe what your teaching, be excited about it. If your excited then they are going to be interested in knowing why your so excited about what your telling them.” I have found this true, I use this method to teach exciting truths from God’s word, but also to teach
simple lessons like toilet training. By talking up using the toilet, and being excited about every attempt and over the top excited about every success, my kids have learned there is something cool about using the toilet. It doesn’t matter what I am teaching, if I can find a reason to be passionate about it, then it creates an
interest and desire in my students to want to learn it.

2. Be Purposeful –

You have to plan and be prepared. Knowing the materials I am teaching and understanding them first, sometimes doing extra research, helps me be ready to answer those curious kids questions. I can’t just teach
for the sake of teaching, there has to be a purpose for what we are teaching, and kids have to understand that purpose to want to learn. I actually learned this from both my parents. I wasn’t a great academic student and my dad would often spend hours working on homework with me as a child. But, one subject I absolutely loved was math. Why? The answer is easy my dad showed me how it applied in everyday life. When I was young we played grocery shopping games, learning how to be frugal and how to estimate your total bill, and even how to add the actual prices quickly. Then as I got older he showed me how to do budgets and do taxes, to measure and build, he and mom showed how to measure things in the kitchen, and so on and so on. These were taught naturally and brought purpose to learning math. Again this can be used in Biblical training and
instructing as well as in academic teaching. Critical thinking was taught around the dinner table, with mom asking pointed questions and us sharing varies answers. These things didn’t just happen though, mom and dad had to make them happen.

3. Prizes, projects, papers, and paper clips

– I remember when I first started teaching at VBS, my mom was in charge of VBS and she was talking to all the volunteers preparing us for the week. She said, “Never let a child go home empty handed.” She went on to explain that you always want to give the children something to take home to help remind them of what they were taught that day. I remember thinking I always wondered about the trinkets over the years my mom would give to her students in Sunday school, or other places. She went on to explain that this memento would not only help them remember the teaching, but would also give them a visual of how God blesses his people.

Here is the thing, we lived on a tight budget and sometimes I was amazed at the things my mom would use to teach a lesson. It might have been a rubber band (to show how God pulls us back to himself), it might have been a paper clip (to show how we can be fastened together with God’s people), it might have just been a piece of paper for them to color on or write a verse on and take home, maybe it was a sort of project (a song, dance, play acting, craft, etc.) These often are not taking home in hand but in the heart or mind. And yes, my mom taught that prizes are great teaching tools, she would reward those who applied teaching with small prizes (a sticker, a cookie, bouncy ball, a homemade certificate, etc.)

NOTE: I find kids today expect great rewards for little effort, but if you present them a reward with enthusiasm they see it as you do. Also, I am not saying to reward for every little thing. No, hard work is expected and recognized with a word of praise. Prizes should be rare to make
them more meaningful.

4. Press On –

This is the biggest thing my mom taught me. That same day that I came and told her, I didn’t think the children in church were listening to me. She told me not only to teach with passion, but to also press on
even when it seems no one is listening or learning. She said (especially with middle school aged kids) that it may seem they are bored and not interested and that they are not listening, but she has found that if she pressed on and taught, they often truly were listening. So, I learned to press on in each lesson. I will never
forget the day, that a boy I was sure never listened to me in class, came to me a couple years later and told me that he always appreciated and enjoyed my class. He said that it was because of the things I taught that he made a decision to become a Christian. I would have never guess it.

These four teaching tools I learned from my mom.

Written by ktmom15

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