One task of the teacher in any Christian Science Sunday School is to demonstrate in his class the true concept of children. He needs to see and help bring to light the innocent, pure, perfect offspring of God, the "children" defined by Mrs. Eddy in the Glossary of Science and Health (p. 582) as "the spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love."
The class may appear to include "sensual and mortal beliefs; counterfeits of creation, whose better originals are God's thoughts, not in embryo, but in maturity; material suppositions of life, substance, and intelligence, opposed to the Science of being"—which is of course the second part of Mrs. Eddy's definition. Successful teaching is based upon and never deviates from the spiritual truth that the pupils are now and forever God's "thoughts and representatives," who know and love the truth of their being. But it includes alert and thorough attention to and handling of the various phases of the belief that the children are "sensual and mortal beliefs."
One teacher of long experience and considerable success tells us that he prepares for Sunday School by striving to see clearly the spiritual nature of his pupils and of himself. He recognizes the claims that animal magnetism would make concerning them at this time and refutes them. He does not allow himself to believe, for instance, that a child is an easy victim to alluring evil. He denies the claim that there is a mature mind and a childish mind, which by some means must be brought to understand each other. Instead he declares and knows that divine Mind, God, is the Mind of all. He insists that there is no power opposed to divine intelligence, nothing to keep his pupils from being receptive to divine ideas, interested in them, excited by them, and loving to use them. Through this prayerful work he has surmounted problems of nonattendance, inattention, the supposed inability of youth to understand adults, and vice versa.
This teacher's questions and answers are impelled by his confidence that God is continually revealing Himself to all His children—including the teacher himself. He and the many other such workers in our Sunday Schools are demonstrating that the spiritual ideas testifying to God's ever-presence unveil His nature and thus heal and instruct pupils and teachers simultaneously.
Whenever this scientific concept of the nature of pupils and teacher is put into operation, the teacher enjoys himself, grows spiritually, and becomes a teacher without a burden. His pupils achieve a closer sense of relationship with their Father-Mother God, and are continually hungering for more. This makes them good students, teachable, receptive, and grateful.
Another teacher writes us: "It is such a joy to see these pupils as 'God's thoughts, not in embryo, but in maturity,' not lacking in any way. Several weeks ago I asked each pupil to pay attention to healing throughout the week. They are all in the thirteen-year-old and fourteen-year-old group. This has led to real excitement. All come each Sunday with a healing thought or an actual healing of their own, accomplished without the help of parents or practitioner."
This teacher continued, "I like to think of these young ones in terms of Mrs. Eddy's statement on page 37 of the textbook, Science and Health, 'It is possible,—yea, it is the duty and privilege of every child, man, and woman,—to follow in some degree the example of the Master by the demonstration of Truth and Life, of health and holiness.'"
It is not at all beyond the ability of the pupil to learn how Christian Science healing is done. The teacher who accepts this fact can teach even the littlest ones to heal. For example, the teacher might present a hypothetical situation as the vehicle of the lesson: "A friend of yours telephones you and says he thinks he is getting a cold. He asks you if you will help him in Christian Science. You say you will be glad to. Now how do you go about it?" The teacher then helps the pupil by showing him some of the specific instruction Mrs. Eddy has provided in the chapter on Christian Science Practice under the heading "Mental Treatment Illustrated" beginning on page 410 of the textbook.
One of the rules given here is (p. 411), "Always begin your treatment by allaying the fear of patients"; and the teacher might ask, "How would you do this?" The pupil quickly recognizes that it would be useless merely to say to the patient "Now, you don't have to be afraid." So the teacher might help him see why fear is unnecessary, either then or under any other circumstances—why fear is no part of the real man's consciousness, since Love is Mind, omnipotent and all-presence.
Sunday School pupils enjoy this kind of lesson, and because it is attached to a specific incident, they usually remember it.
Another teacher wrote us, "My Sunday School class this year are twelve-year-olds, and I feel particularly grateful to have this age-group, because this is the age at which they can become members of The Mother Church. So I have been continually watchful to keep in thought the special opportunity I have to let the complete and perfect man of God unfold in consciousness.
"This means that I am always praying to be alert to their development as future workers in our movement, to see that they are educated in Sunday School in how to live and demonstrate Christian Science. I always bear in mind the opportunity to help them appreciate our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, and to have a good working knowledge of the Bible and our textbook's correlation with it. It is amazing, since I have been holding these points prominently in thought, how often they come into the teaching, spontaneously and naturally."
Mrs. Eddy tells us (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 240): "Children not mistaught, naturally love God; for they are pure-minded, affectionate, and generally brave. Passions, appetites, pride, selfishness, have slight sway over the fresh, unbiased thought."
Will the spiritual concept of children, held to with faithful persistence, take care of discipline problems? Here is an answer in an excerpt from a letter by a Sunday School teacher: "Recently I had such a high-spirited class that I found it impossible to control them and was quite discouraged. I spoke to a fellow teacher about this, and he pointed out to me that besides great love in the class, children need the expression of divine Principle shown in firm discipline. During the following week I contemplated the attributes of Principle that every child includes, and I realized that these children were controlled, governed, and held in God's perfect law. The next Sunday I was able to maintain discipline, yet still express love. This was the end of the unruliness and the beginning of a happy time together."
There is no reason why the Christian Scientist who has never before taught a Sunday School class should be reluctant to accept an appointment to this work, for God is the never-failing source of wisdom for all His children. He is "a God at hand" (Jer. 23:23), as innumerable teachers have found when they turned to Him for direction. Experience has shown, moreover, that it is the loving, healing tone of the teacher's thought, quite as much as what he says, that reaches the student.
A not infrequent stumbling block to the acceptance of an appointment to teach is the belief that a pupil is a strange being who is hard for the adult teacher to understand or deal with, and who in turn may not understand the teacher. But when we realize that both teacher and pupil are enfolded in Love's tenderness, each partaking of the one Mind's understanding, we will not fear to engage in the richly rewarding work of Sunday School teaching.
This encouraging advice from our Leader can be applied to Sunday School teaching as well as to class instruction (Science and Health, p. 445): "Unfold the latent energies and capacities for good in your pupil. Teach the great possibilities of man endued with divine Science."
Our Sunday School children are capable of understanding their true spiritual nature as children of God. They are capable of understanding spiritually the pure truths of Christian Science, and they are capable of putting these into practice in their own lives. As we see them in this light, we find ever-increasing joy in the privilege of being a Sunday School teacher.
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[This column appears quarterly in The Christian Science Journal.]
