"I shall sit and wait for the bell." So wrote the English poet and novelist, D. H. Lawrence, referring to one of his less inspiring moments as a schoolteacher. Sometimes teachers in the Christian Science Sunday School may be tempted to feel similarly defeated when their pupils are too shy to participate or inclined to be disruptive—or even reluctant to attend at all.
The remedy for such challenging situations is not to react to them humanly—by converting one's lesson into a mini-lecture if the pupils are disinclined to speak up or by coming to Sunday School grimly expecting trouble if one's pupils tend to be thoroughly uncooperative. Nor should we take refuge in cynicism by assuming that poor attendance or even nonattendance is due to their lack of interest in spiritual matters.
The first step in overcoming such situations has to be prayer. The roles of both the teacher and the pupils have to be considered prayerfully
