Scripture’s still going strong. I find the lessons are generally sound, although I do need to tailor things according to my classes’ attention spans.  Year 6 at MJPS is very different to year 5/6 at BPS, but they’re both great bunches of kids.  Year 3/4 at MJPS has heaps of disruptive boys and I seem to spend most of my lessons giving them stern looks, sending them to the back of the classroom, splitting them up, trying to engage them...I’ve tried all sorts of approaches, but I guess year 3/4 boys are just generally disruptive when you stick a bunch of them together.  They’re no different to the ones I used to deal with when doing holiday/after care.  And then there are the delightful year 1/2s that I help Jenny with.  They are so sweet and I love the way Jen teaches the class.  It probably helps that she has two kids in the class, so knows how to best reach that age group.

It’s interesting, though, that the schools let us teach Scripture (which is fantastic) but they aren’t necessarily that supportive of it.  I tweeted my frustration when I arrived to find that the classroom doors were all locked (they’re usually open) so I couldn’t get in to prepare, and the office staff were kind of vague about and didn’t come and unlock them.  “Oh the teacher will be along soon to let you in, won’t they?” Not strictly unhelpful, but more along the passive resistance route.  And the staff have a meeting on Wednesdays before school that always runs late, so by the time the school morning assembly is over and the students get settled, we only have about 15 minutes left - and the lesson is only half an hour!  It frustrates me because the kids mostly seem keen to learn but my lessons are curtailed and there’s nothing I can do about it.

But then sometimes you get the opposite of that resistance.  We ran into J’s mum as we were leaving and said how delightful he was in Scripture.  She laughed and said “He’ll probably be the first [Christian] in our family!  Coming from an atheist father and a not-quite-sure mother!” I’m not sure why they send J to Scripture (probably to learn how to be good, or morals, or something), but it’s great that they do and he’s lapping it up and really enthusiastic about it.  Please pray for him and for his mum and dad to explore more about Jesus.

Another thing I have discovered that is wonderful, is that the year 6 kids love hands-on Bible work.  So this week I brought them each a copy of the Essential Jesus, which our church has heaps of to give away for Connect09.  It’s the gospel of Luke, especially formatted to be easy to read and with Two Ways to Live in the back (OC very proudly told all the kids “my dad helped write this!” and showed them all his dad’s name on the copyright page, so that was cool too).  The kids were excited to be able to write their names in the books, and to look up passages and read the Bible for themselves.  One downside is that because of the formatting, there are no verse numbers so it’s harder for me to tell them to look up certain passages.  But the upside of that is that when they get to take the books home at the end of this series, they might be more likely to read them, as the layout is like a regular, narrative book that they would be used to.  I really hope they do read them!

Sidenote: I had to write my name on the board again today, because the students were asking me what my real name was.  “Oh, no it’s not G, like the initial, it’s Jee.  My dad is Chinese.” So then we went through the whole “wow, you don’t look Chinese thing” but it’s kind of okay coming from a class of kids with all sorts of cultural backgrounds.  And then, driving home, I thought “hmm...maybe they think I’m Miss G as in ‘Mr G’ from Summer Heights High”...now there’s a horrifying thought.