Helpful ways you can keep growing as a SRE Teacher
Prepare to return to your SRE classroom with these five practical ideas.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had an unexpected pause in my SRE teaching.
In 2014, I was working as a paid High School SRE teacher and was beginning to establish some great relationships with my students and fellow teachers. I was planning ahead, thinking about what next year’s lessons would look like. But God had other plans. His plans were wonderful, after years of waiting, my second-born son was due to enter the world. Instead of returning to class in 2015, I would instead be returning to the world of nappies, bottles and burping.
I found myself outside of the SRE classroom for two years.
Sadly, the COVID-19 pandemic has meant that face-to-face SRE will not be running in the foreseeable future (God-willing, not for as long as my maternity leave was!). I faced the beginning of term 2 with a mixture of sadness, grief, loss and some hope as well, knowing that this season will not last forever.
To my fellow SRE teachers, I write this to you as an encouragement – this season will end. In the meantime, while we wait, what can you do to grow as an SRE teacher while you’re not currently teaching? Here are a few ideas:
Study God’s Word
This goes without saying, but if we are to be teachers of the Word, we are to be people of the Word as well. I am the first to say that I often have a haphazard Bible reading habit. Sometimes I have a string of days where I can wake up before my children and have a truly quiet ‘quiet time’ in God’s word. Other days, however, my children wake me up and my time in God’s word is peppered with interruptions from the small humans in my house, no matter how many times I remind them “mummy’s reading the Bible!”.
How is your Bible reading going? Have you been able to create a new routine in social isolation?
Perhaps you could read the same passages that you would be teaching in SRE or reading ahead. The more we read God’s word, the more his word is implanted in our hearts as we teach our students, and the more we can “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15).
Learn more about teaching
When I started my teaching degree, the work of Carol Dweck had just started to filter through educational institutions. Dweck is the person who came up with the ‘growth mindset’ which states that intelligence is not innate but instead continued effort and application will result in much bigger gains over time. We are all people who are growing, developing and getting better.
This is true not only of our students but also of us, their teachers. Every time I step foot in the classroom I work towards being a more effective teacher for my students.
The way to do this is to keep learning about teaching. There are some great books out there to help you – Bill Rogers’ “Classroom Behaviour” is a great one; Doug Lemov’s “Teach Like A Champion” is also helpful; if you’re interested in more educational theory Daniel T. Willingham’s “Why Don’t Students Like School” is fascinating, as well as Harro Van Brummelen’s “Walking with God in the Classroom”. If anyone would like to join a book-club and read through these with me, please let me know.
Related
Quick and easy games for kids church and SRE classes
Workshop some ‘Big Questions’ with other teachers.
In my seminar at the SRE Conference in February, I shared with those who attended that the number one change that will impact learning outcomes for our students is to frame each lesson with a ‘big question’ that will be answered by the end of the lesson. These questions should sum up the key learning point spelled out in the Connect (or Think Faith, for High School) materials.
Sometimes two (or three or four) heads are better than one, so you can always collaborate with other SRE teachers by emailing through a list of ‘big questions’ based on the Term 3 materials to get their feedback, ideas and thoughts.
Create new activities
It’s hard during the busyness of term time to find extra time to prepare activities for SRE classes alongside preparing the lessons. You might have heard about a game you’d like to try in your class but don’t have the time to find, buy or make what is required. Now you do!
One of my colleagues is making a book of ‘big questions’ and answers to use in her class. Another friend is sticking pictures into a scrapbook to make one big storybook that she can use in her Kindergarten class alongside the Beginning with God lessons. If you’ve always wanted to play peril peg or a memory card game, now is a great time to spend preparing those resources.
Meet and Pray with other SRE teachers.
Proverbs 27:17 says : “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another”. As High School SRE advisor for Youthworks, it has been a huge blessing for me to run regular Zoom prayer meetings for High School SRE teachers across Sydney. Each meeting runs for 40 minutes – we have a quick devotion, I answer any questions about the latest SRE developments and then we pray.
Is this something you could be doing with your local SRE teachers? You can’t go into your schools, but you can pray for them. Why not try to meet up online or on the phone a few times this term at the same time you usually teach and commit the time to God in prayer?
These are just a few ideas I had. I’d love to hear yours, too. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we can all take a few small steps to improve as SRE teachers while we’re not teaching. Wouldn’t it be fantastic that when we’re able to teach again we enter into our classrooms as better teachers than the ones who left them back in March?