I am not a teacher...I just play one on Monday nights

Last fall, I agreed to be a "table parent" in my son's Monday night Christian Education class.  (I still call it Sunday School...even though it's not on Sundays.)  That meant I would have to sit at a table with a handful of 5th graders and make sure they were paying attention, and staying on task during the class.  On about the second week of class, the teacher announced that she had a change in her work schedule and she would no loner be able to teach.  I had a chat with the pastor and said I could lead the class until they found a permanent replacement....and of course, that meant I became the permanent replacement.

I am not a teacher.  

Luckily the class came with a leader's guide to the lessons every week, so I mostly just had to follow right from a book.  Most night's I was just trying to fill the hour without things getting too much out of hand.

Tonight is the last class of the school year, and I find myself wondering if they will remember anything we did or talked about.  Were they just filling space and killing time....or were their brains engaged?  There were certainly times I wondered....for them and for me.

That group of boys that was always giggling to themselves.

Or the girls that seemed to be counting the minutes until they could check their phones for any missed text messages.

Did anything get through?

Someday when talking about God's grace, will they think back and say, "I remember Mr. Nathan explaining to us about God's Riches At Christ's Expense!"  (shout out to my Sunday School teacher from way back in the day Mark Shepp for teaching that to me!)

Or will the spontaneously break into a rousing chorus of "Father Abraham"?

Those (sort of creepy) videos applying old testament concepts to today's world...will they remember those (and have nightmares of the sock puppet serpent from the Garden of Eden episode)?

Will they remember that there is nothing they can do that will make God love them less (or more)?

Or are there things they will remember that I have forgotten....that to me were just time killer activities?

To my teacher friends....how do you deal with these end of the year questions?

I guess you've always got another year, so maybe it all kind of blends into one endless stream of young minds....but I don't have another year.  (unless something happens to the permanent teacher again next year, but let's not!)

And just for fun, here are the cupcakes I made for tonight's year end celebration!

Ending the year with  blue cupcakes....that's probably what they will remember.