Teaching An Understanding of the Meaning of Prayer

From September to May each year, I teach religious ideas and values as a Sunday School teacher. Every week, I introduce the sometimes very complex ideas and values embodied in Judaism to kids who are between six to twelve years old. That can very often be a very daunting challenge.

This year, I will be teaching about the concept of prayer in our lives. I will be exploring a lot of aspects of the very idea of Prayer. What is a prayer? Why do we pray? How do we put ourselves into the right frame of mind to pray? What do we get out of praying... what is the payback for the time and effort we invest? How are we supposed to feel while we are praying and after we pray to G'd? These are questions that most people don't even take much time to think about. And when people do, as adults, they find that working out the answers to these questions demands their exploring an aspect of their own existence that they have not had to deal with, except in the most difficult moments of their lives.

So here I am, assigned the task of introducing to kids a subject that most adults understand only poorly at best. As a teacher, I have learned a few things after a lot of years. First, the best that I will ever be able to do as a Sunday school teacher is to light the fire of curiousity in the children I have the privilege of teaching. Secondly, having only an hour a week to present a topic is not a limitation. Rather, the constraints of time only serve to help me to focus the message on the most important things which need to be said. It is often said that it is more difficult to write a ten page paper in college than it is to write a 100 page paper. The same principle applies here. Consider that constraint, when I am being asked to talk about what may well be one of the most important things these kids will need to know during their lives. So I do my best to fire up their interest and hope that I will be able to motivate them to pursue the ideas we will be talking about, long after our class has concluded in the spring.

If anything, in this setting, teaching is an art. I have to say to myself on going into the classroom, "It's showtime." So this year, I am trying to help the kids to see the wonder in our world and the amazing power of prayer. Goodness knows, with all the dark things they see on television and in the media, they are going to need that capacity to see something good in themselves and in this often sad world. If I can enable them to see even a few good things amidst all the sadness and darkness, all my hard work will have made every moment I will have spent as their teacher worth the effort.