MY Students

I can remember the day that my teaching changed for the better. For several years, my elementary school had multiple music teachers, all assigned elsewhere, and filling their schedules with classes at my school. I also had a chunk of the classes. This worked all right on paper. The children all received their twice a week 30 minutes of music instruction. Yet, every year they might have a different music teacher who had his or her own style and lesson materials. Although the curriculum among all of us teachers might have been the same, we still needed to catch up the children with our strategies and classroom procedures.

Then one year, the administration assigned me full time at “my” elementary school. Although before I had the major piece of this school, now I had it all. I could claim these 350+ students as MINE. I would be acquainted with what I had taught them and what they were expected to know from year to year. If I slipped up in teaching them in some area, it would show up in their learning. Likewise, my strengths as a teacher would show through as I saw these children year after year throughout elementary school.

The knowledge of this made me proud and I took more of a personal interest in each child. I also felt a great deal of gratification when the oldest children sang well, or chose to continue with their music education with an instrument after they left me.

God must be like that too. He didn’t just want students. He wanted us to belong to him. In that way he watches our progress, takes pride in our faithfulness to him, and someday will present us to his Father in Heaven. He calls us HIS people, HIS children, HIS servants, HIS followers, even HIS workmanship! How privileged we are to have that kind of loving attention and ownership. Praise be to God!