DAANTJIE – Sunday school teachers of various branches of the Centre of Life Community Church recently held a seminar where they were taught about the importance of grooming well-disciplined children.
“We provide guidance on how to prepare for a lesson and to ensure that it is interactive and fun,” said guest speaker, Ms Lisa Ekman of iVangeli Curriculum, whose company has been training teachers for the past few months in various churches in Bushbuckridge, KaNyamazane and Matsulu.
“We want kids to have a thorough understanding of the Word of God and we want to provide teachers with lesson material.”
She added that it was important that they knew about age-group dynamics.
“You can’t teach preschool kids and teenagers simultaneously. It’s important to place them in their relevant age groups.” Ekman said teaching the Word of God differed from teaching in a school environment.
“We encourage children to be involved and teachers can use puppets and pictures to demonstrate characters for the youngsters,” Ekman said.
She added that research showed 80% kids learnt faster when they put things into practice. The teachers were also urged to be role models in their conduct, their dress code and keeping the principles of faith.
They were urged to be concerned about the whereabouts of their pupils even if their parents didn’t belong to the same church.
“Show that you care, when they are sick, visit them. Have a register with their names and addresses and contact their parents to ask how they are doing,” she said.
Ms Thandi Mavimbela said the church organised the seminar to bring up kids with good morals, who were spiritually orientated and brought up as Christians.
