Article June 16, 1962 Issue

Self-discipline and Inspiration

Nothing could be more important to the Sunday School teacher than self-discipline and inspiration. These wonderful qualities are especially important in connection with the teacher's preparation, for they help him to bring inspired and pure teaching into the classroom, as well as develop order, attentiveness, and obedience in the pupils.

Effective self-discipline begins with the teacher. He must learn to develop within himself first to all those qualities which will inspire and uplift the class. And this means discipline, a moment-by-moment consecrated effort to keep his thoughts and motives in harmony with God, divine Mind. It this effort is consistent, the teacher will more readily discern the true character of each child in his class, the spiritual identity of "children," as defined by our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" as, "The spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love" (p. 582).

Equipped with this spiritual perspective, the teacher can more clearly see the impersonal nature of the distractive and disruptive traits of character that mortal mind would try to pin on our children—traits which, if uncorrected, impede the classwork. Then, instead of yielding to the suggestion that a negative characteristic belongs to a particular child, the teacher can separate it from him, see it as a false belief, and thus destroy it.

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