Those of us who attend­ed pub­lic school can remem­ber the teach­ers that were great. The sub­ject may not have been our favorite, but the atmos­phere of a class where the teacher loved teach­ing, was won­der­ful. Of course, we can also remem­ber the class­es where no one, includ­ing the teacher, real­ly want­ed to be there. In his for­ward to The Sev­en Laws of Teach­ing, Dou­glas Wil­son says: “This is what true teach­ing is. Love the sub­ject in the pres­ence of stu­dents whom you also love, and do it because you love how God is so kind to us.” This got me think­ing about our life at home.

I hap­pen to love his­to­ry and lit­er­a­ture, but I strug­gle with math. My chil­dren have vary­ing opin­ions about these sub­jects, but my job is to impart won­der and truth to my chil­dren. In all of the sub­jects. All the time. If I’m not thrilled about math, and nei­ther is my kid, and I present it to him in such a way that rein­forces that math is drudgery, and we just have to sur­vive it, then I am not a very good teacher.

Just like when I was lit­tle, and my moth­er would tell me that I don’t have to love the food in front of me, but I love the God who pro­vid­ed it, and I can thank Him for it. We are our kids teach­ers from the begin­ning of their lives, until they leave into adult­hood. We shouldn’t for­get, that we are teach­ers, and our stu­dents will remem­ber us fond­ly, or not-so-fond­ly. So can we teach our chil­dren to love learning.

Every­thing good is from God, even long division.