Lessons on Patience

I have been trying to increase my patience over the last school year. I have to say that I am quite patient for the most part, but at the same time I can get frustrated easily as well and lately, I have been letting the frustration take over. Let's just say that my lessons in patience have come in ways I was not expecting. I was expecting my patience to be developed at school with my students, I was not expecting my patience to be challenged by adults.

I have been teaching one of my ward's Sunday School classes for the last eight months or so. I have really enjoyed it, but there are definitely some weeks where I feel like I'm doing everything wrong because no one is participating or they keep chatting with friends during the lesson, etc....you know, all of the things I've been trained to not have happen in my regular classroom, but what do you do with adults when they misbehave?

The second instance/example is this last Friday. I was part of a group in my school district asked to train all of the 6th grade teachers in our district about our new math core. I knew everyone was feeling a bit uneasy with the word "new" and the fact that all these rumors were circulating about the thing and how it's so much more difficult. We felt like we were thrown to the wolves as this group of 81 teachers attacked the messengers. The things we were saying and trying to tell them were to ease their minds and release their fears as the only thing new about this core was that a lot of things were taken out and only a few small concepts that would be easy to teach based on current things already being taught were added.The thing is that no one would listen. They came to freak out and ask their accusing questions and then not wait for any answers. I think they finally came to their sense a little bit, but no one was listening and they kept asking the same questions over and over again. I am very grateful to the teachers that came up to us in the end and thanked us for everything and let us know that we were right and everyone else was freaking out for no good reason.

I did not teach the Sunday School lesson today which was probably good as I was able to listen and really apply what was being taught. We talked about Matthew 13 and why Christ used parables to teach. One parable that we spent the most time on was that of the sower and the different types of ground--wayside, stony, thorny, and good. One thing that was mentioned was that we focussed on the ground, not the sower. It was not that the sower spread the wrong or different seeds, but it all depended on how the seed was taken by the ground. If you do nothing with the seed that is given to you, it like throwing it by the wayside and nothing grows. If the seed is thrown among stony places, it is not taken in and then burned by the sun. If the seed is trying to grow among thorns or bad thoughts already planted there, the good will be choked out and not given a chance to grow to what is desired. But, if the seed is planted in good ground, ground that has been prepared and then taken care of, then the seed will grow. As the sower, I still need to spread the seed in a good way, but the type of ground is what determines if it will grow or not.