Teaching Children Across Cultures 兒童班

Working with groups of children is a challenge. There are short attention spans, lots of noise and sometimes not a little bit of chaos. Despite that, I really enjoy serving my time there at church. I have committed to serving there for at least a couple of months.

Especially now that I have my own little ones I realize that these are more than just children, they are the next generation of adults. Since I have been with these children for a while, and earned their trust a bit, I have gotten to see and hear all sorts of stories. They are for the most part either bicultural or have sometimes just arrived from different countries. There are times in which I heard really stories of change, moving, growing up and family life between cultures. Other times, they are just simple but touching stories like that of ‘the girl who had no birthday’ I heard today.

Despite some commonalities of culture, they all come from very different family backgrounds. Some are from very strict families that tolerate no misbehavior. Others are from very loving families. A few, usually the best students, are home schooled. One little girl just has an amazing language and analytical ability. She can memorize bible verses in Chinese and English without hardly any effort.

At the age of the students I am teaching, I find that they want to be challenged. It is encouraging that they don’t just want to be entertained. I try to use both Chinese and English teaching materials in class. There is an excellent children’s cartoon series of stories based on Biblical principles in Chinese called 飛行屋 that I find to be a good resource. These photos are of one of the various children’s worship services on Sunday. They are taken indoors with no flash at ISO 800.