Sheila Sims Iding
I love teaching. (Don’t all teachers?) But I really love teaching in May. I love teaching in May because I love teaching the Rosary. It is just the right time of the school year for a first grader to be immersed in a month-long lesson about Mary.
We’ve had the Holy Family chapter in our religion book. We’ve learned about the magic and power of the Holy Spirit. We learn about the angels and Gabriel’s important question to Mary and her even more profound answer. We know all about the Christmas story and the journey and the stable and how, on that Holy Night, Mary invented adoration. And still fresh in our minds…and in our hearts…is Mary’s Lenten journey and her Good Friday sorrowful mystery.
So as the year unfolded we have learned a lot about Mary. We have taken what parents and other teachers have taught before us and we have expanded our knowledge of Mary…and our faith. So May, the month of honoring Mary, is perfect timing for first graders to learn about Mary and the Rosary. It’s why I love teaching in May.
So on May 1 we choose our Rosaries, we talk about the prayers and we prepare for the “Hail, Mary, Gentle Woman” song. We hang up the posters of the Joyous Mysteries and we make a picture of Mary with a crown of flowers to decorate our cubbies as a daily reminder that this month is for Her. We make our Rosary Leader badges (in the shape of a cross), we get our Mary book (where we will learn about her life) and we take 10 minutes out of the end of each day…every day…to pray a decade of the Rosary together. By the end of May we will have prayed all 20 mysteries.
Now on May 1st, it all seems a bit overwhelming. But I tell them together we will learn what all those rosary beads really mean. We will learn all the words to the Hail Mary, Gentle Woman song. And even though it is a grown up song, we will come to love it. We will learn why Rosary Leader is an important job, who Joachim was and why giving up 10 minutes of our afternoon will be special even if we miss our dancing time…especially if we miss our dancing time.
I told them they will be such grown up first graders because they will learn words like Annunciation, Ascension and Assumption. We learn how to say “transfiguration” and why that was so special. We will learn why the crown of thorns is one of the mysteries and so is a miracle. The weeks in May will take us through the mysteries…Joyous, Luminous, Sorrowful and Glorious. May is special. There is so much to teach in May.
So on this May 31st as we gathered for the 5th Glorious Mystery, our final Rosary Prayer together I was proud of all they had learned. We reviewed all the mysteries and they knew them in order. From 4 weeks ago they remembered Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Presentation and Finding Jesus in the Temple. Really! They knew them all and I had to look at the book to make sure they were right. And as I sat there and reflected on all the teaching of Mary…of all the teaching in May…it was then I realized I hadn’t done all the teaching. Like so many other times, they were teaching me.
Through this month of May I learned from them.
I learned from watching a very focused student help another student who has trouble focusing. He couldn’t find the bead for the 4th mystery so as we prayed, she put her Rosary down and I watched as she helped him find the 4th mystery and the 3rd Hail, Mary bead. She carefully moved her fingers along the Rosary and then even more carefully put that 3rd bead in his hand.
I learned from the student who took the extra Rosary we have (in case a parent stops by to pray with us) and asked if she could give it to Harriet for our Rosary prayer. Do you think I was going to say “no”? She so very gently laid it by her cage.
I learned from the student who, on the back of her Mary book wrote a thank you letter to Mary. We all did. It’s part of the assignment. So the kids sweetly write “thank you for rosary”, “thank you for Jesus”, “thank you for loving us”. But this one little girl wrote: “Dear Mary, Thank you for haveing faith when Jesus was naled to the cross.” Wow!
I learned how powerful a song can be for prayer. How prayerfully they sang “Hail, Mary, Gentle Woman”. How they asked if we could just play the instrumental part because they knew all the words by heart now. And, how today in mass when they announced it as the communion song, they turned and looked at me like they had just been offered a bag of candy. They were so thrilled that was the song.
I learned the comfort of our prayers at the Mary Statue in church during May when one little boy asked “If we don’t have money to light a candle, can we just come to the statue and pray?”
I learned how the Rosary Garden becomes less of a “garden” and more of a “Rosary” as the beads have new meaning. And how the signs with the mysteries aren’t just words anymore. They not only know about the scourging and the Wedding at Cana and the Crowning of Mary…they can actually read the words now. Even more, they can actually feel the words.
I learned how sharing your faith can be as simple as the little boy who said “I can’t wait to take my Rosary home to show my little sister.”
And I learned about the special time spent with Mary in prayer. As we finished our Rosary Prayer on Thursday, it is after gym class and we are always running late for getting ready to go home. We never rush the prayer but after that there is a mad dash to get ready for going home. As we were working hard to get ready yesterday a little boy said to me “I will be right there, Mrs. Iding. I just want to spend a minute with Mary.” So there he stood by the Mary statue, holding his Rosary and spending his minute with Mary.
So at the end of the day today…the end of the month…when I was putting away the Mary lessons…when I took apart the Mary altar and returned Mary to her spot in our prayer corner, I was amazed how quickly the month had passed. I was impressed by how the lessons were absorbed in their hearts. And, even more, I was moved and awed by the realization of all they had taught me about Mary because all along, I thought I was teaching them.