The Girl in Her Teens

by Margaret Slattery

We have seen in our previous studies that the girl in her teens is in love with real life. She likes people, and the Sunday-school lesson must discuss real people and present problems if it is to deeply interest her.

I was present recently in a class of twelve girls about sixteen years old. Nine members of the class were supposed to be “heathen” and three girls were to tell any one of the parables as if for the first time to these people, anxious and curious to learn of the Christian faith. The interest was very real. After the telling of each parable the class discussed it and what it would mean to a people hearing it for the first time. “The Sowing of the Seed,” “The Good Samaritan,” and “The Ten Talents” were told. At the close the teacher told very vividly of an experience of a dear friend of hers who sat one day in the great plaza of a Mexican city, and told the story of the lost coin to a Mexican woman who wore a bracelet of old and curious coins. The account of the response of this Mexican who heard the story for the first time made a great impression upon me, as upon every member of the class. The teacher then appointed three girls for the next week to tell any one of the experiences of Jesus on his preaching tours as they would tell it to a group of factory girls who had neglected church for years and almost forgotten how to pray. Several protested that such girls would not listen, and the discussion as to their needs, what they had to help them live pure, true lives, what had made them careless and indifferent, was brought to a close by the quiet question of the teacher, “Do these girls need Christ or his teaching?” They said, “yes,” with conviction, and in answer she said, “Then there must be a way to tell what he said and thought so that they will listen; perhaps next Sunday one of our girls will find the way, and I have a most interesting story to tell of a splendid factory girl who herself found a way.”

That lesson did so many things for that class of girls. It made them think. First they had to be able to tell the stories Christ told. The class in discussion had to think of the adaptability of the story to the people who needed to hear it, and of all it could mean to them. They felt the joy of the one who had the privilege of telling it to the Mexican for the first time. They said themselves that the great army of girls in our factories need Christ. They were to think for a week on how his words might be brought to them. The lesson was left with anticipation for next week’s story. It was a type of what every lesson should be. It connected the past and present; it touched life in their immediate surroundings and in the uttermost parts of the world; it gave opportunity for original expression and it led to discussion. It reached some conclusions. It appealed to the imagination and emotions and closed with a desire on the part of the pupils to talk more, and know more, and think more.

Perhaps in years to come we shall have good courses of lessons, six or eight weeks in length, which will help the teacher to do just these things. Courses which shall deal with church history for six or eight weeks, then with missions, with charities, with the history of the Bible, with the definite teachings of the New Testament and their relation to society to-day, dealing always with life and always with Christ as the great helper and redeemer of man in his struggles to live aright. While we wait for such courses the individual teacher must attempt, with the material she has, to make real and vital connections with life, broaden the pupil’s horizon and increase her desire for knowledge. New courses and better lesson material, either in public school or Sunday-school, never come through folding one’s arms and spending one’s time criticizing the material at hand, but by using it, changing it, adapting and experimenting with it until something is found which more nearly meets the need. Any teacher now reading this chapter may be the one to discover through her own experience just the material for which teachers of the girl in her teens are waiting. That is the reason every one may teach with courage and joy.

It makes little difference where one starts in the discussion of public-school or Sunday-school problems, he always comes back to the teacher. After all has been said, the teacher is the greatest force in establishing and maintaining a close relationship between the girl in her teens and the Sunday-school. “Ways and means” are necessary and to critics of the so-called “machinery” of the Sunday-school, I have only one answer—unless I can get a pupil to come, I can’t teach him. Absent and irregular pupils receive no benefit even from the finest of teachers, and any legitimate “means” by which a pupil may be induced to come, and a regularity of attendance be established, we have a right to welcome and use. But after the pupil has entered and become regularly enrolled it is the teacher who is the stimulating, guiding and holding power. To analyze the charm of personality which attracts and holds the girl in her teens is impossible, but there are certain things which the teacher must do that we may discuss.

She must remember that the girl in her teens has “grown up,” and that she is very conscious of it. One must be more her friend than teacher. In the earlier years every Sunday-school teacher really interested in her pupils calls freely in the home. When the girl reaches the teen age, the teacher must ask permission to call. “May I call on your mother?” often opens the way for a special invitation, or at least gives the girl an opportunity to make the invitation cordial or to let it be known that for some reason she prefers not to have her teacher call. I remember one girl of seventeen who never gave me any encouragement when I suggested calling, and I respected her wishes. One day when she was very ill, the mother asked me to come. The girl had always dressed well, was intelligent and refined, and would have been supposed to come from a family of comfortable means. I found it to be a home of real poverty, where the father, a nervous wreck struggling with diabetes, was unable to work regularly, and the mother was obliged to assist. Even with the seventeen-year-old girl giving every cent she could spare, it was a hard struggle. The girl was proud and reticent; she had not wanted me to know, and I was glad I had not come until she was willing. That day when she was ill and discouraged she was willing—she really needed me.

There are many times when for reasons akin to this or others entirely different but equally good, a girl prefers to have her teacher see and know her apart from her home. Every woman who understands girlhood in the later teens respects such a wish.

The teacher’s home should, if possible, be always open to the girls and they should feel free to come. Sometimes it is not possible and then the cosiest corner in the smallest church parlor should be available.

As the girl approaches the later teens the Sunday-school class should become more and more a place of training for service. It has been my experience that after seventeen many girls prefer to work in Sunday-school rather than to remain as pupils. If the girls express such a desire, or show particular willingness to act as substitutes, to help in the music of the elementary departments, or to tell stories to the beginners, such a desire should be recognized and an opportunity given a girl to test herself under supervision. The Sunday-school should be constantly preparing assistant superintendents, directors of music, secretaries and teachers. Material for the teachers’ training-class is found in classes in the later teens.

Some of the most loyal, responsive and successful teachers of pupils from nine to twelve, I have found in the boys and girls of the later teens. While they lack mature judgment and discretion, they have enthusiasm and desire to succeed in any undertaking. If the Sunday-school is constantly training such helpers as assistants, and testing them as substitutes, then the changes that are bound to come in the teaching force of any Sunday-school are not so disastrous, for some one will be ready to supply the need.