One of the greatest keys to working successfully with teenagers is sincerity–truly meaning what you are saying.

I remember being an undergrad student soaking up all the teaching I could get from my teachers.  One repeated bit of wisdom was to love my students, and to tell them that I love them.  This sounded so wonderful, and fit perfectly into my rosy view of life as a teacher.  Of course I would love my students!  Of course they would love me in return!  Of course my classroom would be perfect!

Then, I met my real students in my first year of teaching.  We exchanged many words, but we never said, “I love you.”  We didn’t even say, “I like you.”  And, that summer I was left pondering the incredible failure of my rosy imaginings.  My classroom was far from perfect, and my students were even worse.  There was no way I could say that I loved them.

This is important to me because Christ commands us to “love your neighbor as yourself.”  So, I needed to love these kids.  But love is not something you can just conjure up for people, blindly ignoring their annoying tendencies or their disheartening rebellion.  I determined though, that I would not simply say the words just to make me sound good or to make the kids feel good. 

The point is that I wanted to be sincere.  It seemed wrong to me (because it is wrong) to lie to them even if it made them feel good or made me sound good.  And, I couldn’t believe that insincerity would breed true respect.  And true respect is what I was after.  I knew that a “loving” classroom was nothing compared with a truly loving classroom.  It took time, but God blessed and I have since enjoyed the incredible rewards of loving my students.  God rewarded my efforts at sincerity.

Sincerity also comes into play when you talk about God in your classroom.  I don’t know about you, but I can tell when my devotions have cooled and I am really out of fellowship with God.  The easiest way for me to tell is in the classroom, when I have nothing to tell the kids about what I have studied recently.  Our Christianity or spirituality can be faked—too often it is faked in order to keep up appearances.  But, once again, your teen students will see through it and you will lose respect.  They want sincerity in your walk with God, in your talk about God, and in your application of God to their lives.  Just be honest with them; they need to and want to know what a real Christian life is like.

Sometimes the easy way is to put on a little performance.  Maybe you need to impress some parents or you need to get a few rebellious kids on your side for a change.  But beware:  the consequences of insincerity are great.  Be sincere; respect them sincerely, encourage them sincerely, and eventually you won’t be able to help loving them sincerely.