Some people spend years figuring out what they want to do. Kyla Rounds, Amanda Larson, and Alyssa Larson didn’t have that problem— they all knew they wanted to teach.
But knowing you want to teach and actually being ready to walk into a classroom are two different things.
That’s how Faith Baptist Bible College became part of their stories.
All three women graduated from Faith’s education program— Alyssa in 2017, Amanda in 2022, and Kyla in 2025— and each of them will tell you that what they learned at Faith didn’t just prepare them academically. It shaped the kind of teachers they became.
More Than a Lesson Plan
Kyla Rounds graduated with a degree in elementary education and a music education endorsement, and she just completed her first year of teaching two grades at once. It’s a lot to manage, and she’s the first to admit it.
But something one of her professors said has stuck with her through the chaos of this first year: “A prepared heart is more important than a prepared lesson.”
Another professor was also quick to add, “But a prepared lesson is pretty important.”
Kyla laughs about it now, but she has experienced how that tension plays out in real time. “If I don’t have my heart right, it’s really easy for me to get upset with the kids over something tiny— like whispering when I’m trying to teach the other class,” she said. “Even more so than if my lesson wasn’t as prepared as I wanted it to be.”
That balance— between being spiritually grounded and practically ready— is something Faith worked hard to build into her. She came out knowing how to structure a lesson, how to phrase instructions clearly, how to give kids enough information to spark curiosity without overwhelming them.
But she also came out knowing that the posture of her heart matters just as much as the content of her teaching.
First-year teaching has meant accepting a lot of things that aren’t perfect yet. “This wasn’t as good as I would have liked to have it,” she said. “But I gave the kids what they needed. It’s enough, and I need to be okay with that.” She frames it in terms of faithfulness— being faithful to what God has given her to do this year, even when it doesn’t meet her own standards.
And she keeps coming back to one goal above all others: don’t kill their love of learning. “They’re still going to hit a lot of these concepts over and over again,” she said. “If I lay the foundation well, and they still love learning and love being at school by the time I’m done with them— they can continue on. They can keep loving learning all the way through.”
A Biblical Foundation for Every Subject
Amanda Larson graduated in 2022, and the thing she keeps coming back to when she talks about Faith is the importance of teaching all subjects from a biblical worldview.
“[The professors] gave lots of ideas and tips to help my students see that God is at the center of everything we do,” she said, “and that He is ruling over every subject.” That wasn’t just a philosophy class concept— it was woven into the practical training, the lesson planning, which fully encompasses the whole approach.
Faith prepared her to walk into a classroom and teach in a way where Scripture isn’t something you tack on at the end of the day. It’s the foundation underneath everything.
A few years into teaching, Amanda has also learned something that no syllabus can quite teach you: the importance of prayer. “Teaching can be a hard job,” she said. “As things get busy, it’s very easy to skip that or just rush through it.” But she keeps coming back to a conviction that’s grown stronger over time. “I cannot do this job in my own strength. I need to start off each day praying for the school, and praying for my students.”
Outside the classroom, Amanda coaches volleyball, teaches piano lessons, and plays in her church orchestra. She also accompanies for different programs at the school.
For her, investing in students doesn’t stop when the last bell rings.
A Lifelong Learner in Front of the Classroom
Alyssa Larson has been teaching the longest of the three. She graduated in 2017 with a degree in music education and has been teaching kindergarten through 12th grade music ever since— which, as she’ll tell you, is a wide range to navigate.
“You cannot teach the kindergartners the same way you would middle school students,” she said. The classes are different. The students are different. Every year is different. And Faith prepared her for exactly that kind of flexibility by doing something she didn’t fully appreciate until she was in the thick of it: they emphasized that teachers have to be lifelong learners.
“Not every class is going to be able to teach you everything you need to know about a concept,” she said. “They’re giving you basics for all of that stuff. And then they really emphasize that you as a teacher have to keep learning.” She took that seriously, and it has shaped how she approaches every new school year— not as someone who has it all figured out, but as someone who keeps adapting and growing alongside her students.
One of the real gifts of her job as a music teacher is continuity. She doesn’t have students for a single year and then send them on their way. She gets to watch them grow across multiple years, building on what they’ve learned together. “It is challenging for sure,” she said, “but there’s blessings in it.”
Beyond the classroom, she coaches volleyball and serves in her church’s music ministry through orchestra and piano, always finding ways to invest in the people around her.
Faithful in the Classroom
Today, all three of these young ladies teach at Owatonna Christian School in Owatonna, Minnesota, each one uniquely led there by God’s guiding hand.
Three teachers, three different seasons of their careers, and one common thread: Faith equipped them to do more than instruct.
It prepared them to invest in the hearts, the minds, and the futures of the students sitting in front of them every day.
Whether it’s Kyla learning to hold a prepared heart and a prepared lesson in the same hand, Amanda starting each morning in prayer before her students arrive, or Alyssa adapting her teaching year after year to meet students where they are, each of them is living out what it looks like to be faithful in the classroom
And each teacher is fully committed to taking the Word to the World.
Do you know someone interested in becoming a teacher? Send them the following links to learn more about the education programs at Faith Baptist Bible College:
