Teaching As Craft

 The Sunday School Teacher 9

          When I was a child, a craft was something I did badly and only under protest. The popsicle sticks and the Elmer's Glue and the tiny house model set before me turned in my hand into an unholy mess. Many of those around me, however, produced veritable works of art. Their parents crowed in delight. Mine turned away in horror.

All right, I admit I oversold that a little, but you get my drift. As a term, craft can be both a noun and a verb, but the condition of the craft as a noun is dependent on the application of craft as a verb. When you study and practice your craft with diligent care, the result is a work of art, regardless of the field of your endeavor. A carpenter and a craftsman are two different things. The latter was first the former, but by dint of diligent care, he flourished into the latter.

It is my opinion that too many Sunday School teachers are carpenters when what they ought to be are craftsmen. I realize it is not fair to expect the volunteer teacher to have the same level of expertise as one finds in a professional, but all too often that becomes an excuse. The result is a Sunday School class that resembles a homeowner's attempt at fine furniture. The wood is chosen ad hoc, the angles do not meet, let alone the rounds, and it is not fit for anything but an obscure patio somewhere.

It does not have to be that way. Teaching is both an art and a science. As an art, there are aspects that produce good teaching that perhaps cannot be defined, only recognized or felt. But as a science, these things that create good teaching, or make good teachers, can be identified. Once identified, they can be incorporated into your teaching, transforming you from someone who merely holds the position of teacher to one who effectively transmits truth, which produces change in the life of the student.

Another way of saying this is that there are laws that relate to teaching, as Clarence Benson suggests in his work, The Christian Teacher. "Is not the Holy Spirit dishonored by the teacher who seeks to be guided by the laws of pedagogy? Not at all. One does not dishonor the Holy Spirit in complying with the laws of gravitation. One does not dishonor the Holy Spirit in becoming acquainted with the laws which govern the working of the human mind. No one was more fully led by the Holy Spirit than our Lord Jesus Christ and yet no one more consistently followed the laws of pedagogy."

Laws of pedagogy is not a phrase that rolls off the tongue, true. But they exist nevertheless. If you violate those laws, negative consequences ensue. Alternatively, if you follow them, good things happen. To reach for yet another example, perhaps we could liken an effective teacher to an excellent chef. Certainly, there is some art involved in turning out high-quality cuisine, but there is much more science than art. Christopher Kimball, a fixture on the New England cooking scene, has built an entire career around this, and my wife has a hefty America's Test Kitchen cookbook that proves it. Each recipe is not just made, but made repeatedly while adjusting various ingredients, implements, heat sources, and cooking times. The result is a recipe that almost always turns out well, even in the hands of a home cook.

In the same manner, highly effective teachers study the laws of teaching and learn them well. They strive to incorporate these laws and to do so with consistency. This consistent application of the laws of teaching on the part of the teacher produces in that teacher, over time, a habit of truly excellent teaching.

          About twenty years ago, I picked up a small volume by John Milton Gregory entitled The Seven Laws of Teaching. And it changed my life. Gregory was a 19th-century American educator, known primarily for founding the University of Illinois and publishing that little book. As an author, I appreciate how rare it is to find a work nigh on two centuries old that is still published and read. But to find one that is so powerfully clear and helpful is to find a gem indeed. Many of my readers are familiar with Gregory's work, but most are not.

In the section of this book that follows, I am going to take mental ownership of Gregory's work and do my best to transfer it to you. To the extent that you, in turn, take ownership of these laws and apply them, you will excel even in a venue as humble as the Sunday School class. You will also find that habitually applying these laws transfers into other areas of life, improving your results in those as well.

Teaching is a craft. Both our subject – God's Word – and our students call for us to be not mere carpenters, but craftsmen. They are together worthy of so much more than the hurried and harried thirty-minute babysitting session we often find in Sunday School. Together, let us turn the page and find out how to grow, how to excel even, how to become all that God wants you to become as you teach His children.