The Law of the Learning Process

 The Sunday School Teacher 15

We turn now to the sixth law or principle of good teaching, namely, this: the student must reproduce in her own mind the knowledge she needs to learn.

In other places, I have seen this referred to as the deep learning process. I like that. Each of us knows what it is like to learn something superficially. A name. A number. A fact. Young people often do it to pass an exam. The old do it often to function in the immediate. But neither of these is an example of what we are trying to accomplish when we teach Sunday School. We want the truths we explain, illustrate, and emphasize to work their way deep into the inner man, as Paul would say. We want that knowledge to become part of their DNA, to borrow another illustration.

What does that look like, or perhaps I could ask, how does that happen?

At the most basic level, the student must be able to repeat the main statements in the lesson word for word. As a pastor now for nearly thirty years, I have often used fill-in-the-blank outline sheets in teaching formats. At the conclusion of the lesson, I will work my way through that sheet and wait for verbal confirmation that they listened. It is at once both a review and the first step in the process of seating that information more firmly in their mind.

Second, a student must be able to articulate the thought process behind the main statements or truths of the lesson. This is obviously an expansion of the former one. No longer is regurgitating the words enough; there must be some explanation of what those words mean, and of how the main points of the outline flow from one to the next.

Third, the student needs to be able to express the larger thought that forms the foundation of the outline, and to do so without losing any of the teacher's original intent or meaning. In other words, she needs to demonstrate her understanding of the importance of both specific words and thoughts, and can explain that she does without leaving out anything important.

All on its own, this is an enormous accomplishment. It is at this point that the student can become a teacher herself. Taking the truths she learned in your Sunday School class, your student can now help her classmate at school who is struggling with the very issue you taught about in Sunday School. This is exponentially leveraging your time and work as a teacher. It is your influence expanding outward in ripples. It is not directly due to you, but it is absolutely indirectly tied to your success as a teacher.

It may seem that you have accomplished your goal as a teacher at this point. After all, your student has internalized not just your words but your thoughts, and done so clearly enough that they can convey those thoughts to others in their orbit. What else could you hope for in a student?

Fourth, the student who continues to deepen her ownership of truth will begin to seek out proof or evidence of the knowledge you are teaching her.

As a young man recently surrendered to ministry, I began reading the Bible and listening to preaching with an entirely new interest. No longer was I listening for myself alone, but I grasped I was listening also for those who would, in turn, listen to me in years to come. And if I was going to help them, I needed to establish on my own, or at least for my own satisfaction, the veracity of the knowledge I was being handed in school, Sunday School, and church. So I began.

For example, I remember at fifteen coming across Mark 16.16 in my daily Bible reading. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. I had been taught all my life that salvation was by grace through faith alone, that it did not require baptism. I believed that. I understood it. I was already at that age witnessing to others and telling them the same thing. But here was a verse that seemed to say differently. I walked to the school library, found a concordance, and over the next few weeks looked up every use of any form of the English word baptize in the Bible. I came away convinced that what I had been taught, what I understood, and what I had been telling others was entirely true – salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone.

One could argue that my entire life since has been that process repeating itself without end. I have been taught thus and so. I understand it. I must teach it to others. I dare not simply repeat what I have been told. I must research and study it for myself. I do so. Then, once I have internalized it to my satisfaction, I turn around and hand it on to others. The thousands of books that fill the shelves of my library prove this. It is why those books are there.

I realize there is some level of risk here, a risk that a fair number of teachers and mentors do not want to run. The risk is that the student will find something that disagrees with what you have taught her, that gives her an entirely different viewpoint, and one she finds compelling. I believe this is a risk that must be run in order to soundly establish the faith in the hearts and minds of our young people. In the long term, people love liberty. They resist being fenced in. Gradually and carefully, perhaps, but just as certainly, we must allow and even encourage our students to investigate the truths we teach them, no matter where that investigation leads them.

There yet remains one more step in this deep learning process, one more necessary accomplishment. Fifth, the student must practice the truths you are teaching them, applying them to her own life, changing from image to image as by the Spirit until Jesus Christ is formed in her. Of course, this is an ongoing process, one that begins when she is just a student and will continue her whole life as she, in turn, teaches others. Like all ongoing processes, it is never quite finished this side of eternity. But if you are like me, you want to see it begin when she is still sitting in your classroom. You want to see her life begin to change while she is still under your immediate influence.

In a sense, this is the test of your teaching, is it not? It is not her head you want to reach as much as her heart, her life. You want to edify her, to see her built up in Christ, not at some future date, but beginning now and continuing into the indefinite future. This is your paycheck. This is your reward. Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men. (II Corinthians 3.2) Your student's changed life is all the thanks and response you desire.

It is for this reason that you, as the teacher, dare not think your job is done when the bell rings for the end of class. Nor do you have the luxury of forgetting your students at the end of the enrollment period. Your heart and your hand and your time must be continually open and available to them. While their learning process may no longer be under your direct supervision, it should still be under your influence. You should welcome that, indeed, seek to continue it as long as possible. Long-term influence is deep influence.

There is risk in this, too. You risk the heart and mind you have offered them being rejected. You risk seeing a student who has made a great start run right off the rails and crash. You risk becoming discouraged when they grow at a different rate than you did, or when you think best. You risk them becoming something you did not intend and would not wish.

Risk it anyway. Risk the love and the tears and the prayer and the emotional investment. Risk the rejection. Risk the sorrow. If they are going to buy the truth in sufficient quantity as to change their life and others, you are going to have to continue to pay.

Learning is not an event. It is not a class period. It is a process. Lead them, support them, and encourage them through the entire process. When it works as intended, there is no greater joy.