The Law of the Teaching Process

 The Sunday School Teacher 14

We turn now to the fifth law or principle of good teaching, namely, this: tell him nothing he can learn himself.

In a quotation variously attributed to Maimonides, Lao-Tzu, Anne Ritchie, and the Navajo, "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." As a teacher, you can metaphorically hand him the truth, and he will be helped. If, however, you get him excited about acquiring truth, you can lead him to discover truth on his own, to find the riches of God's grace for himself.

I do not mean here that you never teach him anything, nor do I mean that all you do is direct his self-study. Rather, I am expanding on something I referenced earlier. For truth to actually change his life, he must take mental ownership of it by rethinking that truth, compiling and arranging it in a way that makes sense to him on the bookshelf of his mind. It is just this very process that a good teacher instills in the mind of his student. Tell him some aspect of truth, or point out the way to truth. Develop his capacity to ask questions, but don't answer them directly. Instead, give him enough information to keep him heading in the correct direction.

John Gregory said it this way: "True teaching, then, is not that which gives knowledge, but that which stimulates pupils to gain it. One might say that he teaches best who teaches least; or that he teaches best whose pupils learn most without being taught directly." You want them to explore, to question, to discover, to range ahead of themselves, to feel for the next step on this stair of knowledge for themselves.

As we consider the practical implications of this, let us turn first to the types of things we ought to do along this line, then I will try to balance that with things we should avoid.

First, try to build the student's interest in the subject at hand as much as possible. You want them to look forward, to peer down the road and try to see what is coming. Although homework is not simple in a Sunday School setting, if you can grow them to the place where they will do it, assign some work that provokes them to search for something, to gain a better grasp on something you have only thus far hinted at.

Second, ask your students numerous questions. Lectures inform, at least where they do not bore, but questions make people think. Gregory said, "The object or the event that excites no question will provoke no thought. Questioning is not, therefore, merely one of the devices of teaching; it is really the whole of teaching. It is the excitation of the self-activities to their work of discovering truth."

I generally teach from laboriously prepared notes, but in those notes, I prepare questions, opportunities to pause, to launch an inquiry into something that I taught. "Why do I say that?" is a fairly frequent one. "If we take this course of action, what happens next?" is another. It helps to hold attention, but it accomplishes much more than that; it makes the student think.

Third, control your impatience with their answers. Of course, you know the answer! Of course, you could word it better! But that is not the point, is it? The point is rather that she is thinking her way to a clearer apprehension of truth. Johann Comenius, a 17th-century Czech educator, said, "Most teachers sow plants instead of seeds." Resist the urge to tell them everything you know, even when it would get them where you want them to be faster.

Fourth, cultivate a classroom that, in turn, asks questions of you. The important thing is not necessarily the individual question. The important thing is the ask, the thought process that stretched itself forward and then paused for a moment, asking for a little outside light. Indeed, so critical is this that I would posit the more questions per hour flying around in your classroom, the more actual teaching and learning is being done.

Fifth, help your students understand that your explanations and answers in response to their questions will only ever contain some of the truth. Theologically, this is true because you are human and thus finite. Philosophically speaking, this is the case because there is always something more that can be learned about any subject. Do not leave the impression you have the answers; leave the impression that you have some of the answers, but that there are more out there waiting to be discovered.

Lastly, sometimes, in answer to these questions from your students, restate the question and open it up to the entire class. Alternatively, but almost as good, respond to their question with a question of your own. This has nothing to do with your inability to answer or your desire to dodge the question. It has everything to do with developing their thought process, their ability to handle intellectual inquiry, and wanting to do so.

In my opinion, the typical teacher talks too much. The pregnant pause is useful in more than theatre. Allowing the silence to stretch also broadens the student's mind. If you are the only one who ever talks in your class, then how do you know if any thinking is happening on their part? Even their ignorant questions or replies are helpful in this context. To reference Gregory again: "It is only the unskilled teacher who prefers to hear his own voice in endless talk rather than to watch and direct the course of the thoughts of his pupils."

One of the reasons a lecture can develop into a monologue is the pressure teachers often feel to cover their prepared material. I have taught and/or preached thousands of times. I feel this most keenly. I have good stuff and I want to get it into them. If they would just hush, I could do so. But if I have somehow managed to get them onto thinking ground – a rare thing indeed in this screen-addicted, book-avoiding age – then there is wisdom in camping on that ground. Another lesson opportunity will present itself eventually. Do not speed by in haste when good things are happening where you are.

I am conscious as I pen this that I may be coming on too strong. Let me add a bit of water to the wine with two thoughts.

First, there will be a temptation to go overboard with this, to throw lesson plans to the wind, to sit on the edge of your desk and see what conversation you can develop. Some teachers imbibe too deeply here and think a syllabus or a set of lecture notes holds students back from becoming their best selves. I am not saying the teacher does not need to prepare a lesson. I am not saying the lecture method is wrong. I am not saying your classroom should be chaos. To the contrary, usually the teacher will be the only one communicating for entire stretches of a class period. But often our best teaching is done in the future, as a student we developed to think for herself proceeds to do so in years to come.

Second, as with many aspects of teaching Sunday School, do not get discouraged here. If your class is composed primarily of younger children, or what we gently term today, the under-privileged, their intellectual immaturity might prevent you from putting most of this into action. If your students attend once every four weeks, you are unlikely to ever get them to develop enough spiritual or intellectual momentum to move forward as I have described here. Accept these things, and find encouragement with most in any forward progress, and with the few as they bound ahead of the rest.

You will know when you have accomplished or are accomplishing what you aim at here. Your student will be self-motivated and excited about what is coming next. In time, the knowledge you impart and the process you develop will deepen the informational life. They will retain much more of what you impart than many of their peers. They will often become teachers in turn, in an informal sense, talking to others around them about all that they are learning. Eventually, if you start young enough, go deep enough, and live long enough, you will see a generational expansion of your influence as what you taught that student overflows from their lives into the lives of their children and students in turn.

True education only comes by thinking, not by being told. Cultivate, at all hazards, that thinking process.

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Law of the Lesson

 The Sunday School Teacher 13

We turn now to the fourth law or principle of good teaching, namely, this: that the truth to be taught must be learned through truth already known.

Did you ever hear someone say, "I have no idea what that teacher was talking about"? This is because they had no handle on the truth presented, no way for them to grasp the new information with a handle made of information they already possessed. Anything new to you must have a reference point to something already familiar. Failure here means the entire class period will be wasted.

I said earlier, when we were discussing attention, to give the student problems that will stretch him but not discourage him. This implies a careful stair-stepping of information, building on new knowledge with related knowledge. But this new knowledge must first be paired with old knowledge, else the student will be left standing on the top stair of yesterday, wondering in vain how to reach the new set of stairs. In other words, you have to connect where you want his mind to go to somewhere it has already been.

This is illustrated in physical space all the time. When you want to go from one floor to the next, you do not leap the intervening dozen feet at a single bound. Humans cannot do that. But they can go up or down those same dozen feet by using one eight-inch stair step at a time – providing, of course, the stair steps are connected to the ones above and below.

Practically every bit of mathematics you ever learned illustrates this as well. Here is what a number is. This is one apple. These are two apples. Now let's count up to ten. Now to one hundred. Now, let's take away five apples. How many do we have left? Now, let's add some apples, multiply some apples, divide some apples, and section off some pieces of apple. These are fractions. And you can add, subtract, divide, and multiply pieces of an apple, too. On and on it goes.

God does this in the Bible as well. What is the Bible? It is the revelation of God, the unveiling of Who He is. Does He begin with Revelation? No. He does not start with the justice and finality of the Second Coming. He begins literally at the beginning, with Genesis, a word that means beginnings. First, we see Him. Then we see His power. Then we see sin arrive, followed immediately by provision for sin. God reveals Jesus throughout the Old Testament, particularly in the Tabernacle furniture and rites, always connecting something about their coming Saviour to something they already understood. When Jesus arrives in the New Testament, He points backward to connect Himself in the minds of His followers with all of those things they already knew. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24.27) In light of all this, the cross makes perfect sense. Next comes the history of the church's expansion in that first century, along with the instructions given by the apostles to that expanding church. Then, and only then, does God reveal to us the end, an end by now eagerly anticipated and absolutely appreciated.

Put another way round, without context, little information makes sense. With context, however, it makes perfect sense. The desired response in teaching is some form of the lightbulb moment: "Oh, I see." That lightbulb moment only comes when the student has apprehended and assimilated the information, and he cannot do that without a handle. Attaching something he already understands to something he does not understand allows him to pick it up, examine it, think through it, and take ownership of it. "Oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense now that I understand it."

Having explained my point, let me furnish you with an idea or two to help you accomplish this.

First, before you launch into a subject, try to determine how much your students already know about it. If you have taught them for a while, you will already have much of this knowledge to hand. If you do not, ask them. Better yet, ask them to write down what they know about it. Or bring it up for discussion and listen as they talk to each other. Their ignorance will help you tailor your lesson plans, but their limited grasp will show you how and where to attach your teaching to what they already know, however limited it might be.

Second, as you prepare your lesson, intentionally try to connect the information to something they already understand. If you are teaching about Jesus' growing-up years, explain it in terms of their own age and life experience. School. Siblings. Play. Church. Food. Prayer. Etc.

Third, endeavor to ensure your lesson's learning steps are in the correct order and big enough to be challenging without being intimidating. In math, the order of operations is simpler to more complex. In grammar, we do not go from explaining nouns directly to discussing split infinitives. In discipling new Christians, I do not start with systematic theology or hermeneutics; I begin with church attendance and Scripture reading. Make them think, but do not make them despair.

Fourth, it is wise to use everyday, familiar objects as illustrations. Colors. Shapes. Animals. Things in nature. Items found around the house.

One summer a few years ago, I realized our Wednesday night children's program had grown. It ran concurrent with the school year. Each May, I reminded the parents that if they continued to attend the Wednesday night service over the summer, it would be a great life lesson to their children about the importance of church. Privately, I had to reckon with more children in the main adult Bible study for the summer than we ever had before. I did not want to turn it into a children's service, but I did want to include them and to stretch myself. So every Wednesday night sermon that summer was built around a visual illustration. I used candles and mirrors and popcorn and biscuits and helmets and smoke. Not only did they help capture and maintain attention, but they also helped the children grasp the adult-sized truths being presented.

Fifth, lead them to find illustrations that fit the truth from their own experience. Encourage their thought process as you see them feeling their way through. Ask them to think of their own illustration and give them hints toward one you think they will understand. "What negative force affects every human being?" Their response might sound something like this: "So you mean the old nature is like gravity, in the sense that it is constantly pulling us down, all of us?"

By asking them to think of an illustration already well within their comprehension, you are practically handing them the secret to understanding the new information. Put another way round, you are showing them a door and asking them to make their own key from whatever already fits. This helps you confirm they get it, benefits everyone around them who is listening to the exchange between you both, and, most of all, helps the individual student crystalize their own grasp of the truth.

Sixth, do not rush up the steps. I understand what it is like, as a teacher, to peer from the landing above, eager to bring the students up to where I am. But understanding is like fruit; often, it must ripen. The larger your class is or the more distant your personal relationship with the students, the more this is true. Good teaching, like good barbecue, requires elements of time and patience.

Along the way, I would also like to share a couple of things to avoid.

First, do not assume that another teacher or class has already furnished them with the starting point where you intend to begin. It is at once both reasonable and intellectually lazy of you to do so. Now it may well be that they should have, but master teachers do not deal in should-haves. They take accurate stock of where they actually are and proceed from there. Yes, the students in the teen Sunday School class should already know where Isaiah is in their Bibles. But do not assume they will. If you do, you will leave some of them floating around, lost in space, while the rest of you are climbing the stairs.

Second, do not treat each lesson as an independent collection of information. That biblical information has context. Those students have context. Truth doesn't stand in isolation; it stands in blocks, building a complete revelation of God. Your lesson may be conveying to them one block from that wall, but you and they both need to remember where it goes in that wall.

Third, do not tell them what you want them to know; lead them to discover as much of it as possible for themselves. If I read three books in preparation to teach a series of lessons, I cannot just teach them what I learned; I have to teach it to them as I learned it – one connected intellectual discovery at a time. But the best way to do that is not to usher them around like a tour guide, but rather to send them on an intellectual exploration with a map and a compass. Or perhaps some balanced expression between those two extremes. When I ask my students what they have learned, I do not want them merely to recite facts to me; I want them to re-think thoughts with me, haltingly expressed through processes yet still being formed. Put another way round, do not assume because they can regurgitate the material they have adequately digested and assimilated it. Insist they explain not just the steps but the thought that connects the steps.

When you teach this way, you will be well rewarded for your pains. Your class will pay much closer attention. The atmosphere will be fun. The students will not just be engaged but also excited. You will feel the thrill of the truth all over again when they stand beside you on the new landing and exclaim with delight about what they see.

There may be no greater reward for the teacher than the lightbulb moment, the "Aha!" that we all treasure. Poor Sunday School teachers are content with a class that does not act up. Average Sunday School teachers are content if they can get through a lesson. Good Sunday School teachers are content when they see the light come on in their students' eyes as the truth is apprehended and owned. Great Sunday School teachers watch their students' lives change as Christ is formed in them as a direct result of their ministry in that student's life. But great Sunday School teachers cannot be great without being good. Aim for the lightbulb moment, and patiently prepare its arrival. Lead on softly, but lead. Help them up the stairs you so painstakingly built. Then enjoy the view with them from the top.

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Law of Language

 The Sunday School Teacher 12

 

We turn now to the third law or principle of good teaching, namely, this: that the language used in teaching must be common to both teacher and student.

On the surface, this seems a simplistically obvious point. Of course, you say. If I am speaking in English and the child does not understand English, I will not be able to teach her anything. While that is true, it is not what I am talking about. The truth is, both of you may be speaking the same language, but if what you intend to convey with your choice of words is not what she understands, you will still have failed. The student and the teacher must have a common understanding of the term or concept under discussion in order to handle and discuss it effectively.

This is true for linguistic reasons. There are a variety of words in English that sound the same but have entirely different definitions. See "flea" and "flee," for example. But it is also true because experience and perspective levels can confuse people in relation to a common language. To a Star Wars fan, a laser carries a different connotation than it does to a research physicist. And while I doubt you will teach any children who are research physicists, the point stands. How you understand something and what you intend to convey with what you say may not be at all how it is received or understood. Nor is this concern limited to what the teacher says to the student. In a good classroom, thought expressed in words flows in both directions. If you, as a teacher, misunderstand a term or concept your student references, the resulting confusion will be due to a violation of the law of language.

Understanding the importance of this, then, how can we ensure this law is not violated? Allow me to offer you a few practical suggestions.

First, as you teach, emphasize your willingness to be interrupted with questions. The student should always feel free to stop you and ask for an explanation of a term or concept you are discussing.

Second, every teacher should become a student of body language. I realize this, too, can be misunderstood, but ignoring it is worse than misunderstanding it. If a child looks puzzled or confused, stop and try to ascertain why. It may be they are struggling to make the intellectual connection you want them to make, but it may also be that they do not know what you are talking about, period. Learn to read that where possible so that you may make adjustments.

Third, I suggest keeping an old-fashioned dictionary in your classroom and using it from time to time. Have the students look up key terms related to your discussion. It will likely make them more comfortable with the overall learning process, but at the very least, it will help them with the specific lesson in question.

Fourth, as a general rule, the fewer the years, the fewer the syllables, and the shorter the person, the shorter the sentences. As I pen this, I am reading through an apologetics book with my sixteen-year-old son. The author, a brilliant philosopher, wrote like one would expect a brilliant philosopher to write. Unfortunately, it takes a brilliant philosopher to understand it. If your Sunday School class is composed of children, the teaching needs to be on their level rather than yours. You may feel throttled, but if you do not, those children will miss most of what you are trying to convey, and you will be wasting your time. As you read their body language and comments, keep rephrasing things until you are satisfied they understand.

Fifth, and this may be the most critical point along this line, if a word is central to your lesson, carefully define it at the beginning. This is true for all teaching, but especially true for theological education.

Words mean things. They are the building blocks of our understanding and application of God's will. God chose His Words precisely and placed them exactly where He wanted them. Their meaning will vary depending on context, original language, repetition, etc. This is not a book on hermeneutics, but as a Sunday School teacher, you should have a decent grasp on working out the proper meaning of God's words you will be talking about. And you need to convey that understanding in a compressed or capsulized way to your students. That theological understanding is the bedrock on which you construct everything else you have to say.

Put another way round, if you are teaching about faith, define it as you mean them to understand it - the same for grace or peace or Heaven or wisdom or obedience or anger or envy or bitterness. From the very beginning, help them to see what you mean when you use the word.

Sixth, keep abreast of slang and generally avoid it. Some teachers attempt to take a shortcut to relationship building by speaking like their students speak. The result is cringeworthy. Be your age and let the students be their age. By and large, avoid the temptation to chase coolness, to chase relevance. Doing so is like chasing your tail – entertaining to watch but always fruitless.

Seventh, after applying all of this, as you teach, occasionally stop and ask them to define the term you are using. This serves both as a review and a waypoint. It reminds the entire class of what you mean when you use the word, and it helps you understand just where they are in their grasp of that. Not to mention, almost any question and answer type of interaction between a teacher and a class is a good interaction, even if it is as simple as a definition for a word.

If you have read some of my other books, you will notice how important I consider this law to be. In most of them, I dedicate entire chapters to defining key terms. If you have heard me preach much, you will undoubtedly hear me doing the same thing. I will often spend an entire sermon on one word, especially if that word is a key element of a longer preaching series. I have no desire to bore people to tears, but I also have no desire to think I am communicating one thing when what people understand me to mean is something else entirely.

As the old saying goes, the important thing here is that we communicate. But communication is downstream from applying the law of language. Additionally, if we are careful to ensure a good understanding of a particular biblical term, we will help that student for the rest of their spiritual life. If we do a good job, from then on, as they encounter that term or concept in reading the Bible or hearing a message, they will derive more from it than they would have otherwise. Essentially, then, though following this law can seem frustrating at times, the benefits that flow from it are practically endless.

If your students do not understand you, stop. Reword something. Ask something. Illustrate with something. At all costs, ensure they grasp what you are trying to convey with that key term. Then, and only then, proceed.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Law of the Student

 The Sunday School Teacher 11

 

We turn now to the second law or principle of good teaching, namely, this: the student must pay attention with interest to the material being taught.

What is attention? It is the focused direction of the mind upon something. That something can be external, in other words, outside of my mind, or internal. Walk into a Krispy Kreme with a child and watch them stare in fascination at the donut-making process. They are paying attention to something outside of themselves. Alternatively, ask that same child to explain what a color is and watch their face screw up in the same sort of concentration. This time, they are focusing on an idea or concept, something internal. Really, the keyword in all of this is the word focus. To pay attention is to focus on something either inside or outside oneself.

Even a rookie teacher grasps the importance of this almost immediately. Without attention, the teacher cannot transfer anything at all to the student. It does not matter how well the teacher knows her material, or how good her material is, if the student is not paying attention, the teacher is wasting her breath.

This is because knowledge has to be thoughtfully received in order to be owned, to be properly internalized by the student. Knowledge is not a wrench handed from the mechanic to the apprentice. You can do that mindlessly on either side of the exchange. Knowledge is many things, but mindless is not one of them. Knowledge is not just facts; it is facts understood in context.

Gregory said it this way: "Knowledge cannot be passed like a material substance from one mind to another, for thoughts are not objects which may be held and handled. Ideas can be communicated only by inducing in the receiving mind processes corresponding to those by which these ideas were first conceived. Ideas must be rethought, experience must be re-experienced. It is obvious, therefore, that something more is required than a mere presentation; the pupil must think."

It helps me to think of my students' minds as a bookshelf for storing ideas. I cannot simply place a book on that shelf. I have to open up the book, explain the contents, watch and/or help the student rethink those concepts, and then wait while the student rewrites the book in his own words. Then, and only then, once the student has placed the book himself on his own mind's shelf, can I consider my work as a teacher accomplished.

All of this requires the direct focus of the student's mind. You cannot take ownership of knowledge without thinking, and you cannot think without paying attention. So if I, as a teacher, do not have my students' attention, I do not have anything.

At this point, I can hear veteran teachers groaning. Getting and keeping children's attention is arguably more difficult now than at any other time in human history. In addition to the built-in apathy that many children have toward subjects that do not interest them, and in addition to the ordinary distractions that plague every Sunday School class, there is the massive black hole of screens hoovering up all and sundry who come within their embrace. Children, pacified with screens via bad parents, become incapable of paying attention to anything that is not on a screen, and much that is on a screen, unless the display is constantly changing. The resulting ADD/ADHD is treated just as badly via a medication that dulls the student out of the fidgets and right into an intellectual coma.

As I pen this in 2025, there is a growing consensus amongst American educators that phones have no place in a school classroom. That is well and good, though, for this generation, a bit like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. Nor is keeping phones out of the classroom the sole solution to the problem; 'tis more like kicking the can down the road. But the solution to the issues of screen addiction in modern culture is beyond the scope of this book, though we do need to note for the record that these problems make this part of the teacher's job harder than ever. I still teach quite often, and I feel that too.

Having noted the problem in its currently aggravated dimensions, what can the good teacher do about it? Allow me to offer a handful of brief but hopefully helpful suggestions here.

First, give the student an intellectual task that will stretch him but not discourage him. Of course, this can be in the form of homework, but I mean it more in this context in relation to the thoughts you are asking him to think while he is sitting in your classroom. Do not spoon-feed him everything you want him to know and think. Beginning with what he already knows, hint at what he needs to learn or think about next, and encourage him to feel after these things with his intellectual fingers. To borrow another illustration, do not ask him to bite off more than he can chew, but encourage him to take a bite. Make his mind do some work.

For example, let's say you are teaching a lesson about Mary's journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem while she was pregnant with Jesus. You can tell them how difficult the journey must have been, or you can break them into teams and assign them to research what travel was like in that day for poor people, what the weather is like in that climate that time of year, how hotels did (or did not) work back then, etc.

Second, try to illustrate your lessons with things that naturally interest the age range you are teaching. I had a teacher once who was sick for most of his third-grade year. His mother took upon herself the responsibility of seeing that he got his work done at home. Seeing how he was struggling to maintain interest, and knowing how much he liked baseball, she began to work baseball into as many subjects as she could. How do you teach math? You use baseball statistics. How do you teach geography? You focus the child on the cities that have major league teams, etc.

Granted, the illustration here is limited, but the point is not. Interest catches attention, holding it with tenuous cobwebs of focus. Those cobwebs can be sewn into ropes that will tie the student to the subject at hand with bonds of affection. Find what your students care about, and tie the knowledge you intend to transmit to that. Their attention will follow you to the ends of the Earth, metaphorically speaking.

Third, never be too proud to use the simple tools of the teacher. Raise your voice. Use their name. Walk around the classroom. Evoke the pregnant pause. Ask them for the next word. Break into a snatch of song. Tell a story. Use them to hold something. Hold a competition. Each of these breaks up the monotone recitation of facts, inserting a brief flicker of life into the lesson, and potentially draws back a wandering attention span.

Fourth, be an interesting person. Without being an arrogant know-it-all, bring your variety of life experiences into the lesson. Widen. Know at least a little about a lot of things. My Junior Boy's Sunday School teacher taught a boring lesson, but he was a fascinating man to the junior boy version of me. So I listened to his boring lessons with interest.

Fifth, be interested in your students. By and large, they will return to you the same attitudes you give to them. If you care about them, they will, over time, care about you. If what matters to them matters to you, eventually what matters to you will matter to them. Ask them about their hobbies, their sports, and their school. If they like clothes or food or video games, notice. Ask them often, "What was the best thing to happen to you this week?" And then follow up on it in conversation at some point in the future.

Sixth, stop teaching when they stop paying attention. You do not have to be as rude about it as they are, but you do need to be intentional here. If the majority of your class is not paying attention, it is pointless for you to continue to teach. If you cannot beat them, join them. March off on some brief intellectual or physical interlude, and then resume teaching when you have them back. I do not mean you have to cater to the lowest common denominator; I mean you should seek to avoid the resentment that grows in children who are being forced to sit still. We will talk more about creativity in lesson plans later in this book, but that is precisely what is needed in this context.

Seventh, keep your own attention. If you decide to teach 37 weeks in a row on the kings of Judah, and you find yourself bored with it in week 12, give it up. Move on. It is hard enough to get the subject to matter to the students when it does matter to you; if it does not matter to you, find something that does, and teach that.

Eighth, deal appropriately with sudden interruptions. The church auditorium in my Chicago pastorate lay right along an alley between two streets. Often, as cars exited the alley, they would sound the horn as a warning to pedestrians who would not otherwise be aware. Consequently, on a fairly frequent basis, my sermons were interrupted by car horns sounding on the other side of the wall. I learned to pause, throw in a brief sarcastic, "thank you," and go right back to the interrupted thought. Sometimes, calling attention to the interruption can permit everyone to notice it quickly, and just as quickly return their focus to you.

Ninth, as much as you can, vary the physical space in which you teach. I do not mean move to another classroom. I mean, change the decorations seasonally, for example. Mix up the seating arrangement once a month. Sometimes, teach from the middle of a circle and other times from the end of a triangle. Renew the posters or the bulletin boards on a regular basis. Teach by candlelight some random Sunday morning. Adults like the predictable routine; children adore the opposite.

Tenth, prepare some thought-provoking questions from your material in advance. Occasionally, when appropriate, ask one, pause, and wait for an answer. We will discuss this further later, but much of good teaching is wrapped up in the question. Amongst other attributes, it helps to hold the student's attention.

Focused attention is necessary, but just as often problematic. Having looked at some ideas to strengthen it, let us turn now to the other side. If we want to keep our students' attention, what are some things we should avoid?

First, never begin teaching without getting everyone's attention. This can be as simple as hollering, "Hey, everybody, look up here!" or as detailed as a roving set of sarcastic insults while everyone is getting settled. I have even known some teachers who spent the first ten minutes of class time interacting with the students about everything other than the subject at hand, only to proceed with the lesson once the entire group was firmly in the palm of their hand. However you do it, do it. Do not start without gathering the strands of attention in the room.

Second, do not rely on the fear of punishment to hold that attention. Weak teachers threaten their students, browbeating or intimidating them into pretended heed. Not only does this not build the natural affection that forms between good teachers and their class, but it also practically vaporizes any hope of it in the future. It is not as crucial for the chemistry teacher to be liked by his students as it is for the Sunday School teacher. For the former, he is going to get paid one way or the other. For the latter, money does not even factor into it; life change is on the radar. To change a student's life generally requires a genuine, affectionate relationship between the teacher and the student. Angry threats do not produce affectionate relationships.

There are, of course, exceptions to this. If a student is being so disruptive that no one else in class can pay attention, something must be done, and the teacher is the one tasked with doing it. But setting that to the side, anger and discipline are not to be found in the Sunday School teacher's toolbox. They will only tear down the very thing you are seeking to construct.

Third, do not assume a disinterested student is being rebellious or lazy. In other words, be gracious in your mind as much as you possibly can as you think about that student. We have bus kids with horror stories of a home life that would curl your hair. Violence. Sexual abuse. Neglect. Physical abuse. Hunger. Criminal activities. The dysfunction some of them live in is enormous, and the resulting trauma and how it works itself out is entirely understandable. They do not need another adult to yell at them. They need one to love them, to draw them in rather than throw them out.

Setting that to the side, there is the simple fact that a child's attention span in minutes is generally equivalent to their age in years. If you expect a seven-year-old to gaze at you with rapt attention for a twenty-minute lesson, you have no one to blame but yourself when things begin to go haywire. Put another way round, there is often context to what appears to you to be a lack of attention. Do not forget that.

Fourth, do not assume that character will keep children interested in your Sunday School lesson. "Well, Pastor Brennan, these children are not bus kids. They come from good homes where they have been taken care of and taught well. They should know better." Perhaps they should. On the other hand, maybe you should stop being a lazy teacher. If you are not naturally interesting, be work-at-it interesting. Place the responsibility on yourself first. That is what good leadership does in every arena.

I realize I have been a bit blunt in this chapter. That was intentional. You need to be able to process not just deeper information, but a call to improve performance. Years ago, a young preacher asked an old preacher how to keep people from sleeping during the preaching. The old man said, "Wake the preacher up." Most of the time, a disinterested class is the result of a low level of teaching.

On the other hand, if you put the necessary time and work into getting and holding your students' attention, you will be amply repaid. You will be happier, since the children will actually be listening to you. The children will be happier because obedient children are always happier. You will discover that your attendance will gradually increase, driven by the simple fact that your students want to be in the room. Most of all, you will gain entrance into their heart. They will grant you the increased influence necessary for life change to begin to happen.

Attention is a must, but do not make them pay attention. Make it impossible for them not to pay attention.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Law of the Teacher

 The Sunday School Teacher 10

          We begin with the first law or principle of good teaching, namely, this: the teacher must know what he would teach.

Why is this the case? Allow me to give you four brief reasons.

First, as a teacher, knowledge is the substance with which you work. I know what it is like to be asked, "What do you teach?" In one sense, the correct response is, "Students." But in another sense, the correct response is the actual subject you are tasked to communicate. A mechanic who does not understand what makes cars tick cannot possibly teach someone else how to repair them. What is he going to teach? He has nothing of substance to say. Without knowledge, as a teacher, all you have is smoke and mirrors. And the students will eventually notice that and tune you out.

Second, as a teacher, you cannot convince others that a subject is worth learning if you have not convinced yourself it is worth knowing. A good teacher has a genuine and visible enthusiasm for his subject, but his enthusiasm has to spring from an internalized estimation of the high value of this knowledge. Such an enthusiasm cannot be faked over the long term, nor can a teacher rightly expect to guide a student over ground he has not first covered. If the teacher himself cannot be bothered to learn the information, he cannot have any genuine passion for someone else to learn it. To lead, you must be out front.

Third, it is only when a teacher thoroughly knows his material that he can focus on the student's reception of that material. I had a professor in college who called his lecturn the death zone. He loved to walk away from it and get down amongst us. This helped him connect with us, but it also allowed him to determine if we understood what he was saying. If you must have your nose buried in your notes in order to teach, you cannot read the reactions of your students, let alone adjust your teaching as a result.

A perfect example of this is soul-winning. A soul winner who has not practiced his ministry, who is still insecure in his knowledge base, is forced to spend his time in conversation figuring out what to say next. It is impossible to do this and focus on the prospect at the same time. But if an experienced soul winner leads the same conversation, he can afford to focus on the prospect because he does not need to focus on himself. This allows him to tailor his soul-winning presentation individually and precisely.

Just so, a Sunday School teacher who has not adequately prepared himself with a solid knowledge of his text cannot forget himself and focus on his students. He must pay attention to himself in order to make sure he says the correct thing. In the course of this, he will surely miss some critical visual or verbal clues as to the reception of his lesson on the part of his students, and fail in his responsibility to attach new knowledge to current knowledge.

Fourth, a teacher must prioritize his own knowledge because an ignorant teacher cannot breed confidence in himself as a teacher nor instill in his students a love for the subject. And a student without confidence in a teacher is a passive student at best, a hostile student at worst. Usually, if students tune you out for this reason, they will never tune you back in. They will write you off permanently.

In my small Christian high school, I was required to take two years of Algebra and one year of Geometry. The two years of Algebra were taught by a graduate of General Motors Institute, an engineer who understood both math and teaching. Studying under him was a delight. But it all fell apart when I took Geometry. He was no longer available to teach, and a sudden demand was placed upon the church secretary to fill his place. In her defense, she was a secretary, not a teacher. Nor had she had more than a couple of weeks to prepare for the beginning of class. To add injury to insult, she had a cleft palate, and it was difficult to understand her clearly. I have no idea if she was any good at Geometry in her own high school days, but I do know she didn't know much at all about it when she stood before us as our teacher. The result was the disaster you imagined it to be. I received an A in the class only because I ignored her entirely and used the textbook alone to teach myself. I suppose she got better as the year advanced, but I tuned her out early, permanently, and justifiably.

Gregory said it this way: "We follow with expectation and delight the guide who has a thorough knowledge of the field we wish to explore, but we follow reluctantly and without interest the ignorant and incompetent leader." Indeed.

Having established the necessity of the law of the teacher, what then are we supposed to do? What flows from this necessity? Again, I offer you four thoughts.

First, as the teacher, you need to write down your knowledge of the subject in clear terms. Writing is beneficial not just because it is a means of transferring truth to people beyond our immediate vicinity, but also because the process of writing disciplines our thinking. To put thoughts into words on a page clarifies and orders those thoughts. Writing forms thought precisely and efficiently.

This alone is enough of a reason to compel me to write all of my own sermons and lessons. I use a wide variety of resources in my preparation, but I never borrow another man's outline, thoughts, or words whole cloth. I rework and reword them until that information is imprinted deeply and clearly in my own mind. Then I give it out.

In plain language, take the knowledge you have gained and put it into outline form. (We will talk later in this book about how to do this more specifically.) You will then use that outline to guide you as you teach the students.

Second, in preparing this outline, go from the simplest thought to the most complex. In other words, it should build on itself. Point four should follow from point three, which should follow from point two, etc. To reference math again, we do not start first graders with Calculus; we begin with addition and subtraction.

Third, along the way, constantly ask yourself what the practical implications of this knowledge are. How does this information apply to the students who will be sitting in front of you on Sunday morning? If you teach facts merely to soothe your conscience for having taught them, you will likely be ineffective. If you teach those facts just so students can recite them back, you may feel like a good teacher, but you will not be. As Andrew Murray well said, biblical information is not given to increase our knowledge base but to change our conduct. Why are you teaching the students this? What are you hoping to accomplish? How are you trying to help them? How will they be better off having gotten this biblical knowledge from you? Always teach with a why in mind, with a purpose underneath passing along that information.

Fourth, develop a personal plan of study. Put another way round, develop a system of learning scriptural truth that works for you, that drives the information deep into your mind and heart.

At this point in my life, I know myself relatively well. I learn well by reading. If I want to learn a subject, I begin by gathering several books on the topic. Then I read those books, slowly, making notation marks in the margins along the way. I combine that with reading and re-reading everything I can find in the Bible on the same topic. This process may take many months. Finally, I gather the books into a stack, sit down at a computer, open up a Word document, and begin to input the information collated from all that material. After entering all the information, I organize it into categories. The categories and the information in them become the basis for the sermons and lessons that I teach.

In point of fact, this is precisely how this book came to be. I wanted to teach my Sunday School staff how to be better teachers, so I gathered every good book I could find on the subject. I then read them while also reading all I could find in the Bible about it. Following this, I organized the knowledge I had gleaned into categories, wrote an outline, and taught a semester-long class to my Sunday School staff. Now I am writing it again, and, not coincidentally, deepening even more my own understanding of what it takes to be a good teacher.

Thus far, we have discussed the importance of a teacher knowing their subject and examined the implications of this understanding. Let us turn now for just a moment to three things he should avoid in this process.

First, he should avoid being careless in his lesson preparation because he thinks he already knows so much more than the students do. Now, it may well be true that you are far in advance of your students in your biblical knowledge base. It does not then follow that you can simply wear long sleeves and teach off the cuff. I have noticed something curious as I age: the more I know, the more I forget. My memory used to be fantastic. Now it is merely adequate. If I do not discipline myself to refresh my knowledge of a particular aspect of biblical truth before I teach it, I am sure of one thing – I will leave something out I will later wish I had said. Good teachers do not assume; they prepare.

Second, avoid constantly having fill-in time at the end of your lesson. If you find yourself occasionally coming to the end of your material with time left on the clock, that is fine. If it happens often, though, there is a problem. It is an indication that your study routine is insufficient and your preparation is shallow.

Third, good teachers, while filled to bursting with knowledge, avoid intellectually condescending to the mere mortals who gaze up at them worshipfully. If you do not know what condescension is, I will deign to equip your puny mind with the barest understanding, something simple that you may perhaps be able to comprehend… See? That does not send you away marveling over what you have learned and eager to apply it. Rather, it leaves you feeling resentful, having been made to feel inferior by the academic brilliance of another. Condescension puts barriers between the teacher and student that will help to prevent the very positive life change you are seeking to produce in your Sunday School class.

Assuming you are with me and agree with the content of this chapter, what benefits come when you follow the law of the teacher? I offer you two.

First, you will personally gain from an increased knowledge base.

This bodes well for sanctification. The more of the Bible you know, the

more ammunition the Holy Spirit has within you as He forms you into the image of Jesus Christ.

This also matters for your future aptitude as a teacher. The greater your own knowledge base, the better and faster you will be at connecting various biblical thoughts and concepts. Depth is not the aim; edification is, but in the process, the depth you acquire over time will make you an exponentially better teacher. Which only serves to help more students more better. Bad grammar that, but good truth.

Second, a solid knowledge base in the teacher helps enable good attitudes all around.

In the teacher, it produces confidence, passion, and clarity.

On the classroom side, the students will have more confidence in you, more enthusiasm for the subject you are teaching, and more respect for you. Your obvious apprehension of the subject and passion as you communicate it will, in turn, stimulate them with an increased appetite for learning. After all, it is not just what they now know they did not know before that matters. It is what they now do that matters. Put another way round, it is what they now become as a result of your teaching that is the point.

Teachers are life-changers. Well, potentially, teachers are life-changers. But they cannot be if they do not learn and apply the law of the teacher.

Know your stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.