How to Teach Religion Part 13

Cutting and pasting pictures in notebooks; coloring, or other such work, to be done either in the cla.s.sroom or at home.

III. _Mode of Procedure--the Presentation, or Instruction._

1. Greetings to the cla.s.s--opening prayer and song.

2. Introduction of the lesson and telling of the story.

3. Discussion, questions and ill.u.s.trations to reveal: a. The many beautiful gifts which G.o.d had given Adam and Eve, and which he gives us.

b. How Adam and Eve were allowed to have everything except just _one_ thing among many. Application of this thought to child's life at home, etc.

c. How Adam and Eve yielded to temptation and disobeyed. Practical application to child's life.

d. How Adam and Eve felt ashamed and guilty after they had disobeyed G.o.d, and how they tried to hide from him. This can be made very real to children.

e. How punishment follows disobedience.

f. Why we must ask for forgiveness when we have been disobedient.

4. Summary, or brief restatement of chief impressions to carry away, and of applications to be made in the week ahead by the children themselves.

5. Closing prayer and song.

Adapting the lesson plan to its uses.--It is, of course, evident that lesson plans can be made of all degrees of complexity and completeness.

With a little practice the teacher can easily decide the kind of plan that best suits himself and his particular grade of work. On the one hand, the plan should not be so detailed as to become burdensome to follow in the lesson hour. On the other hand, it should not be so brief and sketchy as not to bring out the significant elements of the lesson.

Different grades of pupils and different subjects will require different lesson plans. It is probable, however, that the three major heads of "Aims," "Material," and "Mode of Procedure" will prove serviceable in all plan making. While the teacher should have his _plan book_ at hand in the recitation, he must not become its slave, nor allow its use to kill spontaneity and responsiveness in his teaching. Both the subject matter and the day's plan should be so well mastered that no more than an occasional glance at the details in the plan book will be required.

Nothing must be allowed to come between the teacher's best personality and his cla.s.s.

1. Have you heard lectures, sermons, or lessons which were constructed after the haphazard plan? Were they easy to follow and to remember? Did they develop a line of thought in a successful way? Do you think that the haphazard type of organization indicates either lack of preparation or lack of ability?

2. Do you definitely try to organize your daily lesson material on a psychological plan? How can you tell whether you have succeeded?

Are you close enough to the minds and hearts of your pupils so that you are able to judge quite accurately the best mode of approach in planning a lesson?

3. Do you study the lesson helps provided with your lesson material? Do you find them helpful? If you find that they are not well adapted to your particular cla.s.s, have you the ability to make the suggestions over to fit your cla.s.s?

4. Do you make a reasonably complete and wholly definite lesson plan for each lesson? Do you keep a plan book, so that you may be able to look back at any time and see just what devices you have used? If you have not done this, will you not start the practice now?

5. What type of lesson material do you use, uniform, graded, or textbook? Are you acquainted with other series or material for the same grades? Would it not be worth your while to secure supplemental material of such kinds?

6. Do you read a journal of Sunday school method dealing with problems of your grade of teaching? If day-school teachers find it worth while to read professional journals, do not church-school teachers need their help as much? If you do not know what journals to secure, your pastor can advise you.

FOR FURTHER READING

Strayer, A Brief Course in the Teaching Process, chapter XVI.

Betts, Cla.s.s Room Method and Management, chapter VIII.

Earhart, Types of Teaching.

CHAPTER IX

THE TECHNIQUE OF TEACHING

Our teaching must be made to stick. None but lasting impressions possess permanent value. The sermons, the lectures, the lessons that we remember and later dwell upon are the ones that finally are built into our lives and that shape our thinking and acting. Impressions that touch only the outer surfaces of the mind are no more lasting than writing traced on the sand. Truths that are but dimly felt or but partially grasped soon fade away, leaving little more effect than the shadows which are thrown on the picture screen.

Especially do these facts hold for the teacher in the church-school cla.s.s. For the impressions made in the church-school lesson hour bear a larger proportion to the entire result than in the public school. This is because of the nature of the subject we teach, and also because of the fact that most of our pupils come to the cla.s.s with little or no previous study on the lesson material. This leaves them almost completely dependent on the recitation itself for the actual results of their church-school attendance. The responsibility thus placed upon the teacher is correspondingly great, and requires unusual devotion and skill.

ATTENTION TO KEY

The things that impress us, the things that we remember and apply, are the things to which we have attended wholly and completely. The mind may be thought of as a stream of energy. There is only so much volume, so much force that can be brought to bear upon the work in hand. In attention the mind's energy is piled up in a "wave" on the problem occupying our thought, and results follow as they cannot if the stream of mental energy flows at a dead level from lack of concentration.

Or, again, the mind's energy may be likened to the energy of sunlight as it falls in a flood through the window upon our desk. This diffuse sunlight will brighten the desk top and slightly increase its temperature, but no striking effects are seen. But now take this same amount of sun energy and, pa.s.sing it through a lens, focus it on a small spot on the desk top--and the wood bursts almost at once into flame.

What _diffuse_ energy coming from the sun could never do, _concentrated_ energy easily and quickly accomplished. Attention is to the mind's energy what the lens is to the sun's energy. It gathers the mental power into a focus on the lesson to be learned or the truth to be mastered, and the concentrated energy of the mind readily accomplishes results that would be impossible with the mental energy scattered or not directed to the one thing under consideration. The teacher's first and most persistent problem in the recitation is, therefore, to gain and hold the highest possible degree of attention.

Three types of appeal to attention.--We are told that there are three kinds of attention, though this is not strictly true. There is really only one _kind_ of attention, for attention is but the _concentration of the mind's energy on one object or thought_. What is meant is that there are three different _ways of securing_ or appealing to attention. Each type of attention is named in accordance with the kind of compulsion or appeal necessary to command it, as follows:

1. _Involuntary_ attention, or attention that is demanded of us by some sudden or startling stimulus, as the stroke of a bell, the whistle of a train, an aching tooth, the teacher rapping on the desk with a ruler.

2. _Nonvoluntary_, or spontaneous, attention that we give easily and naturally, with no effort of self-compulsion. This kind of attention is compelled by _interest_, and, when left unhindered, will be guided by the nature of our interest.

3. _Voluntary_ attention, or attention that is compelled by effort and power of will, and thereby required to concern itself with some particular object of thought when the mind's pull or desire is in another direction.

How each type of attention works.--The first of these types of attention, the _involuntary_, has so little place in education that we shall not need to discuss it here. The teacher who raps the desk, or taps the bell to secure attention which should come from interest must remember that in such case the attention is given to the _stimulus_, that is, to the signal, and not to the lesson, and this very fact makes all such efforts to secure attention a distraction in themselves.

The _spontaneous_, or nonvoluntary, attention that arises from interest is the basis on which all true education and training must be founded.

The mind, and especially the child's mind, is so const.i.tuted that its full power is not brought to bear except under the stimulus and compulsion of interest. It is the story which is so entrancing that we cannot tear ourself away from it, the game which is so exciting as to cause us to forget all else in watching it, the lecture or sermon which is so interesting that we are absorbed in listening to it, that claims our best thought and comprehension. It is when our mind's powers are thus driven by a tidal wave of interest that we are at our best, and that we receive and register the lasting impressions which become a part of our mental equipment and character.

This does not mean, however, that there is no place for _voluntary_ attention in the child's training. For not everything can be made so inviting that the appeal will at all times bring about the concentration necessary. And in any case a part of the child's education is to learn self-direction, self-compulsion, and self-control. There are many occasions when the interest is not sufficient to hold attention steady to the task in hand; it is at this point that voluntary attention should come in to add its help to provide the required effort and concentration. There are many circ.u.mstances under which interest will secure a moderate amount of application of mental energy to the task, but where the will should step in and command an additional supply of effort, and so attain full instead of partial results.

Children should, therefore, be trained to _give_ attention. They should be taught to take and maintain the att.i.tude of attention throughout the lesson period, and not be allowed to become listless or troublesome the moment their interest is not held to the highest pitch.

THE APPEAL TO INTEREST

Sometimes we speak of "arousing the child's interest," or of "creating an interest" in a topic we are teaching. Strictly speaking, this is incorrect. The child's interest, when rightly appealed to, does not have to be "aroused," nor does interest have to be "created."

Every normal child is naturally alert, curious, _interested_ in what concerns him. Who has not taken a child for a walk or gone with a group of children on an excursion, and been amazed at their capacity for interest in every object about them and for attention to an endless chain of impressions from their varied environment? Who has not observed children in a game, and noted their complete absorption in its changing aspects? Who has not called a child from an interesting tale in a book he was reading, and found that it required the combined force of our authority and the child's will to break the spell of his interest and separate him from his book? Interest is always ready to flow in resistless current if we can but find the right channel and a way to set it free. When we find our cla.s.s uninterested, therefore, we must first of all seek the explanation not in the children, but in ourselves, our methods, or the matter we teach.

Interest depends on comprehension.--First of all we must remember that _interest never attaches to what the mind does not grasp_. Go yourself and listen to the technical lecture you do not understand, or try to read the book that deals with matters concerning which you have no information; then apply the results of your experience to the case of the child. The matter we teach the child must have sufficient connection with his own experience, be sufficiently close to the things he knows and cares about, so that he has a basis on which to comprehend them. The _new_ must be related to something _old and familiar_ in the mind to meet a warm welcome.

If we would secure the child's interest, we must make certain of a "point of contact" in his own life and meet him on the plane of his own experience. G.o.d smiling in the sunshine, making the flowers grow or whispering in the breeze is closer to the child than G.o.d as "Creator."

G.o.d protecting and watching over the child timid and afraid in the dark is more real than G.o.d in his heaven as "protector." We must remember that not what _we_ feel is of value, but _what the child feels is of value_ is what will appeal to his interest and attention. And no exertion or agonizing on our part will create interest in the child in matters for which his own understanding and experience have not fitted him. For example, probably no child is ever interested in learning the church catechism or Bible verses which we prize so highly, but which he can not understand nor apply; he may be interested in a prize to be had at the end of the learning, but in this case the interest is in the reward and not in the matter learned. _Empty words devoid of meaning never fire interest nor kindle enthusiasm._

Interest attaches to action.--Children are interested more in action, deeds, and events than in motives, reasons, and explanations. They care more for the uses to which objects are to be put than for the objects themselves.

No boy is interested in a bicycle chiefly as an example of mechanical skill, but, rather, as a means of locomotion. No girl is interested in dolls just as dolls, nor as a product of the toy maker's skill, but to play with. It is this quality that makes children respond to the story, for the story deals with action instead of with explanation and description. In the story there is life and movement, and not reasoning and mere a.s.sertion. The story presents the lesson in terms of deeds and events, instead of by means of abstract statement and formal conclusion.