Training the Teacher Part 32

They will not long abide a dull and dreary dragging over a subject--be it ever so fruitful in guidance.

#7. Love.#--The teacher must be a sincere _lover of childhood_ and _of the Master_. In the final chapter of the great Gospel by John, Jesus examines Peter and indicates the basis of great teaching power. It is well to study this narrative carefully. Picture Peter, at the dawn, weary and disheartened, coming from his fishless quest. The Master meets him and asks him but one question, but he asks that question three times, and each time he follows Peter's reply with the command "Feed." The lesson is plain--he that loves most feeds best, and the measure of one's power to teach the truth of G.o.d to his children is the measure of one's love for the Master Teacher. Where there is no love there can be no great teaching.

Test Questions

1. What should be counted a vital part of the teacher's equipment?

2. Is it true that teachers are "born," not "made"? Give two reasons for your answer.

3. Name two ways in which a teacher can be a living example.

4. What are some of the evidences of a teacher's enthusiasm?

5. Whose point of view must the teacher take?

6. What manner and method in teaching do pupils like?

7. What is the measure of one's power to teach the truth of G.o.d to His children?

Lesson 2

What the Teacher Should Know

#8. He Must Have, before He Can Give.#--We can give only what we possess. This law holds throughout. Peter understood this when he made the memorable reply to the beggar's request for alms: "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee." It follows that whatever we wish the pupil to know the teacher should also know, and he should know more than he can hope to teach.

#9. He Should Know His Bible.#--What do we wish the pupil to learn?

Answering this will answer in part the question, What should the teacher know? Manifestly, then, the teacher should be familiar with the Bible. How very fragmentary and unsatisfactory our knowledge of the great Book is until we have studied it in a definite and systematic way--in the way we study our history or our geography. The teacher should at least know the salient features of the incomparable Text and should have well fixed in memory many of the great utterances that lie like flecks of gold upon its sunny pages.

#10. Clear and Related Knowledge.#--But the teacher should know in a more connected and also in a more detailed way the truths of the Book.

The pupil's knowledge should be _clear_, by which one means that he should know a thing and not some other thing in its stead; and a teacher's knowledge should be not only clear but _related_, by which one means that he should know a thing in its relation to all other things with which it is vitally connected. This makes for system in knowledge, and gives the teacher the power to teach each fact with its due emphasis, no more and no less. Some writers on education call this kind of knowing _apperception_, by which they mean seeing a thing in its proper system and in its due relations. To say that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, that he lived in Nazareth, that he was crucified on Calvary, and that he arose from the dead on the third day, as he said he would, is clear knowledge. To see Jesus as the fulfilment of prophecy, as the promised King, as the leader of his people, as a teacher with more than human insight, as the founder of a church, and as the pattern and perfection of all endeavor, is _related_ knowledge; it is seeing Jesus as part of a great system of purpose that swept into time by the will of G.o.d.

#11.# It is well also for the teacher to possess #adequate# knowledge; he should be able to separate a fact into its parts; that is, a.n.a.lyze it. This a.n.a.lytic power makes for vivid teaching but it is a power that the pupil in his early years cannot acquire. Only the mature mind is a.n.a.lytic, and the teacher who knows how to a.n.a.lyze a fact or a lesson knows the secret of proportion in teaching, the power to know what to make emphatic, what to make subordinate. It is a poor teacher who is unable to distinguish between a vital element and a non-vital element.

#12. Related Subjects.#--The teacher should also know such related subjects as will best enable him to make clear each point under treatment in the lesson. A teacher should have a working knowledge of biblical geography and of sacred antiquities. He should know how to use a concordance, how to work up cross-references, how to interpret peculiar idioms, and in general how to use the text of the Bible in the most effective manner. He should know the general principles of organization pursued in a modern Sunday-school, together with the outlines of the history of the church, and should have a general knowledge of the translations of the Bible into the English language.

#13. Thinking Principles.#--In addition to the subject-matter, the teacher should know something of the laws of thought, and the best way to use knowledge as an agency in _forming_ these laws of thought. All these laws are scheduled in any elementary treatise on psychology, and the best method of using knowledge to train the soul is set forth in any good treatise on pedagogy. Thus to a knowledge of the subject-matter the teacher must add a knowledge of psychology and of pedagogy. Scholarship alone is not the test of a good teacher.

#14.# If one reflects for a time upon his own methods of acquiring knowledge, he will begin to understand the operations of the human soul. When one reads that knowledge enters the soul only through the special senses, or that ideas may be recalled by memory, it is of the utmost importance that he should ask himself the question: What do these statements mean? An ill.u.s.tration will help to answer this question: I know that fire will burn my hand; the knowledge of this fact entered my consciousness through the sense of touch, and my memory recalls it.

#15. Teaching Principles.#--When the laws of soul growth are fairly well understood, it is time to investigate the principles of pedagogy, the laws that govern the teacher in the act of using knowledge to occasion activity in the soul of a learner. For the laws of teaching rest upon the laws of the soul. We cannot know how to proceed in the teaching process until we know how the soul acts under given conditions.

#16.# This act of teaching is a vastly significant one. It results in changing the viewpoint of the pupil's life. It should produce in his soul new knowledge, or power, or skill, or all of these combined.

Consider well, teacher, what this means. How the child is taught determines in no small way how he will in the years to come regard his fellow-man, his country, his church, his own duty, and his loyalty to all that makes for progress in the life that is hid with Christ in G.o.d.

#17.# There are certain educational principles of great value to the teacher. Consider what it means to adapt knowledge to the capacity of the learner, or what it means to secure interest in the learner, or what it means to proceed from the simple to the complex in teaching, and you will begin to understand something of the power of right activities in the recitation.

Test Questions

1. What is the pre-requisite for giving?

2. What is the least the teacher must know about the Bible?

3. In what way should the teacher's knowledge of the Book be superior to the pupil's?

4. What does _apperception_ mean? Ill.u.s.trate the word.

5. Give instances of the kind of _related_ knowledge that the teacher should have.

6. By what means does knowledge enter the soul?

7. What should the act of teaching produce in the soul of the pupil?

Lesson 3

What the Teacher Should Do

#18.# The teacher must have a #purpose#, must see the end of the teaching process, and the way to that end. Then he should endeavor in the best way to reach that goal. The goal is to _achieve in the pupil the highest type of religious conduct_: not a religious feeling nor a religious thought system; but feeling and thought crystallized into character, the standard coin of the soul. All the efforts of the teacher must be directed to the attainment of this purpose. Otherwise the recitation will be aimless and the result failure.

#19.# The teacher must have a #plan# of procedure in advance of the recitation. This plan he should map out carefully, and then on his knees ask G.o.d if it is the best plan. To plan carefully and then to execute skilfully is the prime test of teaching. This plan must include a study of each pupil as well as a study of each lesson. It is at this point that so many teachers go wrong. They seem to think that a knowledge of the lesson is the only preparation required. They overlook the fact that it is vastly more important _to know the pupil than it is to know the lesson_. Those that know the subject-matter only are scholars, not teachers. Those that add to their knowledge of the subject-matter a clear insight into the operations of their pupils' minds and also comprehend the fine art of fitting knowledge to the capacity of the learner, are the only real teachers.

#20.# The teacher must be #ready to change his plan# if it does not meet the conditions that arise in the cla.s.s; but this is a critical procedure, and only the wise teacher may follow it with success. The teacher must not allow pupils to lead him into by-paths. Here tact and skill are of use in leading the cla.s.s to the teacher's will and to the teacher's plan. The teacher's will must be supreme in it all. I have seen great opportunities lost absolutely because a weak teacher allowed the lesson to drift at the caprice of a pupil instead of following a well-conceived plan. A group of boys once told me that they did not need to prepare the Sunday-school lesson because they always asked the teacher some questions at the opening of the recitation, and the teacher took the entire time to discuss the questions. The pupils, the while, sat in their places smiling at the weakness of a teacher who lacked the discernment necessary to be master of the situation. The time given to the legitimate work of instruction is all too brief to be wasted in any such senseless ways.

#21.# The teacher must be alert and #lead the recitation#. This quality of leadership challenges interest and carries the pupil with a sweep of enthusiasm to the end. To lead most wisely is so to direct the current of thought as if it were not directed. The highest art in teaching is to conceal that art, to guide by suggestion and not by command.

#22.# The teacher will strive to secure a major part of the #discussion from the pupil#. He will know when not to talk. It must not be forgotten that it is the thing the teacher causes the pupil to do, not the thing the teacher does in the presence of the pupil, that is most significant. Many a cla.s.s is talked into mental stupor and spiritual indifference. A garrulous teacher is an abomination.

#23.# A wise teacher will #work for his pupils#. His aim will be steadily to aid them out of cla.s.s as well as in cla.s.s. I know a teacher who meets his cla.s.s occasionally for a social hour in an informal way. The boys of that cla.s.s are enthusiastic believers in their teacher and in the power of practical Christian fellowship. Look into the Elder Brother movement, the value of an organized cla.s.s, and kindred movements that give the teacher the power to direct conduct in the pupil. Here you will find the key to many successful avenues of usefulness to the pupil. The significance of all this lies in the general value of a teacher who by word and by deed makes easy the way of the pupil to the Master.

#24.# A good teacher will know when #to commend# and when not to commend. He will not open himself to the criticism that his praise is overdue; nor will he, on the other hand, constantly scold and complain and nag his pupils. He will insist upon order and industry and will labor a.s.siduously to arouse enthusiasm in the cla.s.s. He will constantly endeavor to see things from the pupils' point of view and sympathize with the pupils' plan of thought. He will not forget that he was once a child, and he will steadily pray for that wise charity that knows the difference between childish caprice and youthful viciousness. He will not seriously regard the former; he will not fail to check and rebuke the latter.

#25.# A wise teacher will #aim at a few things# and bend his energies to achieve them. He will not dissipate his power by undertaking to do too many things. He will fix upon some dominant purpose and cause it to run like a thread of gold throughout the recitation. I once heard a preacher begin his discourse with the Garden of Eden and end it with the New Jerusalem. He said so many things in an unrelated way that his effort was wholly wasted. It is a mark of weakness to engage in mental sauntering. The wise teacher will hold a thought before his pupils until, like a jewel, it flashes light from every facet. He will also use the best things done by some one pupil to stimulate like results in others. Above all, a consecrated teacher will not grow weary in well doing, for he should have an unflinching faith in G.o.d, in his pupil, and in the power of his teaching to produce Christian character.

Test Questions

1. What is the teacher's goal?

2. At what point in the teaching plan do many teachers go wrong?