5. Dramatic representation can be used as an incentive to the imagination. Children easily and naturally imagine themselves to be some other person, and often play at being nurse or school teacher or doctor or preacher. Nearly every child possesses a large measure of the dramatic impulse, and is something of an actor. It is great fun for children to "tog up" and to "show off" in their play. And not only is all this an expression of imagination actively at work, but such activities are themselves a great stimulus to the imagination. The child who has dressed up as George Washington and impersonated him in some ceremonial or on a public occasion will ever after feel a closer reality in the life and work of Washington than would come from mere reading about him. A group of children who have acted out the story of the good Samaritan will get a little closer to its inner meaning than merely to hear the story told. The girl who has taken the part of Esther appearing before the king in behalf of her people will realize a little more fully from that experience what devotion and courage were required from the real Esther. A class who have participated in a pageant of the Nativity will always be a little nearer to the original event than if their imaginations had not been called upon to make real the characters and incidents.
USING THE MEMORY
The memory should play an important part in religion. Gems from the Bible, stories, characters, and events, inspiring thoughts and maxims, and many other such things should become a permanent part of the furnishing of the mind, recorded and faithfully preserved by the memory.
Laws of use of memory.—The laws by which the memory works have been thoroughly studied and carefully described, and should be fully understood by every teacher. Further than this, they should be faithfully observed in all memory work. These laws may be stated as follows:
1. The law of complete registration. The first act in the memory process is fully and completely to register, or learn, the matter to be retained. The retention can never be better than the registration of the facts given into the memory's keeping. Half-learned matter easily slips away, never having been completely impressed on the mind. It is possible to lose both effort and efficiency by committing a verse of a poem barely up to the point where it can doubtfully be repeated instead of giving it the relatively small amount of additional study and practice which would register it firmly and completely. Whatever is worth committing to memory should therefore be carried past the barely known stage and committed fully and completely.
2. The law of multiple association. This only means that the new facts learned shall be related as closely as may be to matter already in the mind. And this is equivalent to saying that the material learned shall be understood, its meaning grasped and its significance comprehended. To understand for yourself the value of association, make this experiment: Have some one write down a list of ten unrelated words in a column, and hold the list before you while you have time to read it over just once slowly and carefully. Now try repeating the words in order from memory. Next, have your friend write ten other words which this time form a connected sentence. After reading these words over once as you did the first list, try repeating them in order. You find that you have much trouble to memorize the first list, while the second presents no difficulty at all. The difference lies in the fact that the words of the first list were unrelated, lacking all associative connections with each other, while those of the second list formed a connected chain of associations.
It is possible to give the child biblical or other matter to memorize that has little more meaning to him than the list of unrelated words have to us. For example, this text is required of primary and junior children in a lesson series: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." And this: "Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of need." It is evident that younger children could by no possibility understand either of these beautiful passages, and hence in committing them will only be learning so many unrelated words.
The same is true of church catechisms. The memorizing of such material will be difficult and unpleasant, and no value will come from it. The most likely outcome of such ill-advised requirements is to discourage the child and make him dislike the church school and all its work. It is not to be expected that the child will understand the full meaning of every bit of matter suitable for him to memorize; this will have to await broader experience and fuller development. The material should, however, be sufficiently comprehended that its general meaning is clear and its significance understood.
3. The law of vividness of impression. The relation of vividness of impression to learning has already been discussed in another chapter. In no one of the mind's activities is vividness a more important factor than in memorizing. Matter committed under the stimulus of high interest and keen attention is relatively secure, while matter committed under slack concentration is sure to fade quickly from the memory. Songs can therefore best be committed under the elation of the interesting singing of the words; a verse of poetry, when the mind is alert and the feelings aroused by a story in which the sentiment of the verse fits; a prayer when the spirit of devotion has been quickened by worship. To insure full vividness the imagination must also be called upon to picture and make real such parts of memory material as contain imagery.
4. The law of repetition. For most minds memory depends on repetition. The impressions must be deepened and made lasting by being stamped again and again on the mind. The neurons of the brain which do the work of retaining and recalling must be made to repeat the process over and over until their action is secure. It is therefore not enough to make sure that the child has his memory material committed for this particular Sunday. If the matter was worth committing in the first place, it is worth keeping permanently. If it is to be kept permanently, it must be frequently reviewed; for otherwise it will surely be forgotten. It is to be feared that much, if not most, of the matter memorized by the pupils in many church schools lasts only long enough to show the teacher that it has once been learned, and that not many children know in any permanent sense the Bible passages they have committed. In so far as this is true it would be much better to select a smaller amount of the choicest and best adapted material to be found, and then so thoroughly teach this that it is permanently retained.
5. The law of wholes instead of parts. Many persons in setting at work to commit a poem, a Bible passage, a psalm have a tendency to learn it first by verses or sections and then, put the parts together to form the whole. Tests upon the memory have shown, that this is a less economical and efficient method than from the first to commit the material as a whole. This method requires that we go over all of it completely from beginning to end, then over it again, and so on until we can repeat much of it without reference to the text. We then refer to the text for what the memory has not yet grasped, requiring the memory to repeat all that has been committed, until the whole is in this manner fully learned. The method of learning by wholes not only requires less time and effort, but gives a better sense of unity in the matter committed.
6. The law of divided practice. If to learn a certain piece of material the child must go over it, say, fifteen times, the results are much better if the whole number of repetitions are not carried out at one time. Time seems necessary to give the associations an opportunity to set up their relationships; also, the interval between repetitions allows the parts that are hardest to commit to begin fading out, and thereby reveal where further practice is demanded. Where songs, Bible verses, or other material are committed in the lesson hour, provision ought to be made for the children to continue study and practice on the material at home during the week. The so-called cramming process of learning will not work any better in the church school than in the day-school lessons.
7. The law of motivation. Like other activities of the mind, memory works best under the stimulus of some appealing motive. The very best possible motive is, of course, an interest in and love for the matter committed. This kind of response can hardly be expected, however, in all of the material children are asked to commit. It is necessary to use additional motives to secure full effort. The approval of the teacher and parents, the child's standing in the class, and his own sense of achievement are some of the motives that should be employed.
A very powerful motive not always sufficiently made use of is the wider social motive that comes from working in groups for a particular end. For example, a school or class pageant based on some biblical story or religious event has the effect of centralizing effort and stimulating endeavor to a degree impossible in individual work. Hymns and songs are committed, Bible passages or other religious material learned, stories mastered, characters studied and their words committed under the stress of an immediate need for them in order to take one's part in a social group and prove one's mastery before an audience of interested listeners. The church school can with great advantage centralize more of its religious memory work in preparation for such special occasions as Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, or other church celebrations or pageants.
1. What reasons can you give why children should be taught to think in their study of religion just as in the study of any other subject? Do you find a thoughtful attitude on the part of your class? What methods do you use to encourage reverent thinking in religion?
2. One thinks best in connection with some question or problem which he wishes to have answered. Do you plan in connection with your preparation of the lesson to bring out some definite problem suited to the age of your class and help your pupils think it through to a solution?
3. What evidences can you suggest from your class work which show that children readily think upon any problem that interests them? Have your pupils asked questions showing that they are thinking? When such questions are asked, how do you treat them?
4. What lessons of recent date in your work have you in mind which especially required the use of imagination? Can you judge the degree to which the descriptive parts of the lessons appeal to your pupils as real?
5. How successfully do you feel that you are applying the principles for the use of the imagination? Do you definitely seek to apply these principles in your lessons? Which of these is probably the hardest to apply? What is your method of seeking its application?
6. Are your pupils good in memory work? Do you ever give them material to memorize the meaning of which is not wholly clear to them? What help do you give the children when you assign them memory work? Do you instruct them how to memorize what you assign? To what extent are you following the laws of memory as stated in the chapter?
FOR FURTHER READING
Betts, The Mind and Its Education.
Dewey, How We Think.
Coe, Education in Religion and Morals.
CHAPTER XI
TYPES OF TEACHING
One of the surest tests of the skillful teacher is his ability to adapt his instruction to the child, to the subject matter, and to the occasion—that is, to the aim. Teaching must differ in its type with the age; the primary child and the older youth require different methods. It must differ with the kind of material to be presented; a lesson whose chief aim is to give information must be differently presented from a lesson whose aim is to enforce some moral or religious truth. It must differ with the occasion; a lesson taught a group of children who have had no previous study or preparation on it will demand different treatment from a lesson which has had careful study.
Types of lessons.—Several clearly recognized types of lessons are commonly employed by teachers in both school and church-school classes. No one of these lesson types can be said to be best in the sense that it should be used to the exclusion of the others. All are required. Several may even be employed in the same recitation period. The teacher should, however, know which type he is employing at any given stage of his instruction, and why he is using this type in preference to another type of teaching. The following are the chief lesson types that will be found serviceable in most church school classes:
1. The informational lesson; in which the immediate aim is to supply the mind with new knowledge or facts needed as a part of the equipment of thought and understanding.
2. The developmental (or inductive) lesson; in which the aim is to lead the child through his own investigation and thinking to use the information already in his possession as a basis for discovering new truth or meaning.
3. The application (or deductive) lesson; in which the aim is to make application of some general truth or lesson already known to particular problems or cases.
4. The drill lesson; in which the aim is to give readiness and skill in fundamental facts or material that should be so well known as to be practically automatic in thought or memory.
5. The appreciation lesson; in which the aim is to create a response of warmth and interest toward, or appreciation of, a person, object, situation, or the material studied.
6. The review lesson; in, which the aim is to gather up, relate, and fix more permanently in the mind the lessons or facts that have been studied.
7. The assignment lesson; in which help is rendered and interest inspired, for study of the next lesson.
THE INFORMATIONAL LESSON
The child at the beginning is devoid of all knowledge of and information about the many objects, activities, and relationships that fill his world. He must come to know these. His mind can develop no faster than it has the materials for thoughts, memories, ideas, and whatever else is to occupy his stream of thought. He must therefore be supplied with information. He must be given a fund of impressions, of facts, of knowledge to use in his thinking, feeling, and understanding.
To undertake to teach the child the deeper meanings and relationships of God to our lives without this necessary background of information is to confuse him and to fail ourselves as teachers. For example, a certain primary lesson leaflet tells the children that the Egyptians made slaves out of the Israelites and that God led the Israelites out of this slavery. But there had previously been no adequate preparation of the learners' minds to understand who the Israelites or the Egyptians were, nor what slavery is. The children lacked all basis of information to understand the situation described, and it could by no possibility possess meaning for them.
The use of the information lesson.—It is not meant, of course, that when the chief purpose of a lesson is to give information no applications should be made or no interpretations given of the matter presented. Yet the fact is that often the chief emphasis must be placed on information, and that for the moment other aims are secondary. To illustrate: When young children are first told the story of God creating the world the main purpose of the lesson is just to give them the story, and not to attempt instruction as to the power and wonder of creative wisdom, nor even at this time to stress the seventh day as a day of rest. When the story of Moses bringing his people out of Egypt is told young children, the providence of God will be made evident, but the facts of the story itself and its enjoyment just as a story should not in early childhood be overshadowed by attempting to force the moral and religious applications too closely.
It even happens that the indirect lesson, in which the child is left to see for himself the application and meaning, is often the most effective to teaching. The same principle holds when, later in the course, the youth is first studying in its entirety the life of Jesus. The main thing is to get a sympathetic, reverent, connected view of Jesus's life as a whole. There will, of course, be a thousand lessons to be learned and applications to be made from his teachings, but these should rest on a fund of accurate information about Jesus himself and what he taught.
Danger of neglecting information.—It should be clear, then, that in advocating the informational lesson there is no thought of asking that we should teach our children mere facts, or fill their heads with mere information. The intention is, rather, to stress the important truth often seemingly forgotten, that to be intelligent in one's religion there are certain, fundamental things which must be known; that to be a worthy Christian there are certain facts, stories, personages, and events with a knowledge of which the mind must be well furnished. There can be little doubt that the common run of teaching in our church schools has failed to give our children a sufficient basis of information upon which to build their religious experience.
Informational instruction may be combined with other types of lessons, or may be given as separate lessons which stress almost entirely the informational aspect of the material. In the younger classes the information will come to the children chiefly in the form of stories, and the accounts of lives of great men and women. Later in the course, Bible narrative, history, and biography will supply the chief sources of informational material.
THE DEVELOPMENTAL LESSON
It is a safe principle in teaching not to give ready-made to children a fact or conclusion which they can easily be led by questions and suggestions to discover for themselves. Truths which one has found out for himself always mean more than matter that is dogmatically forced upon him. The pupil who has watched the bees sucking honey from clover blossoms and then going with pollen-laden feet to another blossom, or one who has observed the drifting pollen from orchard or corn field, is better able to understand the fertilization of plants than he would be from any mere description of the process.
On the same principle, the child will get a deeper and more lasting impression of the effects of disobedience if led to see the effect of the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the shame and sorrow and feeling of guilt that came to them, than he will through listening to ever so many impressive assertions on the sin of disobedience. If the concrete lesson is carried over to his own personal experience and his observation of the results of disobedience, and the unhappiness it has brought, the effect is all the greater.
Purpose of the inductive lesson.—The developmental, or inductive, lesson, therefore, seeks to lead the child to observe, discover, think, find out for himself. It begins with concrete and particular instances, but it does not stop with them. It does not at the start force upon the child any rules or general conclusions, but it does seek to arrive at conclusions and rules in the end. For example, the purpose in having the child watch particular bees carrying pollen to blossoms, and in having him observe particular pollen drifting in the wind, is to teach in the end the general truth that certain plants are dependent on insects and others on currents of air for their pollenization.
In similar fashion, the purpose in having the child understand the effects of disobedience in the case of Adam and Eve and in any particular instance in his own experience is to teach the general conclusion that disobedience commonly brings sorrow and trouble. The aim, then, is to arrive at a universal truth of wide application, but to reach it through appealing to the child's own knowledge, experience, and observation. In this way the lesson learned will have more vital meaning and it will be more readily accepted because not forced upon the learner.
Two principles.—Two important principles must be kept in mind in teaching an inductive lesson:
1. A basis or starting point must be found in knowledge or experience already in the learner's possession.
2. The child must have in his mind the question or problem which demands solution.
The first of these principles means that in order for the child to observe, think, discover for himself, he must have a sufficient basis of information from which to proceed. The inductive lesson, therefore, rests upon and starts from the informational lesson. To illustrate, in order to understand and be interested in the work of the bees as pollen-bearers, the child must first know the fact that the blossoming and fruiting of the common plants depend on pollen. The ear of corn which did not properly fill with grains because something happened to prevent pollen grains from reaching the tips of the silks at the right time, or the apple tree barren because it failed from some adverse cause to receive a supply of pollen for its blossoms may properly be the starting point. The problem or question then arising is how pollen grains are carried. With this basis of fact and of question, the child is ready to begin the interesting task of observation and discovery under the direction of the teacher; he is then ready for the inductive lesson, in which he will discover new knowledge by using the information already in his mind.
Conducting the inductive lesson.—In conducting the inductive lesson the teacher must from the beginning have a very clear idea of the goal or conclusion to be reached by the learners. Suppose the purpose is to impress on the children the fact of Jesus's love and care for children. The lesson might start with questions and illustrations dealing with the father's and mother's care and love for each child in the home, and the way these are shown.
Following this would come the story of Jesus rebuking his disciples for trying to send the children away, and his own kindness to the children. Then such questions as these: How did the disciples feel about having the children around Jesus? Why did they tell the children to keep away? Perhaps they were afraid the children would annoy or trouble Jesus. Have you ever known anyone who did not seem to like to have children around him? Does your mother like to have you come and be beside her? What did Jesus say about letting the children come to him? Why do you think Jesus liked to have the children around him? How did Jesus show his love for children? Why do you think the children liked to be with Jesus? Do you think that Jesus loves children as much to-day as when he was upon earth? Do you think he wants children to be good and happy now as he did then? In what ways does Jesus show his love and kindness to children? The impression or conclusion to grow out of these questions and the story is that Jesus loved and cared for children when he was upon earth, and that he loves and cares for them now just as he did then. This will be the goal in the teacher's mind from the beginning of the lesson.
THE DEDUCTIVE, OR APPLICATION, LESSON
Not all teaching can be of the inductive, or discovery, type. It is necessary now and then to start with general truths, rules, or principles and apply them to concrete individual cases. Rules and maxims once understood are often serviceable in working out new problems. The conclusions reached from a study of one set of circumstances can frequently be used in meeting similar situations another time.
For example, the child learns by a study of particular instances the results of disobedience, and finally arrives at the great general truth that disobedience to the laws of nature or of God is followed by punishment and suffering. This fact becomes to him a rule, a principle, a maxim, which has universal application. Once this is understood and accepted, the child is armed with a weapon against disobedience. With this equipment he can say when he confronts temptation: This means disobedience to God's law and the laws of nature; but disobedience to the laws of God and of nature brings punishment and suffering; therefore if I do this thing, I shall be punished, and shall suffer—I will refrain from doing it.
Making the application.—A large part of our instruction in religion must be of the deductive kind. It is impossible, even if it were desirable, to rediscover and develop inductively out of observation and experience all the great moral and religious laws which should govern the life. Many of these come to us ready-made, the result of the aggregate experience of generations of religious living, or the product of God's revelation to men. Consider, for example, such great generalizations as: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also;" "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy"; "No man can serve two masters"; "With what measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you"; "The wages of sin is death."
These are illustrations of the concentrated wisdom of the finest hearts and minds the world has seen, words spoken by Inspiration, but true to the experience of every person. It is our part as teachers to make the great fundamental moral and religious laws which underlie our lives living truths to our pupils. To do this we must not teach such truths as mere abstractions, but show them at work in the lives of men and women and of boys and girls. We must find illustrations, we must make applications, and discover examples of proof and verification.
Teaching that fails from lack of applying truth.—The object, then, of the inductive lesson is to lead the learner to discover truth; the object of the deductive lesson is to lead him to apply truth. There can be little doubt that much of our teaching of religion suffers from failure to make immediate and vital application of the truths we teach. When we teach the youth that no man can serve two masters, we should not be satisfied until we have shown him the proof of this truth at work in the everyday experience of men. When we teach him that the wages of sin is death, we must not stop with the mere statement of fact, but lead him to recognize the effects of sin's work in broken lives and ruined careers.
Nor should we confine our proofs and illustrations to examples taken from the Bible, valuable as these are. Too many, perhaps half unconsciously to themselves, carry the impression that religion belongs rather more to Bible times and peoples than to ourselves. Too many assent to the general truth of religion and the demands it puts on our lives, but fail to make a sufficiently immediate and definite application of its requirements to their own round of daily living. Too many think of the divine law as revealed in the Scriptures as having a historical significance rather than a present application. One of the tasks of deductive teaching is to cure this fatal weakness in the study of religion.
THE DRILL LESSON
Teaching religion does not require as large a proportion of drill as many other subjects. This is because the purpose of drill is to make certain matter automatic in the mind, or to train definite acts to a high degree of skill. For example, the child must come to know his multiplication table readily, "without thinking"; he must come to be able to write or spell or count or manipulate the keys of a typewriter without directing his attention to the acts required. Wherever automatic action or ready skill is required, there drill is demanded. Drill provides for the repetition of the mental or physical act until habit has made it second nature and it goes on practically doing itself. There is no way to get a high degree of skill without drill, for the simple reason that the brain requires a certain amount of repeated action before it can carry out the necessary operations without error and without the application of conscious thought.
Drill lessons in the church school.—While the church-school teacher will not require so much use of drill as the day-school teacher, it is highly essential that drill shall not be omitted at points where it is needed. There are some things which the child should learn very thoroughly and completely in his study of religion. He should know a few prayers by heart, so that their words come to him naturally and easily when he desires to use them. He should know the words and music of certain songs and hymns suited to his age. He should learn certain Bible passages of rare beauty, and other sentiments, verses, and poems found outside the Bible. He should come, as a matter of convenience and skill, to know the names and order of the books of the Bible. In some churches he is required to know the catechism. Whatever of such material is to be mastered fully and completely must receive careful drill.
Principles for conducting the drill.—The first step in a successful drill lesson is to supply a motive for the drill. This is necessary in order to secure alertness and effort. Mere repetition is not drill. Monotonous going over the words of a poem or the list of books of the Bible with wandering or slack attention will fail of results. The learner must be keyed up, and give himself whole-heartedly to the work. Let the child come to feel a real need of mastery, and one great motive is supplied. Let him desire the words of the song because he is to sing in the chorus, or desire the words of the poem because he is to take part in a pageant, and there will be little trouble about willingness to drill.
Again, the competitive impulse can often be used to motivate drill. The child is ambitious to stand at the head of his class, or to beat his own record of performance, or to win the appreciation or praise of teacher or parents, or he has a pride in personal achievement—these are all worthy motives, and can be made of great service in conducting classroom or individual drills. The posting of a piece of good work done by a pupil, or calling attention to the good performance of a member of the class can often be made an incentive to the whole number.