SUNDAY-SCHOOL SECTION.
LESSON VII.—THE TEACHING PROCESS.—ADAPTATION.
There are certain heresies of common speech. One is, that a man can be only what he is born to be. Apply it to the teacher’s art and it is a heresy. The majority of men and women can become teachers if only they will be at pains to become familiar with the secrets of the science, study with care the best models in books, and as often as may be come into contact with the best living teachers. There is such a thing as the teaching process. We outline some needful steps in that process. The first is adaptation. By it we do not mean the adaptation of the lesson to the pupil; that belongs to the teacher’s preparation. We mean adaptation of the teacher to the pupil; such a coming together of teacher and pupil as shall cause them to agree, be in harmony, fit to—that is, be adapted to each other. This adaptation must be,
1. In the matter of knowledge. The teacher knows much more than the pupil. His knowledge is his treasury. From it he draws in his work as a teacher. That which he draws must be fitted to his pupil’s want, else it is valueless. He must therefore learn what the pupil knows, and work along the line of that knowledge. In such a process they become companions, and the teacher can lead the pupil almost at will. With adaptation of knowledge—progress: without it—nothing.
2. In the matter of personality. The teacher and pupil who meet but once each week, must meet on the plane of a common personality, or their meeting will be vain. This is something finer than adaptation of knowledge to knowledge. It is adaptation of heart to heart. It makes teacher and pupil for the time of their intercourse in class absolutely one. Teacher and pupil forget that either one or the other, no matter which, is either rich or poor, well or ill dressed, old or young, graceful or awkward, wise or ignorant, clever or stupid, and remember only that each is the other’s hearty friend. This is one of the highest possible acquirements of the teacher’s art, and the one who possesses it has the gift of soul-winning.
3. In the matter of thought. As the former is the secret of soul-winning, this is the secret of soul-feeding. The average scholar is a poor thinker. He thinks that he thinks, but his is not his teacher’s thinking. It is the ploughing of the ancients. It only scratches the surface of the soil: and the human heart is too hard and barren to be made productive of divine fruit by any such process. This essential goes deeper than the other two. Its burden is to answer how shall the pupil be brought to think on Bible themes as the teacher thinks. This is the teacher’s most difficult problem. Its solution is possible through community of thought, or an adaptation of the teacher’s way of thinking to the pupil’s way of thinking.
The three essentials enumerated are possible,
1. Through a close and intimate acquaintance with the pupil. (a) Socially; (b) religiously; (c) literarily; (d) in business relations; (e) Biblically. Let the student give a reason why knowledge in these particulars would bring teacher and pupil together.
2. Through personal sympathy with the pupil in (a) cares; (b) hopes; (c) fears; (d) temptations; (e) joys; (f) pursuits. Let the student give an illustration showing how adaptation of person to person could be produced by such sympathies.
3. Through occasional study with the pupil of the appointed Bible lesson—to show how (a) to select the most available part for study; (b) to arrange it harmoniously; (c) to outline it; (d) to show its relations to other scriptures; (e) to trace its historic connections; (f) to understand its obscure allusions or phrases. Let the student show that adaptation of thought to thought or mutuality of thought would result from such study.
LESSON VIII.—THE TEACHING PROCESS—APPROACH.
A second needful step in the teaching process is approach: not the approach of teacher to pupil simply, but of the teacher to the lesson in the act of teaching. This can therefore be no part of the teacher’s preparation. For this step there is no uniform law. Each teacher’s approach must be his own. What is successful with one will not be with another. An exact copying of methods will be of no avail unless circumstances are exactly alike.
Approach may occupy a large or small portion of the time allotted for teaching. A teacher may be twenty-nine minutes of his half hour making his approach, and in the remaining one minute flash the lesson straight into the center of the pupil’s soul. A teacher may reach his lesson in one minute and spend the whole remaining time in pressing it home to his pupil’s hearts.
Imagine a Sunday-school hour. Picture: A new teacher for the first time with a class. Boys—six; age, fourteen years; unconverted; one dull, one stubborn, one restless, the rest mischievous. Opening exercises finished; lesson read; superintendent announces “Thirty minutes for the lesson.” The teacher alone with the class; four things press on that teacher with a mighty force:
1. Self I. Untaught in teaching, and the center for a circumference of eyes.
2. Need. The power of the word must was never felt before so fully. Here is a lesson to be taught, and the thoughts in the teacher’s mind can only shape themselves into these two words: “I must.”
3. Immediateness. Now. Minutes become small eternities, while the cordon of eyes draws closer. “I must now, at once, teach this lesson,” but
4. How? After all it becomes a mere question of knowledge. There are three elements which enter in to make the answer—
1. How to prepare for the lesson work, making necessary a study of the (a) necessity, (b) nature, and (c) methods of preparation.
2. How to plan the conduct of the lesson, a step which costs (a) earnest thought, (b) fixed purpose, (c) persistent effort, and (d) patient prayer.
3. How to perform. This makes necessary a fertile brain and a ready tact. The actual step-taking on the line of a well-prepared plan consists in (a) using good illustrations; (b) in attracting attention to noticeable things in the text; (c) in exciting curiosity to find things not on the surface; (d) in asking right questions; (e) in using elliptical readings; (f) in working out topical outlines; (g) in concert responses, and (h) in map drawing.
All these are steps toward the real lesson which the teacher would bring to his class.
