Stories from the olden time: Teacher's text book, course IV, part I

by Josephine L. Baldwin

The Junior Course

Arrangement of Material

In the Graded System the Junior Course follows the two-years Beginners’ Course and the three-years Primary Course. In those earlier years the stories are not chosen chronologically but are grouped under themes. The sense of time dawns when the child is about nine years old, therefore the Graded Lessons for the Juniors are arranged chronologically, at first by periods and later in a straight chronological course from the Conquest of Canaan to the end of New Testament History.

The Aims

The aim for the Junior lessons as a whole is:

To help the child to become a doer of the Word, and to lead him into conscious loyalty to Jesus Christ.

The aims for each of the four years are these:

1. To awaken an interest in the Bible, and love for it; to deepen the impulse to choose and to do the right.

2. To present the ideal of moral heroism; to reveal the power and majesty of Jesus Christ, and to show his followers going forth in his strength to do his work.

3. To deepen the sense of responsibility for right choices; to show the consequences of right and wrong choices; to strengthen love of the right and hatred of the wrong.

4. To present Jesus as our Example and Saviour; to show that the Christian life is a life of service; to deepen interest in the Book which contains God message to the world.

In the first year all but eight of the fifty-two lessons are the elemental stories taken from the first five books of the Bible. This is as it should be, for these stories appeal more strongly at this time than at any later period. As the first twenty-six lessons are found in the book of Genesis the stories are easy to find and the child is not perplexed and confused by having to search for the one he wants among many books with unfamiliar and difficult names. He is led by easy stages in his Bible readings, and through the charm of the stories, together with his growing ability to handle the book in which they are found, the child not only becomes interested in the Bible but learns to love it.

The second part of the aim implies obedience, and that may be said to be the key-word of this year’s work. (See the Junior motto and verse for the year on the inside of front cover of the Work Book.) With these children, it is largely the absolute obedience of the immature. This form of obedience is a temporary virtue which must eventually be lost in self-control. But no one can attain the most perfect self-mastery who has not first learned to yield obedience to rightful authority. The transfer of the seat of authority from without to within should keep pace with the child’s growth in knowledge, in emotional balance and control, in moral strength, and in the ability to form accurate judgments. The teacher’s aim is to bring the child’s will into line with God’s will for him.

The Correlated Lesson

In the Junior period it is essential that two lessons be given every week, the one the regular lesson in the Junior Graded Series and the other a lesson dealing with the more mechanical part of the instruction. This is called the Correlated Lesson because it is closely related to the main lesson. The reason for having it is that during the Junior period there is a large amount of information which must be given in order that the pupils may grasp the truths in the lesson stories and learn how to handle the Bible with ease.

In the first year the books and divisions of the Bible must be taught. In the other years Bible geography becomes increasingly important as a background for the lessons, and this is the time when it should be studied; for the sense of location dawns at about the ninth year and the interest in geography is at its highest during the Junior period. Some knowledge of the manners and customs of Bible lands is necessary for an understanding of many of the stories. All through the Junior period are required frequent drills on essential facts and all material for memorization in order that those things may be permanently held in memory.

A Junior child cannot profitably pay attention to one subject for more than twenty minutes consecutively. The lesson story on any given Sunday requires that much time, so it would be impossible to combine with it in one Junior lesson period the necessary correlated information. Fifteen minutes should be devoted to the Correlated Lesson, preferably the first quarter of the Sunday-school hour, to be followed by the service of worship and all the other exercises, leaving the last twenty minutes for the lesson of the day.

In schools where this plan is followed and the lessons are well taught, the memory texts are both learned and remembered. The children are familiar with Bible lands and can associate events with the places where they occurred. They understand the strange customs of Bible times and therefore are not puzzled by accounts that would otherwise be unintelligible. They know the Bible as a book and can find references easily. The upper grade Juniors can find a score of the great passages in the Bible without having the reference given. In schools where the correlated lessons are not taught the children are not only ignorant of many things they ought to know, but do not gain the benefit that they should get from the course of study.