How to Teach Religion / Principles and Methods

by George Herbert Betts

The response of interest.—Are the children interested? While, as we have seen, the atmosphere or spirit of the classroom supplies the condition necessary to successful work, interest supplies the motive force. For interest is the mainspring of action. A child may politely listen, or from a sense of courtesy or good will sit quietly passive and not disturb others, but this does not meet the requirement. His thought, interest, and enthusiasm must be centered on the matter in hand. He must withdraw his attention from all wandering thoughts, passing fancies, distracting surroundings, and concentrate upon the lesson itself. There is no substitute for this. There is no possibility of making lasting impressions on a mind with its energies dispersed through lack of attention. And there is no possibility of securing fruitful attention without interest.

Interest therefore becomes a primary consideration in our teaching of religion. The teacher must constantly ask himself: "What is the state of my pupils' interest? How completely am I commanding their enthusiasm? Suppose I were to grade them on a scale with complete-indifference as the interest zero, and with the 'exploding-point'-of-enthusiasm as the highest interest mark, where would the score mark of my class stand? And if I cannot reasonably hope to keep my class at the high-water mark of interest at all times, what shall I call an attainable standard? If one hundred per cent is to represent the supreme achievement of interest, shall I be satisfied with fifty per cent, with twenty-five per cent, or with complete indifference? If the minds of my pupils can receive and retain lasting impressions only under the stimulus of the higher range of interest, in how far am I now making lasting impressions on my class? In short, is the interest attitude of my class as good as I can make it?"

The sense of victory.—Is there a feeling of confidence and mastery? Do the children understand what they are asked to learn? Without this the attitude toward the class hour cannot be good, for the mind is always ill at ease when forced to work upon matter it cannot grasp nor assimilate. Nor is it possible to secure full effort without a reasonable degree of mastery. The feeling of confidence and assurance that comes from successful achievement increases the amount of power available. The victorious army or the winning football team is always more formidable than the same organization when oppressed and disheartened by continued defeat.

If the task is interesting, children do not ask that it shall be easy. Once catch their enthusiasm and they will exert their powers to the full, and take joy in the effort. But the effort must be accompanied by a sense of victory and achievement. There must always be immediately ahead the possibility of winning over the difficulties of their lessons. Except in rare moments of emotional exaltation the most heroic of us are not capable of hurling our best strength against obstacles upon whose resistance we make no impression. And the child possesses almost none of this quality. Without a measurable degree of success in what he attempts to learn his morale suffers, enthusiasm fails, and discouragement creeps in to sap his powers.

Kept in the presence of mental tasks he cannot master nor understand, the child will soon lose interest and anticipation in his work. Without mastery intellectual defeat comes to be accepted and expected, and the child forms the fatal habit of submission and giving up. Because he expects defeat from the lesson before him, the learner is already defeated; because he has not learned to look for victory in his study, he will never find it.

Preventing the habit of defeat.—This is all to say that in teaching the child religion we must not constantly confront him with matter that is beyond his grasp and understanding. That we are doing this in some of our lesson systems there can be no doubt. The result is seen in the child's hazy and indefinite ideas about religion; in a later astonishing lack of interest in the problems of religion on the part of adults; in the child's unwillingness to undertake the study of his lessons for the Sunday school; in the fact that to many children the Sunday school lesson hour is a task and a bore; and in the fact that the Sunday school does not in a large degree continue to hold the loyalty of its members after they have reached the age of deciding for themselves whether they will attend. Fundamental to all successful classroom results with children are enjoyment, interest, and mastery. How these are to be secured will be developed further as the text proceeds.

ATTITUDES THAT CARRY INTO LIFE BEYOND THE SCHOOL

The great problem of every teacher is to make sure that the effects of his instruction reach beyond the classroom. While the immediate attitudes of the classroom are the first great care, they are but the beginning. Growing out of the work of the church school must be a more permanent set of attitudes that underlie life itself, give foundation to character, and in large degree determine the trend and outcome of achievement. The cultivation of moral and religious attitudes is probably the most important aim for the Sunday school. As already explained, the word "attitudes" is used to cover a considerable number of qualities and attributes.

A continuing interest in the Bible and religion.—On the whole, people do not concern themselves about what they are not interested in. They do not read the books, study the pictures, go to hear the speakers, or busy themselves with problems to which their interest does not directly and immediately lead them. A fine sense of duty and obligation is all very well, but it never can take the place of interest as a dynamic force in life.

The number of Bibles sold every year would lead one to suppose that our people are great students of the Scriptures. Yet the almost universal ignorance of the Bible proves that it is one thing to own a Bible, and quite another thing to read it. We may buy the Bible because other people own Bibles, because we believe in its principles, and because it seems altogether desirable to have the Bible among our collection of books. But the extent to which we read the Bible depends on our interest in it and the truths with which it deals.