p. 533 | The Sabbath School

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 1, 1881

The Sabbath School.

THOROUGHNESS IN TEACHING.

A GOOD teacher is one who leaves no point unexplained. No matter how well informed a person may be, if he has not the faculty of making his knowledge intelligible to others, he fails as a teacher. One reason why so few make really good teachers for small children is that they fail to adapt themselves to the comprehension of their pupils; and another reason is that they take it for granted that certain things are clear to the children, because they are so very plain to them. Every person can doubtless call to mind some very simple passages of Scripture, which were a great puzzle to him in his childhood. He should remember that other children have the same difficulties. The following paragraphs from "The Teacher Taught," will serve to illustrate the point:—

It is said that a lady who has distinguished herself in the literary world, in speaking of the imperfect conceptions which children form of the meaning of that which seems familiar to their elders, confessed that when she was a child, in reading Matthew 22:40, she verily thought "these two commandments" were two large pegs, on which the law and the prophets, like some kind of long cloaks, were hung.

We have sometimes heard the most highly figurative language employed to convey to a class of poor, ignorant boys, who have perhaps never heard of a Saviour, some simple truth of religion. For example:—

A teacher began his religious instructions by reading from the seventeenth chapter of Luke an account of the healing of the lepers. His exhortation founded on the passage was of this sort: "Now, my children, you have the leprosy of sin on your souls; you are full of this dreadful disease; Christ is the only physician; he has the balm of Gilead; fly to him to heal you;" and in a strain like this he continued earnestly and sincerely to address his class. A visitor of the school might here, perhaps, ask one of the lads, "How could Jesus Christ cure these lepers? Could any man cure a sick person by just telling him to be well?" The silence and vacant stare will attest that this is a difficulty which they now see for the first time. The teacher is surprised at their ignorance, and says, "Why, boys, did I not tell you that Christ is the Word spoken of in the first chapter of John? don't you remember that he is the Word?" To this they agree; and when the class now say that the lepers were healed by Christ, because he was the Word, the teacher congratulates himself that they have awakened from their temporary forgetfulness!

We have reliable authority for saying that a class of girls, of good parentage, in one of our western cities, when inquired of what Joseph meant when he said to his brethren, on the eve of their journey, "See that ye fall not out by the way"—some replied that he meant to caution them against losing the road; but the class generally thought it was to guard them against falling out of the wagons!

Who would place any reliance on such knowledge, or expect that an intelligible impression could be made on a child's mind of the evil of sin, the divine power of Christ, and the testimony of miracles, by such lessons as those we have described?

On the other hand, a course of instruction by which the pupil is taught to study diligently, observe closely, distinguish accurately, and understand thoroughly, will result in intelligence, discrimination, and quick apprehension.