True Teaching | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 30, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 29.

True Teaching.

INTELLIGENT, purposeful teaching includes the idea of two persons, both of them active. Nor is it enough that there be two persons, both of them active; both active over the same lesson. This may be secured by hearing a recitation, and commenting on it; but that is not, necessarily, teaching. The scholar, in such a case, may be merely exercising his memory, reciting what he has memorized verbally without understanding a word of it; he learns nothing; he is not taught anything; he is not caused to know a single fact or truth, by his teacher's hearing him recite; nor does he learn anything by his teacher's wisest comment, if he pays no attention to that comment, or if he is unable to understand it.

"Teaching," as causing another to know, includes the mutual effort of two persons to the same end. The teacher must endeavor to cause the pupil to learn a particular fact or truth which he wants him to know; the learner must endeavor to learn that particular fact or truth. Until the two are at this common work, the process of teaching has not begun; until the learner has learned; the teacher has not taught.

Teaching is by no means all of a teacher's work; nor is it always the most important work of a teacher. Impressing one's pupils, and influencing them, are important factors in a teacher's work, when we speak of "a teacher," as one having children in charge, in a school—on a week-day, or a Sunday. A teacher's spirit, a teacher's character, a teacher's atmosphere, and a teacher's life, impress and influence a pupil quite as much as a teacher's words. It is a teacher's duty to love his scholars, and to show his love for them; to have sympathy with them, and to evidence it; to gain a hold on their affections, outside of the class-hour, as well as during it; and to pray for them specifically and in abiding faith.

There is no technical "teaching" in all this; but what would technical teaching be worth without this? There are teachers who do a great deal of good without teaching; they perhaps do a better work than many of their fellows, who do teach. Their work ought not to be undervalued because it is not teaching; neither ought it to be confounded with teaching.

Impressing and influencing members of a class is one thing; teaching a Bible-lesson is another thing; the two may go on together, or again there may be the one without the other. Whether the one or the other is wanted, or both together are desired, it is important to bear in mind what teaching is, as distinct from any other desirable work of a teacher. If a Bible-lesson is worth teaching, it ought to be taught; if it is taught, it must be by the process of teaching; and there is no such thing as teaching by a teacher, unless at the same time there is learning by a learner.

The question, therefore, at the close of each recitation, is—not, Were you with your class? not, Did you prepare yourself on the lesson of the day before coming to your class? not, Did you state and illustrate important truths which it would have been well for the members of your class to know? not, Were your hearers attentive, and seemingly impressed? but—Did you cause anybody to know anything about the lesson of the day? That question you cannot properly answer, unless you have proof that some one of your hearers learned what you tried to make him know. Until you can speak with positiveness on this point, you cannot say whether or not you have taught the lesson, or any part of it, to all of your class, or to any one scholar.—Teachers and Teaching.