Teaching For Learning (II.)
Not too long ago, I tried an experiment on a group of early-teenagers, all but one of whom were members of the church. Each was from a Christian home, and had been reared "in the church" as we say. Further, each of the children had attended Bible study regularly practically all of his or her life. In my estimation, they were certainly above average in their attitude toward the church, living a Christian life, attending regularly, the importance of studying and the necessity of using the Bible as the guide in religious matters. The experiment was simple..."List as many scriptures as possible that pertain to salvation, with emphasis on what a person should do to be saved; list the scriptures that tell the manner in which the worship should be carried on in the assembly; and finally, list any scriptures that you can give the reference and the general context (you do not have to quote exactly)."
Startling Results
The results were surprising to me, for I knew these young people well, and knew their teachers (for the most part). They had been exposed to the best as far as the general run of Bible teachers go. Their teachers had been devout, faithful, well-versed teachers who gave much time to the preparation of their lessons. If any students had ever had a good opportunity to learn the Bible, certainly these had. But the results were almost completely the same as you would have expected to have found if you had asked any group of young people the same age without previous Bible training. They simply could not give a single scripture to prove anything concerning salvation or worship. In addition, they could not come near to quoting any scripture and giving the correct reference.
Where Is The Fault?
In reality, this shouldn't have been so surprising, since similar experiments have been tried on adults with about the same results. It would be easy if we could point our finger at the teachers and say you just aren't doing your job well, or perhaps condemning the students by saying they have not paid attention all these years. As a matter of fact both of these statements are most likely true. Obviously the teachers have failed and apparently the students haven't paid much attention, if they haven't committed anything to memory. But we can't stop there if we want to solve the problem. The fault lies much deeper, in the fact that we have never really looked very closely at our teaching program with regard to asking just what we want the students to be able to do when they are finished with a particular learning session.
These students — and the many hundreds like them -- are eager and capable. They show in their school work their ability to tackle complex learning problems and come out on top. They can be motivated...they can get and maintain interest... they enjoy learning rather than not learning. But the fact remains, they can come a long way in Bible school training and not have much to show for it. All of these things put together make a strong indictment of our teaching methods. It is an indictment that should frighten us, since most of us recognize that parents have long since turned Bible training over to the church, no longer providing for this in the home. It will not be our purpose here to argue the merits of this approach, nor the faults, but to examine things as they are and see what can be done to solve the problem.
Accountability Is Important
The thing that puzzles us at first is why they can learn at public school and not in Bible school. But soon the reasons become obvious. In public school, not only are the students held accountable for subject matter, but the teachers and to a large extent, even the parents share an accountability for how much learning takes place. In our Bible schools, no one has this very important assignment. This is so, even if the teachers and parents insist that the students "get their lessons." The accountability is only for "getting the lessons," not learning a specific thing.
For example, a student can be made to fill in the blanks, chose the multiple choices and mark the true and false statements — then the teacher can grade these, give a mark and show that the students make a hundred and had his lesson, and still no real learning has taken place. Later articles will discuss "objectives" in more detail, but for now let us notice that the objective that the student was striving to meet was to answer the questions not learn the material. In all honesty, this was also accepted by the teacher (and parent) as a satisfactory result. After all, isn't this a measure of how well the student has learned the material, when he can answer the questions? No, this is only a measure of how well he can answer the questions.
Let us try to prove it this way. The following is a fact to be learned: "Essential Chairness is a border analogy." Now take this fact and answer the following question. (Circle one) T._ F._ .Essential Chairness is never a border analogy.
Now everyone made a hundred on that one, so let's try another one, using the same fact.
Multiple Choice (choose one):
2. Essential Chairness is
a. never a border analogy
b. not definable
c. a border analogy
d. none of the above
Here again, we can make a hundred by getting the right answer, without learning a thing about Essential Chairness. Of course, all of this is purposefully nonsensical, because there is no such thing as Essential Chairness and the expression "border analogy" seems to say something, but doesn't really.
If all of this seems pointless, take a look at almost any level of material being taught in many of the classes, and see if much of it doesn't allow the students to come out knowing little but answering the questions properly. But here again, it isn't enough to point an accusing finger at the prepared material and say that's where the fault lies. The material is probably as good as much of what shows up in public school, though maybe not in as pretty a package. The thing that is missing is "purpose" — what do we really expect the student to gain by all of this? In later articles we hope to show how meaningful learning can take place, even with bad literature. First, though, here are some thoughts to ponder.
What Is Learning?
Dr. Fred Skinner of Harvard has defined learning as a change in behavior. To oversimplify, this means that when a person learns something, he can now do something he could not do before. A person who "learns" a poem, may in reality be able to say words which, when put together, make up the words of the poem. This does not mean that he can explain what the words mean, nor that he is living any differently because of any esthetic effect the poem has brought on him. All this means is that we have to be more specific when we want a student to "learn" something. Let's apply it to Bible study. A class learns, (or rather studies) about Paul's missionary journeys. They can list all of the places in correct chronological order that Paul visited. They perhaps may even be able to recite from memory events that happened at each of these places. But of critical importance, are they really able to relate all of this information to themselves or to Christianity in general?
Certainly history is important, but considering the small amount of time given to teaching in the church, there is much more to be gained from Paul's journeys than just the places he went. Lest this begin to sound defensive, though, let's look at another example.
Not long ago I was substituting in a class where they were studying the organization of the church, and on that particular day were discussing the qualifications of elders. The class was made up of bright 9 and 10 year olds, all of whom had done a good job of studying and preparing their lesson. They were using a workbook that very adequately covered the subject. Each was anxious to answer questions and have his or her book graded. Such motivation was a credit to both the teacher and the parents. All grades were above 90, and even with their books closed they were able to tell how many qualifications were listed, and most of them could name each qualification. But then came the critical part. I began to ask them what these things meant. What is it to be blameless? Sober? Not greedy of filthy lucre? These words had no real meaning to them at all!
So what are we saying? Simply that purpose enters into the picture again. what was the purpose of the lesson? If it was that they would "know" the qualifications, then we really haven't said anything, because each of us may put a different meaning on "know". Back to our definition of learning...what could they do after the lesson that they couldn't do before? They could list the qualifications. If that's all we wanted, then the purpose had been fulfilled. On the other hand, if we expected them to be able to define these qualifications, or describe how a person would act if he did or didn't have them, then we had not reached this objective. The important point is, we should ask ourselves, ahead of time, what do I want them to be able to do when the lesson is over? How many of us, as teachers, really try to answer that question each time we enter a classroom? Maybe we would be better teachers if we did.
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