In his teen Sunday School class, Jim Murkhardt is attempting to deal with contemporary issues which relate to the lives of his students. In past weeks they have examined biblical positions on birth control, abortion, war, civil rights, the role of the church in contemporary society, and several other problems.

Next week the class will stage a debate. The question is whether Christian young people should attend Christian colleges or state schools. The issue has been structured into a positive proposition: “Resolved: Christian young people should attend Christian colleges.” Tim and Cathy will be arguing the affirmative; Paul and Lois the negative. Each speaker has been assigned six minutes for his constructive speech and three minutes for rebuttal.

Since in a formal debate the affirmative always begins, Tim will speak first, followed by Lois, then Cathy, and finally, in the second negative slot, Paul will conclude the constructive speeches. Then, after approximately five minutes for the participants to work on their rebuttal thoughts, the order for the three-minute rebuttal speeches will be: Negative 1—Lois; Affirmative 2—Cathy; Negative 2—Paul; and Affirmative 1—Tim.

The burden of proof in a debate is on the affirmative unless the negative side offers an alternative proposal to the one resolved. Paul and Lois will therefore try to counteract the seemingly good reasons for Christians to attend Christian schools. They do not have to prove that Christians should attend state schools, but only cast doubt on the validity of their attending Christian schools. There will be 10 or 15 minutes at the end for questions from the total group, but at that point Jim will be using a different teaching method called “forum,” which will be discussed in a later chapter.

Although the procedure above sounds very formal, almost like parliamentary debate, keep in mind that this is a teaching-learning situation. While not really trying to prove that Christian students should attend Christian colleges, the plan is to get all of the arguments on the table so the class can see exactly what is involved in thinking through this very important issue.

In order to make the debate work, all of the participants must appear really convinced of their positions. It is possible that Paul and Lois already plan to attend a Christian college. But for purposes of the debate, they should seem thoroughly convinced of the negative side of the proposition.

Debate is simply a procedure in which two or more people compete in trying to persuade others to accept or reject a proposition as a foundation for belief or behavior. Although a form of discussion, it differs from discussion in several ways:

1. Debate is a presentation of the result rather than the airing of the process.

2. Debate is basically competitive whereas discussion should be cooperative.

3. Debate centers around an issue which is already defined, whereas a discussion generally is an attempt to delineate factors and define a position.

Values of Using Debate

Like other forms of discussion, debate offers a dialogical or participative approach to learning. Students actually have a significant role in the learning experiences. Debate also rests upon the firm principles of democratic procedure. Its very structure demonstrates that all positions should have an equal hearing and that truth can triumph over error even if error is convincingly presented.

Debate is also a time-saver. It might take twice the investment of time to air all of the issues which good debates will uncover in the 36 minutes of speaking time described above. The group can see the issues sharply drawn and the arguments logically presented on a controversial issue which may have been very cloudy in their thinking.

Perhaps the most significant benefit which will accrue from using debates in your classroom is the investment of preparation time by the participating students. Assigning the reading of a Bible chapter or the answering of five or six questions on an assignment sheet will not motivate a teenager like pitting him against two of his peers in open competition in the next class session will. Only the laziest of students would minimize his study in anticipation of such a dramatic event.

Debate involves great discipline. The need to not only research the facts but to present them in a coherent manner within a very limited time provides a definite challenge for the participants. The method teaches research, thinking, and speaking, as well as absorbing the subject matter under study.

Some students who may not find a role of service in the church or class through singing, songleading, or playing an instrument, may find themselves quite gifted in debate. Incidentally, if you find success with the debating in your classroom, you may want to move to a larger group, presenting a formal debate on some crucial issue as a part of a Sunday evening service or other meeting to which the public would be invited.

Problems in the Debate Method

One of the major difficulties in structuring debates is the clarification of a good “resolved.” The resolved should always be an affirmative statement presenting an issue which is clear not only to the debate participants, but also to the larger audience.

Speakers should be encouraged to attack the primary issues and not waste the limited time wandering down bypaths. Sometimes the abilities of members of opposing debate teams are inequitable, and the debate turns out to be a lopsided confrontation, an embarrassing experience for everyone involved. Divisiveness is always a danger, especially if the participants genuinely believe their Positions and begin to attack each other during the session period. The teacher must guard against this.

Principles for Effective Use of Debates

Carefully provide resources. Probably debates could not be used effectively much below the teens, although an advanced junior high class might try some adapted versions. Without biasing the positions of the debaters, Jim will steer them to good sources (books, magazine articles, people) offering ammunition for the presentation. Jim will have to make sure that he gives both sides equally valuable resources and that he does not offer more help to one group than to the other.

The subject of the debate must be controversial in nature. It would be rather futile, for example, to argue the proposition, “Resolved: Murder should be illegal.” Be careful not to allow the subject matter to become too technical or unrelated to the needs and interests of the members of your class.

In formal parliamentary debate, it is proper to take a vote from the assembly after the debaters have concluded to see which side won. That is probably not a good technique to use when you are employing the debate as a teaching method. The object is to get the issues on the floor. No doubt there will be a subjective decision formed in the minds of your students as to which side really is presented the better argument. But there seems to be no value in embarrassing any of the participants by taking a win-lose vote.

There has to be flexibility on the part of the class and the teacher. If Jim is particularly biased toward the Christian college to the extent that he does not even want to hear the arguments against it, he would not be able to conduct a debate in his class properly. As mentioned earlier, the debate is clearly linked to the freedom-of-thought process which we treasure in our society and surely in our churches,

Too often Christian teachers behave as though authoritative truth has to be communicated in an authoritarian manner. In one sense, the attitude we have toward the Bible will largely determine how we teach it. But our ultimate purpose is to get students to be independent investigators of God’s Word forming firsthand standards and convictions which are taught them by the Holy Spirit. In order to accomplish this purpose, it would seem that our teaching should reflect the fact that infallible truth is nevertheless being handled by fallible teachers.

If we can recognize this about ourselves, then perhaps we can experiment with the discovery method. Discovery teaching (sometimes called the “inquiry method”) is simply the process of allowing the student to take the leading role in his own learning experiences. The teacher becomes a facilitator and guide, making it possible for the learner to reach mutually-agreed-upon goals. The teacher serves as a resource person to stimulate, motivate, clarify, and explain.

The atmosphere in which such teaching takes place must be informal and nonthreatening. In order for discovery teaching to be effective, the environment (including the teacher’s attitude) must contribute to rather than detract from the attaining of objectives. Rather than forcing his idea of content, the teacher attempts to keep his hands off the learning process whenever and wherever the student can carry it on for himself.

Such a free-rein approach to education is threatening to some teachers. The instructor who considers himself an indispensable purveyor of information about God may find it very difficult to play down his role in order to maximize student involvement. Some concepts of education largely involve lectures and drills, and center almost exclusively on the teacher’s performance during class. Paul Pallmeyer questions such an attitude about Christian teaching when he asks, “Is such teaching likely to produce the kind of thinking a Christian needs to do for his own faith in the complex life of today—and tomorrow? Or a prior question: Is it information we are trying to communicate or is it the Christian faith? The two are not necessarily the same. In fact, the way we arrive at the information may have as much to do with the kind of faith that results (or doesn’t result) as the information itself” (New Ways to Learn, Dale E. Griffin, ed.; Concordia, St. Louis, Mo.).

Discovery teaching brings four basic components of the educational setting into interaction: the student, the teacher, the environment, and the content. The student is an active participant who solves problems which he understands through the process of structuring his own learning experiences. The teacher plays the role of resource person, as described above. The environment includes both freedom and structure with freedom having the upper hand. The content may very well be propositional truth in a general context, waiting in the proper place for the student to track it down, confront it, and capture it for his own.

An effective discovery leader must be a mature teacher who knows not only the subject matter of the current lesson, but has a depth understanding of Christian truth. Specific objectives may not guarantee that learning time will be well spent, but they certainly facilitate that desirable goal. The student has to be a willing participant, ready to explore numerous avenues of information, aggressively ready to appropriate new findings in the light of previous information and a total biblical world view. What he gets will be his own and will therefore fit his needs and interests. He will not wander around in theological Saul’s armor, as so many contemporary Christian teenagers do, when he marches forth to fight the Goliaths of a pagan society.

Values of Discovery Teaching

Discovery teaching allows for individualistic accomplishments. It is highly adaptive and versatile, limited. only by the imagination of the participants at both the teacher and student level. The bugaboos of boredom and apathy should be reduced to a minimum since total student participation and self-direction is necessary. This inquiry method allows for free expression of individual creativity. It is a concept of learning about which we talk much and do little.

The relationship of students to teachers and of students to students should develop rapidly and warmly in the inquiry approach. Group activity is significant, and the sharing of findings is the end result of individual initiative. Actually a number of diverse methods can be used within the framework of discovery learning, since any single student may approach his subject matter from different perspectives. Surely, numerous different approaches will be adopted within the total group.

Problems in Discovery Teaching

Many students feel insecure in an unstructured environment of learning. It is much more comfortable to be able to listen to a lecture and take notes in orderly fashion than to be confronted with the haunting question, “What do you want to learn about this subject, and how do you propose to learn it?”

Any time there is freedom in education, there is also responsibility. If that responsibility is not taken seriously by the participants, the whole process could get out of control. This freedom can also threaten the organization because a given class might decide that they could accomplish their purposes better by meeting at a different hour, in a different place, or on a different day than that class is usually scheduled.

The inquiry method is also time-consuming. At times a student will pursue a subject for a while, only to wander down some fruitless bypaths. Nevertheless, the very frustration of the search is a learning experience. One of the things that all of us have to understand in the process of education is where not to look for certain kinds of information.

Perhaps the most crucial problem of discovery teaching is the tendency to slip away from propositional revelation. From a Christian point of view, the inquiry method is not matching interviews, library reference research, brainstorming, discussion, and Bible study as equal approaches to truth. It is rather viewing the Scripture as a very fine mesh at the tube end of a funnel. All of the sources are poured into the wide mouth at the top, but only what filters through the screen of divine revelation can in the final analysis be considered truth.

Principles for Effective Teaching by Discovery

In the helpful little paperback mentioned previously, Pallmeyer suggests that Christian teachers ought to do two things for their students: encourage the questioning mind, and equip students with skills for finding the answers. He goes on to say, “We can do both by using Inquiry Method—presenting pupils with problems and putting them to work finding the solutions by whatever means available. We may suggest resources, but we need to refrain from doing the research for the learner. To train our students to think, we must also challenge the answers they suggest and not be satisfied with the easy answer they are ‘supposed to get.’ We must require our pupils to give evidence and make a convincing case for what they think and say.”

In a very real sense the inquiry method is a matter of confrontation. The teacher confronts the student with issues which have meaning and relevance for him, with freedom to pursue those issues, or the problems which stand in the way of solving the issues, and with the resources through which and from which answers can be found.

Those resources have to be available and usable by the student. It does no good, for example, to send a high school student to a Greek concordance for a word study on sanctification. The student also needs to be taught how to use the resources as he tracks his solutions through books, articles, films, recordings, maps, experiences, projects, and most important, other people.

Perhaps the most productive results of discovery teaching will take place in groups of adolescents and adults, although classes of advanced Juniors might very well pursue a scaled-down version of the inquiry method. A certain amount of maturity is necessary since an individual must be aware of his own feelings and opinions to be adequately involved in problem-solving techniques. If we expect the Word of God to produce growth in the lives of students, they must be involved directly with its text, and this is precisely what happens in effective discovery teaching.

During the historical period of the Napoleonic wars, a young educator rose to prominence in Germany who was to have a profound impact on the future of education, even up to the present day. Friedrich Froebel was born in 1782 into the home of a pastor. His mother died when he was only nine months old, and he never enjoyed warm relations with his stepmother, a situation which seems to have had significant influence on his educational thought.

His educational ideas centered on the cultivation of awareness, love, and independence, and he once wrote, “The aim and object of parental care, in the domestic and family circle, is to awaken and develop, to quicken all the powers and natural gifts of the child, to enable all the members and organs of man to fulfill the requirements of the child’s powers and gifts. The natural mother does all of this instinctively, without instruction and direction; but this is not enough: it is needful that she should do it consciously” (The Education of Man, Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, Clifton, N.J.).

Along with one of his contemporaries, Johann Pestalozzi, Froebel developed a concept of education which promoted the validity of games and fun as a significant part of the educational process. In the book mentioned above Froebel wrote, “A child that plays thoroughly, with self-active determination, perseveringly until physical fatigue forbids, will surely be a thorough, determined man, capable of self-sacrifice for the promotion of the welfare of himself and others.”

Froebel’s view emerged from his focus on creativity and freedom in man. He was no Christian in the sense that we would use that term, but he certainly understood the nature of the universe as a gigantic object lesson developed by the creative hand of God, and he wanted to pattern his educational practices after that kind of example.

Many adults think that the early childhood departments of both public and Christian education have too much emphasis on play. In many cases such a criticism may be warranted. But there are two polar misunderstandings here which lead to a confusion of this teaching method. The first misunderstanding is a failure to recognize the significance of play activities in the educational process. The old puritanical idea that any kind of study is good as long as all of it is hard and some of it is unpleasant has been discounted long ago by competent educators. This is not to assert that discipline is not desirable in the educational process, but to state categorically that difficulty does not insure learning.

The other problem stems from a failure on the part of some teachers to make classroom play and games genuinely instructive. Almost all toys and play activities should be educational to some extent. They should be promoting the physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual maturation of the child. Eleanor Morrison and Virgil Foster wrote, “Play is the business of small children. Through play they find out about their world and how to relate to other persons. In play they express their feelings and ideas. In play they try on what it is like to be another person” (Creative Teaching in the Church, mentioned earlier).

No doubt a number of categories of instructive play could be developed, but let me suggest four to help us organize our thinking:

1. Educational Toys. In this category we would include blocks, books, clay, dolls, paste, paint, crayons, and other things which the children would use in creative play in an elementary classroom. Blocks, for example, could be used to build a church or a home after the children have heard a story about God’s house or about their parents and how children are loved and wanted. Sharing the blocks is as important an experience for Billy as thinking about the little church he is building. The preschool child is learning to be a part of a group larger than his own family.

2. Music. Although we will deal with music instruction in a different chapter, it deserves mention here because of the use of motion choruses, group singing, rhythm bands, and other dramatic expression which is definitely instructive play.

3. Finger plays. Children can act out verses and rhythms with their fingers, either in connection with music or in relation to some story.

4. Puzzles and Contests. Instructive play can leave the Nursery and Preschool rooms and move all the way up into the High School Department. Sword drills, Bible quizzes, crossword puzzles, and other forms of games are a deliberate attempt to teach biblical content through a fun approach to education,

One of the newest and most significant processes used today in the training of executives and administrators is called “Simulation Gaming.” Gaming approaches are used to change attitudes and develop personality. Such an objective is not far removed from what we are trying to do through instructive play in the Kindergarten room.

Values in Instructive Play

One of the most significant values of educational games in teaching small children is the opportunity which they afford the teacher to observe the child in a natural situation. When a child is caught up in a game, he tends to forget that an authority figure is present. As a result deficiencies of attitude and human behavior quickly emerge. Thus, the teacher or parent can see them and deal with them.

To quote Morrison and Foster again, “If the children are only talked to, or participate only in activities directed by a teacher, it is difficult for a teacher to know at what point each child is or is not growing in his ability to understand, trust, and love others. It is in the spontaneous interactions of children that a listening, sensitive teacher can find out what progress is being made by a child in living religiously with others.”

Another obvious value of this approach to the teaching-learning process is the enthusiastic involvement which it generally elicits from the student. No really effective teacher enjoys C4 making” a child learn. Teaching becomes a joy when children enter willingly and joyfully into the educational activities which we have planned for them. If those educational activities take the form of play, that positive reaction will be gained much more quickly.

Sometimes instructive play results from a carefully planned design set up by the teacher in advance. Other times the children will themselves gravitate toward the kind of play that represents recent environmental influences or interests. When my family and I were on a world trip in 1972, we cleared customs inspection in 17 countries. About half way through the trip we looked in on our children one day to find them busily playing customs inspector, with one rummaging through the suitcase of another. We had not taught them the game. Their own creative resources had produced it out of the fabric of their own experiences. Because of its inhibition-releasing form, instructive play does help develop creativity in our students.

Paul Torrance writes that “curiosity, the instinct of play, the instinct to manipulate, and the like have been suggested as natural guides to learning. Educational innovators such as Pestalozzi, Froebel, Binet, Montessori, and others made use of these forces, but recognized clearly that curiosity, playfulness, and manipulativeness unguided cannot be depended upon to bring about learning” (Encouraging Creativity in the Classroom, W. C. Brown and Co., Dubuque, Iowa).

Problems in Teaching Through Instructive Play

As suggested earlier, the inherent weakness in the system is that play will cease to be instructive. At all levels of education there is so much to be learned, and seemingly so little time to learn it, that the sincere teacher dare not allow time to be wasted. Particularly in Christian education, where what we have to communicate is so crucial because of its eternal nature, we want to be sure that every activity of the classroom, formal or informal, leads toward the accomplishment of worthy objectives.

Other less significant dangers could be mentioned. A playtime situation might get out of hand when directed by a teacher with minimal discipline skills. Proper equipment is needed, and a cost is involved in its purchase. In the final analysis, however, the virtues of instructive play will greatly overbalance the pitfalls if the teacher can keep his eye on the fulfillment of learning goals.

Principles for Effective Use of Instructive Play

The wise teacher will want to allow sufficient freedom and flexibility in the play process for children to find their own way in certain things. For example, in the modeling of clay, if the children are told to “make a cross,” they will either attempt to make it as much like the teacher’s model as possible or ask the teacher to make it for them so they will not have an inferior production. If, on the other hand, they are given a lump of clay and asked to make something that would help to remind them of Jesus our Saviour, a variety of symbols and ideas might result from the creative powers of the children’s minds.

With respect to the use of play that is genuinely instructive, the following list of evaluative questions will be helpful in looking back on the classroom experience in which we have used this method:

1. Was it enjoyable to all of the students?

2. Were new skills developed during the classroom period?

3. After the game, was group discussion well used?

4. Did the play seem to increase social cooperative behavior?

5. Were the children too dependent on their teacher during the playtime?

6. Did the game so excite the children that they could not settle down for the next aspect of the classtime?

7. Was the game genuinely purposeful, or was it just filler?

8. If we used this game before, did the children show genuine improvement this time?

If you have not used instructive play or educational games before, you might want to visit a Christian bookstore in your town and look at some of the materials available. You will find everything from toys for small nursery children to rather complex and difficult Bible games for advanced teens and adults. Everyone loves to play, and, if he can make play a learning experience, the creative teacher will be excited about the results.

All of us want to think that we are biblical in our teaching methodology since we recognize that the Word of God is not only the foundation for the content that we teach, but also our example for technique. Almost every book on teaching emphasizes the dialogue approach, which Jesus frequently used, and urges the participation method, based on His example. Such an emphasis is correct, but sometimes we forget the great heritage which the Old Testament Jewish faith provides for Christian education. The focus on the family, the centricity of Scripture in all learning, and the later commitment to quality learning in the synagogue schools are all worthy of our study. The one teaching methodology which reigned supreme throughout all of those Old Testament centuries was catechism, or memorization.

In his History of Christian Education, C. B. Eavey tells us of the mnemonic drill which took place at home from the earliest years of the child’s life. “As soon as he was able to speak, his parents began to teach him words and sentences. The first memory tasks were mainly blessings, especially those that formed part of the daily prayers. The child rose from bed with one of these upon his lips and went to bed reciting words proclaiming belief in the one God. Much stress was placed upon memorization. As he grew older, he was required to memorize portions of the Scriptures. The mother had a large part in the training of the earliest years, but it was considered the duty of the father to assume responsibility for directing this more advanced phase of the child’s education” (Moody Press, Chicago, Ill.).

Memorization may be defined simply as the power, function, or act of reproducing and identifying what has been heard or experienced. It has been suggested that there are at least four steps in the memory process:

1. Impression—the original, conscious, meaningful experience itself

2. Retention—the process by which the experience is retained in the mind

3. Recall—the act of calling upon the mind for certain needed past experiences or ideas

4. Recognition—the recalled memory as an experience which the individual has had previously

Not all memorization is of the kind that we have come to call “rote.” Rote memory describes the exact reproduction of past experiences, such as the memorization of a verse of Scripture which a student has learned. It is perfectly legitimate, however, to use memorization of general content and context of information as an approach to teaching. For example, one might memorize the general theme of each chapter in the Book of Acts although none of his reproduced content is exactly in the words of the text itself.

Values of Memorization Teaching

Memorization can be enjoyable for students. Too often we think of it only as a regular discipline which requires concentration and drill. But there is intrinsic motivation and instant reinforcement in the child’s learning program when he realizes that he can accurately reproduce information which he has studied. Incidentally, one of the most popular types of adult classes in some Sunday Schools recently is the Bible memory class.

Although a valid end in itself, the memorization of Scripture and other valuable Christian truth is also an important means to other ends. For example, one’s teaching of others is greatly facilitated by the content he has memorized as a student. Personal witnessing will be enhanced by one’s ability to plug in important passages of Scripture to support and strengthen his case for the Gospel.

Some educators would argue that the very process of discipline in memorization is a valid and important technique. It is mind training of the highest order and will develop proficiency which is applicable in the entire development of one’s educational pattern.

God has promised us that there is an inherent spiritual value in memorization of Scripture. David once wrote, “Thy Word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee” (Ps. 119:11). Although later subconscious recall is certainly not the first aim of Scripture memorization, many young people and adults who were trained in the memorization of God’s truth while children, later came to a real awakening of spiritual values because of that vital information hidden in their hearts.

Problems in Memorization Teaching

A constantly hovering cloud over memorization teaching is the possibility of substituting words for meaning. Sometimes children reciting memory verses seem too much like the trained seal who has been conditioned to bounce a rubber ball on his nose. They become performers whose striking ability is fascinating to the audience but has little inherent value or understanding to the performer.

Of course this does not have to be the case. Those of us who take a serious view of the inspiration and authority of the Bible will always be concerned that the experiences which a child has teach him the meaning of God’s truth, but that meaning is inherent in the words of God’s truth. However, the extraction of the meaning from the word is not always automatic. That is where the role of the teacher comes in.

Eleanor Morrison and Virgil Foster, in their book Creative Teaching in the Church (mentioned earlier), suggest that the child experiences God’s truth even before its words have much meaning for him. “The ground for teaching and learning is in present experiences. This is true of all ages, but especially so of preschool children. We do not, therefore, teach preschoolers many of the words of the Bible, which are beyond their comprehension. We attempt to provide experiences for which they know that love and forgiveness which are a part of God’s word to man. Since the deepest experiences of life are often beyond words, the challenge to the preschool teacher is to act out the Christian Gospel.”

I suspect that you and I might want to pay more attention to the text of Scripture than do the authors of this book. Nevertheless, what they suggest is essentially correct. The experiences which a child has (for that matter, the experiences of teens and adults as well) support or reject the essence of the word we are trying to teach. His confrontation with the words of Scripture is made meaningful by his confrontation with the Word as lived and shown to him by his parents and teachers.

Another problem with memorization teaching is that sometimes the process can become dull. I have already suggested that it does not have to be so, for memorization can be interesting, even exciting. But if we “sell” the technique as a hardship instead of a blessing, as a discipline instead of a delight, we build in negative attitudinal responses when we want precisely the reverse. Of course, the responses we get in any kind of teaching are determined largely by the way the presentation is made.

We have come a long way from the New England primer stuffed down the throats of reticent pupils by a stern schoolmaster with a stick. Or at least we should have come a long way from those days when learning was seen to be a necessary evil. Let us show our students—children, youth, or adults—that learning is the mother of many of the happy experiences of life, and that memorization is one of her happy children.

Principles for Effective Memorization

In order to make memorization a pleasant and productive skill, try to follow these guidelines when employing this teaching technique:

Remember that the memorization of general content can be as important and valuable a learning experience as rote memorization.

Master all the memorization which you require of your students.

Use helpful visual aids in teaching memory work. These will include pictures, flash cards, chalkboard, flannelgraph, and various kinds of projection.

Remember that review is the key to retention. Your students may memorize information and then forget it days or weeks later unless you subject them to frequent recall.

Always emphasize understandings and meanings. Do not let students of any age memorize just for the sake of performance, but make sure they understand the significance the learning has in their own lives.