Teaching tip 66. Helping children to defend their faith.
T.T. 66. Helping
children to defend their faith.
In my teaching tip “What do children
believe” (Newsletter 89), I looked at the problem of children from non-Christian
homes being taught Biblical truths by their Bible teachers and then having their
parents or secular teachers contradicting it.
This problem was brought home to me
quite recently. Having completed my “Bible in schools” lesson in a state school,
the class teacher returned and was immediately asked by one of the children “Do
you believe the Bible?” The teacher’s answer was “No I don’t.” What is that
pupil and the others who overheard then supposed to believe?
I have witnessed similar situations
a number of times over the years. Once a 6 year old boy was pulled aside by his
class teacher to have a “one to one” session with her, at the same time and in
the same room as I was teaching the remaining pupils my “Bible” lesson. The boy
asked his teacher “What is fiction?” She replied “Fiction is like myths and
religion. It didn’t really happen.” Her comment was clearly heard by myself and
all the other children. If she could make comments like that in the presence of
the “Bible” teacher, what would she, and others liker, say to the children when
no “Bible” teacher is present?
Although there is no “magic”
solution to the above problem I believe that, when teaching children from
non-Christian backgrounds, we could do five things
:-
- Pray for the
children. Never underestimate the power of prayer and remember that God’s Word
as we speak it is far more powerful than any words of human origin.
- Encourage the children to always use
their minds and think for themselves. Teach the children not to accept any
statement as true, simply because someone says it is - even if that person is
their Bible teacher! Often, if we really examine a belief, the inconsistencies
and falsehoods soon become apparent.
- Teach the children that when a
person says “I don’t believe in God” or “I don’t believe that God wrote the
Bible”, in most cases it is not that the person cannot believe, but rather that
they will not believe. To
believe in God or a Creator means that we have to admit that He made us, and
therefore He owns us. Although He will never force us to do anything we don’t
want to do, He has every right to tell us how we should lead our lives. Some
people don’t like that idea as they would rather do whatever they want to do.
They therefore try to overcome this problem by denying God’s existence, or that
the Bible is “God’s word”. However if the unbeliever were challenged as to why
they don’t believe, by asking such questions as “Have you checked it out for
yourself, have you looked at the evidence?” Or, “Have you actually read the
Bible yourself?”, you will probably find that they haven’t.
- Remind the children that the
evidence of a Creator / God is all around them. We only have to look at the sky
or the many wonderful living things around us to see this. Our common sense and
experience teaches us that nothing can make itself, everything has to have a
creator / maker. Although human beings can make many wonderful things, they have
to have starting materials to do so. We cannot make anything out of nothing, and
we cannot make anything living from anything that is not living. Only God can do
those two things.
- Emphasise the importance of the
Bible. State that Christians believe the Bible is God's Word, and therefore what
the Bible says, God says. If a particular belief or idea clearly contradicts
what the Bible says, it should be rejected. Ultimately it comes down to who we
choose to believe. Do we believe God who was there at the beginning of time,
knows everything, is never wrong and cannot lie, or do we believe people who
were not there at the beginning, only know a tiny fraction of all there is to
know, are often wrong and sometimes lie?
Teaching tip 65. Keeping discipline in your Children's class.
T.T. 65. Keeping
discipline in your children’s class.
As every teacher will tell you, it
is important to maintain discipline in your children’s class. Without proper
discipline, you will not only get frustrated, but the children won’t learn very
much – even those who wish to learn will be distracted by those who
don’t.
I discovered many years ago that the
best way to maintain discipline was to endeavour to make all my lessons fun and
exciting. I wrote an article on this, which I will reproduce below. There are,
however, a few children who will still tend to misbehave, no matter how exciting
your lesson is. What can we do in this situation?
Unfortunately, children’s teachers
are now very much restricted in their discipline options. Even removing a child
from your class is now no longer an option in most schools or churches. There
are, however, still a number of discipline options we can try out. I have found
that one method may work for one group but not for another and vice versa. All
methods are based on either the “carrot” or the “stick”
approach.
The “Stick”
approach.
1. Time out. The familiar
“time out” is still a popular method. Most children don’t like being excluded
from the rest of the group, so you could ask the unruly child to go and sit in a
remote part of the room or, if the children are gathered on the floor, to go and
sit at their desk.
A quite effective variation of this
method is to ask the unruly child to stand up and remain standing until you ask
them to sit down again. The main drawback of this is that some children seem
incapable of standing for more than 1 or 2 minutes and will sit down again. In
extreme cases a child may refuse to stand up in the first place, and this of
course will only cause more problems – Get to know your
children.
2. A rebuke. Sometimes a word
of rebuke is all that is needed to get a child to improve their behaviour.
However, be very carful of how you rebuke a normally well behaved child. They
won’t be used to getting told off, so even a mild rebuke may easily upset them.
On the other hand some children won’t respond to a rebuke no matter how severe
or how often you do it.
3. Exclusion. Most children
love to be involved in class activities, for example being chosen to pray, read
the Bible, be part of a skit a puppet play, or other special activity. Inform
the unruly child that they weren’t considered for this because of their
unacceptable behaviour.
4. An unpopular activity.
This is a method I have recently started to use with spectacularly good results.
If the majority of the class are misbehaved, the following lesson I give them an
unpopular activity for the whole of the session, making it clear that I am doing
this because of their previous unacceptable behaviour. You could even divide
your class, giving the “unpopular” activity only to those who misbehaved, and
having a “normal” lesson for those who didn’t.
In my case, I choose the “unpopular”
activity to be work (activity) sheets. Most children enjoy working on these –
but not for the whole lesson! I have subsequently found that even the mere
threat of an unpopular activity has so far been enough to maintain good
discipline.
The “Carrot”
approach.
Rewards. I am always reluctant to give
rewards as a method of improving discipline, but nevertheless it can be quite
effective.
1. Tell the children that you will
choose the “best behaved” to participate in any special
activity.
2. Take along two or three
attractive prizes to give out to the “best behaved” at the end of your lesson. I
usually use balloon models as they are very popular and relatively inexpensive.
Note. Most schools now discourage the giving out of lollies (sweets /
candy) to the children.
You may find, however, that even the
promise of a reward will not be enough to tempt some children to improve their
behaviour. Experience has shown them that they are incapable of being amongst
the best behaved, so they don’t bother trying. In this case, you could promise
the prizes to the “most improved” rather than the
“best”.
As a variation, I sometimes take to
the class a larger number of prizes (say five or six) I place them on my left
and explain that I will be giving them to the “most deserved” children at the
lesson conclusion – as long as there are still any prizes remaining on my left.
Explain that if any child misbehaves, I will take one of the prizes and place it
on my right. Explain that all prizes remaining on my left will be given away.
Those on my right will be taken home with me.
Even if there is an improvement in
discipline as the children see their potential prize pile being reduced, or if
they plead with you to still give all the prizes away, don’t be tempted to do
so. It is important for the children to understand that you will always
keep your promises, whether “good” or “bad”.
Overcoming
discipline problems by making your lessons fun and
exciting.
There has
been much written about how best to discipline 'problem' classes. I certainly
don't profess to be an expert on the subject, but I would like to share my own
experience in the hope that it will be a help to you.
When I first
started teaching Bible classes, I had my share of discipline problems,
especially from the older boys. I soon realised, however, that many children
were causing trouble simply because they were bored with my lessons!
I
therefore determined to make my lessons more fun and exciting. I believe that
this is something we must all do, otherwise many of the children - even if they
don't actually misbehave - will simply "turn off." Fortunately, there are many
ways we can do this. Here are a few suggestions.
Tell familiar stories
from unusual angles, to keep the children guessing. e.g. The Good Samaritan from
the point of view of the donkey, Daniel, from a lion's viewpoint, Jonah, as seen
by the large fish, David and Goliath from the Giant's perspective. (Don't
mention the Giant's name till the end - to keep your class wondering!). etc
etc.
If your class is well behaved, use skits involving the children -
most Bible stories can be adapted to be told in this way. If your class cannot
be trusted to do this properly, use puppet skits. I record the skit beforehand,
and get children to operate the puppets. Check out http://www.puppetresources.com/ for
an extensive array of skits.
Use ventriloquism. You don't need a special
dummy. A hand puppet will do. And you don't have to be expert. If you use good
material, the children will love it, and won't mind if they see your mouth
moving a little.
Teach memory verses in lots of different ways. The
number is only limited by your own imagination.
Review your teaching with
quizzes. Noughts and crosses (tic tac toe) is a popular way to do
this.
Dress up as a Bible character, and tell his/her story with a
monologue. Nebuchadnezzar, telling about the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace,
and the cripple who was brought to Jesus by his four friends, have worked well
for me.
Use lots of object lessons to illustrate your teaching points.
Better still, use illusions, which are essentially object lessons with "special
effects." Many illusions are very easy to do, but will still baffle your class.
Two excellent sources of illusions are http://www.childrensministry.org/
and http://www.onewaystreet.com/ (which also
has an excellent range of ventriloquism skits). Also, many illusions, especially
those involving paper cutting or ropes, cost nothing to do.
Result ? I
can now say that I rarely have any discipline problems. I don't think this is
because my present classes have generally better behaved children in them, but
rather because I am now better able to keep their attention.
I am not
saying that we should abandon our programs so as to keep the children
entertained, but if they are not happy, they won't learn much anyway and will be
put off the church in later years. We can still teach our programs, but we
should all be continually searching for more interesting and exciting ways to do
it. We owe this both to our children and to the Lord.
