XIV

THE TRAINING AND TASK OF THE TEACHER

1. The Training Needed. Many faithful workers in the Sunday school realize their need of preparation; but, while conscious of unfitness, they have no clear conception of the equipment which they require. What are those fields of knowledge which should be traversed by one who has been called to teach in the Sunday school? They comprise four departments: (1) the Book, (2) the scholar, (3) the school, and (4) the work.

(1) The Book. We have already noted that the Sunday school is differentiated from other systems of education in the fact that it uses mainly but one text-book, the Holy Scriptures. For that reason the teacher must first of all acquaint himself as thoroughly as possible with the contents of that wonderful volume. He should be a twentieth century Bible student; not a student or a scholar according to the light of the Middle Ages, or the seventeenth century, or even of the first half of the nineteenth century; for in all those periods the aims, the methods, and the scope of Bible study were different from those of the present time. He who is to teach the Bible successfully to-day must have some knowledge of the Bible in the following aspects:

(a) Its Origin and Nature. He must have a definite idea of how the sixty-six books of Scripture were composed, written, and preserved; and, as far as may be known, who were their authors.

(b) Its History. The Bible is, more than anything else, a book of history, containing the record of a people who received the divine revelation and preserved it. The divine revelation cannot be taught nor comprehended unless the annals of that remarkable people, the Israelites, be first read and understood. Therefore biblical history should be the first subject to be studied by the teacher in the Sunday school. The leading facts and underlying principles of that unique history must be understood; not in an outline of minute details, but as a general landscape, in which each lesson of the Bible will take its place.

(c) Its Geographical Background. The Bible brings before us a world of natural features which remain—seas, mountains, valleys, and plains; a world of political divisions which has passed away; its empires, kingdoms, and tribal relations; and cities and towns, some of them now desolate, others in poverty and in ruin. The teacher who is to instruct his pupils must be able to see those abiding elements, and by the aid of his historical imagination to reconstruct those that have changed. He must make that ancient world of the Bible roll like a panorama before the eyes of his mind.

(d) Its Institutions. Upon every page of the Bible are stamped pictures of manners, customs, institutions, forms of worship, that are unfamiliar to our Christian, Anglo-Saxon, modern world. The teacher must become familiar with this local color of another civilization, and enable his class to see it through his eyes.

(e) Its Ethical and Religious Teaching. In the past, and until a generation ago, the Bible was studied only for its doctrines. It was generally treated as one book, all written at once and by one author; its history, biography, institutions, were passed over as unimportant; while every sentence was searched for some light upon theology. From the Bible, by assorting and grouping its texts out of every book, a system of doctrine was constructed; and the mastery of this system with its proof-texts was regarded as the principal work of the Bible student. That method of Bible study has justly fallen into disuse among modern scholars. The Bible is now looked upon as a record of life rather than as a treasury of texts. Yet its stream of ethical, religious, and spiritual teaching must be found and followed by the student who is to teach the truth; and the doctrines revealed through the Bible should be regarded as a necessary part of his training.

(2) The Scholar. One book must be studied closely by the teacher, and that is his pupils. During the last thirty years human nature in all its stages, as child, as youth, during adolescence, and in maturity—especially in the earlier periods—has been investigated as never before. The student in our time can enter into the results of special study upon these subjects. He needs to know what the best books can give him of child study and mind study; and to supplement book-knowledge in this department with watchful eyes and close thought upon the traits which he finds in his own scholars.

(3) The School. The teacher in the Sunday school needs to understand the institution wherein he is a worker. The Sunday school is like the week-day school, yet unlike it; and the teacher must be able to appreciate at once what he can follow and what he should avoid in the methods of the secular school. The history of the Sunday-school movement, its fundamental principles, its organization, officers, methods of management, and aims—all these are in the scope of the teacher's preparation.

(4) The Work. Whether on Sunday or on Monday, a teacher is after all a teacher, and the laws of true teaching are the same in a Sunday school, in a public school, and in a college. The application of those laws may vary according to the ages of pupils, the subjects of instruction, and the aims of the institution, but the principles are unchanging. Those enduring principles of instruction are well understood, are set down in text-books, and can easily be learned by a student. There are successful teachers who know these principles by an intuition that they cannot explain; but most people will save themselves from many mistakes and comparative failure by a close study of modern educational methods.

In some way knowledge in all these four great departments of training should be obtained by the teacher, if possible, before he enters upon his task; but if he has missed earlier opportunities of preparation he must acquire this knowledge even while he is teaching. The outlines of such a course of study should be given in the training class for young people; and such a training class should be regarded as essential to every well-organized school.[11]

2. The Teacher's Task. All the preparation briefly outlined in these last paragraphs is only preparatory to the work which the teacher is to do in his vocation. The task set before the teacher is fourfold:

(1) As a Student. The studies named above are not completed when the teacher has passed out of the training class with a certificate of graduation. The public-school teacher who ceases to study after finishing the course of the normal school is foredoomed to failure. The training class or the training school has only outlined before the teacher the fields to be traversed, and shown him a few paths which he may follow. He who has undertaken to teach a group of scholars, whether in the Beginners Department, the Senior Department, or any grade between them, must continue his studies, in the Bible, in the specific course of graded lessons which he is teaching, and in general knowledge; for there is no department of thought or action which will not bring tribute to the teacher, to be turned into treasure for his class. The Sunday-school teacher must ever maintain an open mind, a quick eye, and a spirit eager for knowledge. His accumulation will prove a store upon which to draw for teaching; and even that unused will give its weight to truth imparted to his class.

(2 ) As a Friend. The teacher is more than a student dealing with books; he is a living soul in contact with living souls. If the most masterly lesson teaching in the realm of thought could be spoken into a phonograph, and then ground out before a class, it would fail to teach, for it would utterly lack the human element. Knowledge counts for much in teaching, but personality counts for far more. If a teacher is to be successful he must have a close relationship with his class. They must know him, he must know them, and there must be a common interest, nay, a common affection, between the two personalities of teacher and pupil. He must be a friend to each one of his scholars, schooling himself, if need be, to friendship; and each of his scholars must be made to realize that his teacher is his friend. This personal affection need not always be stated in words. The teacher who constantly assures his scholars that he loves them will not be believed as readily as the one who shows his love in his spirit and his acts, even though he may refrain from affectionate forms of speech.

(3) As a Teacher. Teaching requires more than the possession of an abundant store of information upon any subject. He is not a teacher who simply pours forth upon the ears of his pupils an undigested mass of facts, however valuable those facts may be. The true teacher after large preparation assorts his material, and selects such matter as is appropriate to his own class. This he arranges in a form to be readily received, thoroughly comprehended, and easily remembered. He comes before his class with the fixed purpose that every pupil shall carry away with him a knowledge of the lesson, and shall not forget it. He must awaken the pupil's attention; for talking to an inattentive group of people accomplishes no more than preaching to tombstones in a graveyard. He must obtain the coöperation of the pupil's interest, and induce him to think upon the subject. He must call forth from his pupil some expression of his thought in language, for one is never sure of his knowledge until he has shaped it into words; and that which the pupil has stated he is much surer to remember than that which he has merely heard. Teaching, then, involves (1) selection of material, (2) adaptation of material, (3) presentation of truth, (4) awakening thought, (5) calling forth expression, (6) fixing knowledge in the memory.

(4) As a Disciple. It is the teacher's task not only to impart to his scholars valuable information about the Bible, about God, about Christ, and about salvation; but, far more than imparting an intellectual knowledge, to bring the living word into relation with living souls, to inspire a fellowship of his pupils with God, to have Christ founded within them, to make salvation through Christ their joyous possession. Nor is his work as a working disciple accomplished when all his scholars have become Christians in possession and profession, and members of Christ's Church. By his example and his teachings he should lead them to efficient service for Christ in the church, in the community, and in the state. There is work for every member in the church, and work for everyone possessing the spirit of Christ in the community. Whatever may have been the type of a saint in the twelfth century, or in the sixteenth, or even in the early nineteenth century, in these stirring, strenuous years of the twentieth century the disciple of Christ is a man among men or a woman among women, active in the effort to make the world better, and to establish in his own village, or town, or ward of the city, the kingdom of heaven on earth. To inspire his scholars for such labors, and to lead them, is the supreme opportunity and work of the teacher.