Teaching For Dummies

Over the last 10 years I have developed an interest in teaching, but not teaching in general. I have specifically become interested in teaching some type of humanities topic or even more specific religion/ous topic. I have had opportunities to do this as a co-teacher for sunday school, but not in the scale that I would like. I have also taught the “teacher development” class, which is a class that is suppose train the up and coming sunday school teachers, so I have a tendancy to I sit in church and size up whom ever is teaching at Newsong and Westdale. This brings me to what I have been thinking about lately, and that is teaching and what techiniques “good” sunday school teachers employ to be “good” or even “great” teachers. I’ve noticed that every “good” sunday school teacher consciously or unconsciously uses the classical hero pattern in presenting their lesson. This is actually very easy to do, and sunday school lessons, or sermons would be a whole lot more interesting if they followed this pattern. So if you are teaching or delivering a sermon this coming sunday, consider formating your class or words as follows:

1. You have to start out with “me” in mind. You have to make me the hero of your talk or lesson, otherwise it isn’t going to be relevant to me and my mind is going to wonder why I’m wearing a tie. In the classical hero pattern, the hero starts off innocent in his village/home doing everyday things. So remind me of the things I do everyday that make me innocent—a better word might be naive.

2. The next part is for you to find a way to lure me into the adventure. I find that the most boring lessons or sermons are subtle in this part. You have make sure that I am completely lured and that there is no way for me to remain where I am (naive). Most good sermons and lessons typically go back to Eden and the fall, lets face it, once the fall took place there was no going back!

3. Somewhere along the way I need to be confronted with the “shadow presence”. You have to be very tactful here to not make room for justification. You can not be relative here, I have to know without a doubt that I am face to face with the enemy in the story. You mustn’t confuse this part with the climax, this part should only give me an insight into how weak I am and how strong the antagonist is.

4. If you have brought me this far, you are doing pretty good and its pretty much downhill from here. Now you need to bring me to the climax of the story, beyond the threshold. This is the part where I am beaten and I can not see anyway out and the “shadow presence” has the upper hand. Now if you are a good teacher you will bring me this far making me think that I am the hero of the story, and that something supernatural beyond me will soon happen that will suddenly turn things in my favor. However if you are a great teacher you will find a clever yet subtle way to teach me that unlike the classical hero; I really am beaten. If you are a great teacher this is where you will link Christ into the story and teach me that he is the real hero and how the ordeal he overcame is the only thing that will help me overcome.

5. The last part of the story is the “return”. Tell me what lays on the other side of the ordeal. Tell me about the reward, but mostly tell me about how I will have changed. You have to bring me back to the same place I started; to the mundane little things that made me naive, but with the added wisdom I have gained.

If you can get this under your belt, I can almost guarantee an improvement in your audience attention span.