3 Forms of Teaching

It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives. (John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1756).

teach TEACH, v.t. pret. and pp. taught. [L. doceo; dico, dicto, and both these and the Gr. to show, may be of one family; all implying sending, passing, communicating, or rather leading, drawing. 1. To instruct; to inform; to communicate to another the knowledge of that of which he was before ignorant. He will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. Is.2. Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. Luke 11.

The goal is to instruct, inform, communicate to our children that which will elevate their minds, exalt their courage, and accelerate their industry and to encourage them to excel in virtue. But, where to begin...

After years of teaching/learning, I have experienced (both as teacher and as student) 3 forms of teaching:

1) Student centered. Workbooks and computers are often used in this type of teaching. The motivation to learn comes from the author of the computer program or the artist/writer of the workbook.

2) Subject centered. Setting up learning stations would be an example of this type of education. There are many textbooks that provide information and facts, but without context. Result: The student questions why this is important and why he must invest himself in math when he would much rather be doing just about anything else. History is often taught this way--a sequence of facts, people, and events (results) to be memorized with no attention to motivations (causes).

3) Teacher-centered. This is the method that Jesus, our Master Teacher, used. He epitomized everything that He taught. A look at His style of teaching reveals that it would be necessary for the teacher to model by example in order for her children to learn from her.

Mark 4:1 KJV

And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land.

What are you teaching your children by example? Would you be willing to invest your time and effort to teach more like Jesus? If so, let the journey begin...