Principles of TeachingBennion, Adam S. (Adam Samuel)
Religion
Principles of Teaching
Bennion, Adam S. (Adam Samuel)
Religious education
as a result of the teaching done. There is a prevalent conception that
application has been made in a recitation only when pupils go out from a
recitation and translate the principle studied into immediate action.
There are lessons where such applications can be made and, of course,
they are to be commended. Particularly are they valuable in the case of
young children. But surely there are other justifiable interpretations
to the term application.
We need to remind ourselves that there are three distinct types of
subject matter that constitute the body of our teaching material. These
are, first of all, those lessons which are almost wholly intellectual.
Debates are conducted by the hundreds on subjects that lead not to
action but to clearer judgment. Classes study subjects by the month for
the purpose of satisfying intellectual hunger. Such questions, for
instance, as "Succession in the Presidency," or the "Nature of the
Godhead"--questions gone into by thoroughly converted Latter-day
Saints, not to bring themselves into the Church, nor to lead themselves
into any other kind of action except the satisfying of their own souls
as to the truth. In other words, it appears clear that there may be
application on a purely intellectual level. Application upon application
is made until a person builds up a structure of faith that stands upon
the rock in the face of all difficulties.
A second type of lessons appeals to the emotions. They aim to make
pupils _feel_ better. They may or may not lead to immediate action.
Ideally, of course, every worthy emotion aroused should find, if
possible, suitable channels for expression. Pent up emotions may become
positively harmful. The younger the pupils the more especially is this
true. Practically every educator recognizes this fact and gives
expression to it in language similar to the following quotation from
Professor S.H. Clark:
"Never awaken an emotion unless, at the same time, you strive to open
a channel through which the emotion may pass into the realm of
elevated action. If we are studying the ideals of literature,
religion, etc., with our class, we have failed in the highest duty of
teaching if we have not given them the ideal, if we have not given
them, by means of some suggestion, the opportunity for realizing the
ideal. If there is an emotion excited in our pupils through a talk on
ethics or sociology, it matters not, we fail in our duty, if we do
not take an occasion at once to guide that emotion so that it may
express itself in elevated action."
And yet there is a question whether this insistence upon action may not
be exaggerated. Abraham Lincoln witnessed an auction sale of slaves in
his younger days. He did not go out immediately and issue an
emancipation proclamation, and yet there are few who can doubt that that
auction sale registered an application in an ideal that persisted in the
mind of Lincoln through all those years preceding our great civil war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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