The Boy and the Sunday School: A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday School with Teen Age BoysAlexander, John L.
Religion
The Boy and the Sunday School: A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday School with Teen Age Boys
Alexander, John L.
Sunday schools
A simple and rather satisfactory way of grouping is by the school boy
or wage-earning boy standard. If the boy happens to be in the grammar
school he may be grouped with boys of his own educational advancement;
so with the boys who are in the secondary or high schools, and the same
may be said of working boys who are forced to earn their own livelihood.
Possibly the best and most satisfactory way of grouping boys is by their
interest. Some boys will be mutually interested in collecting stamps,
riding a bicycle, forming a mounted patrol, working with wireless, in
music and orchestra work, etc., and boys grouping together according to
such kindred interests as they manifest has proven most satisfactory in
general boys' work.
=Problems of Boy-handling Simplified by Natural Standard
Grouping=
Grouping the boys according to natural standards makes the problem of
handling them much simpler. Boys between twelve and fourteen are in the
age of authority, and the word of the Teacher will settle most
difficulties that arise. Boys between fourteen and sixteen are in the
age of experience, and an opportunity must be given them to check up
what they are told by what they are experiencing. Between twelve and
fourteen authority may be rigid. Between fourteen and sixteen it must be
giving way to reason. Authority will still continue to settle the boys'
disputes, but it will be the authority that gives reasons for its
action. Boys between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years can only be
handled on the basis of cooperation. They have passed from the stage of
blindly following what they are told. They have experience enough to
know that they are able to do things themselves, and they have
discovered enough things to give them a basis of doing things on their
own account. The way to handle boys rightly in this group will be by
tactful suggestion and cooperation on the part of the teacher. There
will be very little difficulty with the groupings if the Sunday school
superintendent or teacher respects the natural, group "ganging" of the
boys. The boys themselves group, not according to mental efficiency
tests, but according to physiological development. Thus we find boys of
various chronological ages in the same gang. A little common sense will
prevent many blunders.
=Securing Teen Age Teachers=
As soon as Sunday school teaching becomes a dignified, worth-while job,
men will be attracted to the task and privilege. The unemployed male
members of the church will then be led to see that there is something
real to be achieved. The vision of a symmetrically developed boy is all
that is needed to get most men. Of course, they demand a plan, and the
organized Sunday school class with through-the-week activities will
supply that.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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