Training the TeacherLamoreaux, Antoinette Abernethy
Religion
Training the Teacher
Lamoreaux, Antoinette Abernethy
Bible -- Study and teaching; Sunday schools
Here is a section dealing with a concrete subject, and illustrations
will be within the range of vision of every one who is associated with
Sunday-school work. At the very outset there may be found those who
will take exception to many of the suggestions made, because they are
deemed to be impracticable in "our school." This attitude should be
firmly but patiently overcome. If discussion proves that the thing
suggested is undesirable, or that a better method may prevail, that is
a point worth making. But the argument that a thing is desirable but
"impossible" should have no footing in a teacher-training class. Let
the motto be, "If it ought to be, it can be."
The teacher may be inclined to skip a paragraph like that on The
Secretary. "Of what interest is that to me?" she may ask. The answer
is simple: No one is equipped to be a teacher who doesn't know the
school as a whole; and no one knows the school as a whole who doesn't
know it in its several essential parts. Only when the teacher knows
the secretary's duties, for instance, is that teacher prepared to see
how careful he should be in meeting his obligations to the secretary
in the line of the latter's official work. Each teacher should be
encouraged to study executive problems, such as those relating to the
superintendent and other officers, as if they were his own; and at
least he should discover his part as a teacher in helping the
executive officers to make the school a success.
In many localities sections of the class may visit other schools and
report back to the class upon the features in which these schools
excel. This offers a practical laboratory method for the concrete
teaching of these lessons. Of course, such visits should be made with
the knowledge and consent of the superintendent of the school visited;
and at such times and in such manner that the work of the school will
not be disturbed. Teachers of regular classes will greatly profit by
an occasional trip to another school; it is time gained rather than
lost.
* * * * *
Teacher-training superintendents find a marked tendency in some
classes to discontinue the work after the section on The Bible has
been covered. It is a false notion that a knowledge of the Bible is
the only thing necessary for Sunday-school teachers. Leaders should
enthusiastically carry their classes past this common "dead-point"
over into the sections on The Pupil, The Teacher, and The School; this
special effort to arouse enthusiastic interest in what is to come
after the Bible course will often prevent students from dropping out
of the class.
In all the work "make haste slowly." It is more important to get the
work done well than it is to get it done in a given time.
Charts of Paul's Journeyings
From "A Chart of Paul's Journeyings," Arnold,
Published by The Sunday School Times Co.
[Illustration: First Journey
Copyright, 1897, BY JOHN D. WATTLES & CO.]
First Journey
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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