Good educators are constantly seeking to improve the way they teach their students. This is good, but it often leads to questionable pursuits, debates, and distractions. Sometimes the newest educational fads are based on nothing more than speculative theories, and actually result in inferior results. And often good, sincere educators who have proven a degree of effectiveness with some method or tool become such champions of their particular approach that they feel they must attack all other practices and promote their own. Some of the debates approach the level of silliness in their childish intensity.

Comparing strategies and helps can have some benefit to objective observers, but for Christians trying to promote them, can provoke conflicts that are both unnecessary and counterproductive to building the kingdom of God, if we have the wrong heart. Yet it is good to evaluate our assumptions and speculations in light of Scripture. We can help one another in this, which is the purpose of this article. Yet, with the above thoughts in mind, I hope to be gracious in my straightforwardness in expressing what I think I see in scripture about teaching approaches and tools.

In the days of Christ and His twelve apostles there were two primary approaches to education in the world. One approach came from the Greek pagans, representing the occidental west, and the other came from the Hebrews, an oriental eastern culture God had been shaping for many generations. At the perfect time (Gal. 4:4) God the Father sent His own Son into this Hebrew culture He had been preparing for centuries. It was certainly not a perfect culture, but I believe there are certain things His word had been shaping in their collective thinking over the generations that are still a reflection of His desire.

Both the Greek culture and the Hebrew societies were literate. Arguably the literacy rate among the Hebrews was higher than that among the Greeks. Yet interestingly only the Greeks had schools. The first schools among the Hebrews were introduced by Hellenizers like the Sadducees around the middle of the first century A.D. in the form of the Greek "gymnasium." Prior to that, virtually all Hebrew boys learned to read and write, but without the "benefit" of schools.

The Greeks were a very pragmatic society, much like modern western society in many ways. They learned to test theories by experimentation and embrace what worked. As their military and economic needs grew to require a growing class of literate scholars, they tried various approaches. Ancient Sparta found that taking children away from their parents when young, to have them trained by experts, was relatively effective in producing disciplined warriors, scholars, and merchants. Various forms of this approach gradually spread to other Greek city-states and the prevalence of schools became normative.

Among the Hebrews, many generations had failed to follow God’s commands regarding teaching children, until the Babylonian captivity. To be sure, some did obey God, and there were some literate individuals among the Israelites. But after the return from the captivity, there was a much more zealous embrace of God’s word (to the point of Pharisaic legalism).

God had told His people, through Moses, to be literate and to teach literacy to their children. In the application immediately following what Jesus later referred to (Matt. 22:36-38) as "the greatest commandment," God told His people to surround their children with written words. Among other things, they were to teach them by personally writing His commands on their doorposts and gates (Deut. 6:9). Hebrew fathers were not to be illiterate. They were required to write.

Imagine illiterate slaves coming out of Egypt hearing God audibly give them the ten commandments. But then God reinforced this by providing the commandments in writing, and had Moses record much more of His ways in writing. What good was that? Perhaps some supposed it was enough for "experts" to periodically read the law to them (which they WERE commanded to do). But then imagine these ex-slaves being told they themselves must write God’s laws for their children to see. Some might have hoped others could write the commands for them, but God said, "YOU shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

I can imagine a godly, but illiterate, former slave hearing this command. He wanted to obey, but didn’t know how to write. Likely he would find someone who did know how to write and ask for help. If he asked the literate helper to do the writing for him, the friend would perhaps reply, "But God said YOU are the one who must write the commands." So instead of doing it for him, his friend would help him copy the words. The illiterate man would painstakingly scratch the seemingly meaningless letters on a potsherd and carry them to his home, and once again slowly copy the words on his doorposts and on his gates.

But then picture this poor father’s son seeing the words and asking him, "Daddy, what is this on the doorposts and gates?" His father would answer, "Son, those are God’s commands to us." As his son puzzled over this, the father would explain that marks can be made on such things as wood, stone, potsherds, or papyrus, and that the marks represent sounds that form understandable words (as opposed to Egyptian hieroglyphics, Hebrew is written phonetically). His son would undoubtedly eventually ask him what these particular marks meant. The illiterate father might be able to recite the commands, but if the son asked him the meaning of particular marks, because the father could not actually read, he could not answer regarding individual letters and words.

No doubt God’s command to each father to write God’s word where his children would see the writing frequently motivated some to wish they knew how to read. Motivation is key to learning. Their children’s repeated curious questions would likely incite fathers to wish they could provide an answer. Imagine this father returning to his helpful friend and asking him to help him read each individual word that he had already copied.

After learning the rudiments of reading (or at least memorizing these particular words individually) the father would look forward to the next time his son asked him about the words. He would patiently point to each word and letter and read it, perhaps noting the sounds of each letter as he went. He could see the admiration in his little boy’s eyes as he watched and heard his daddy actually reading. The little boy would probably boast to all his friends of his father’s literacy. He would privately practice copying the letters and words on the ground and on potsherds he found. And he would inwardly vow to learn to be a proficient reader, just like his father.

As the little boy passed the doorposts and gates daily, he would repeatedly ask his parents to repeat the words and show him how they derived them from the writing he saw. Likely the father would teach his wife to help him teach his sons and daughters. Ideally, over time virtually all Hebrew children would learn to read and write. After several generations of people obeying God, the corporate literacy level among the Israelites would reach surprisingly high levels.

But God’s people often neglected obeying His commands. Historically there was always a remnant of godly people who treasured His word, but it wasn’t until after the return from the Babylonian exile that zeal for God’s law was widespread and deeply ingrained enough to be perpetuated for multiple generations. By the time of Christ, virtually all Jewish men were literate. (This was actually a pre-requisite to their Bar-Mitzvah, which was already being practiced during this period.)

This literacy was accomplished without schools. While some wealthy Jews could pay for their children to be taught by learned rabbis, as in the case of Paul (Saul) sitting at the feet of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), the peasants (Jesus was a peasant, as were most of His disciples) couldn’t afford this luxury. No doubt the local rabbis were a help to fathers in teaching their sons. But they didn’t conduct schools. Even Gamaliel and other tutors of his day weren’t running schools. Paul described his educational experience as learning "at the feet of Gamaliel" (we’ll come back to this principle in Part Two of this article, as we explore how Jesus, Himself, taught).

On the other hand, the pagan Greeks had no special revelation from God. They didn’t hear God telling them to teach their own children. Paul acknowledges that these idolatrous gentiles were "led," but makes it clear the spirits leading them were not "the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:2-3). I know some will accuse me of over-stating my case, but I don’t believe it is a stretch to wonder if it was demons who "led" the pagans to introduce the idea of schools.

With the advent of educational institutions, plans had to be devised for the formal instruction of the students. In private homes the instruction could be informal and individually-tailored to each learner. But schools required systematizing and standardizing the educational process. The preparations had to consider the greatest benefit to the majority of the students, even if they didn’t perfectly fit those with special abilities or needs, or ANY particular individual in the group.

The Greeks invented the notion of "curriculum." Our English word comes from the Latin word for a race course, in which competitors repeatedly run over the same "course" (another related Latin word). The idea was that each student would be channeled through a prescribed set of learning experiences. Often it was found that some of the students needed to have the learning experiences repeated to actually learn the content, and for reinforcement and review. Over time, educational experts determined the scope of what should be taught in a particular course, the logical sequence of specific learning experiences building on one another, and the number of review experiences that were necessary for the majority of students, and that was the "curriculum" (today we would refer to this as a spiraling scope and sequence).

The content to be taught had to be determined, and then organized into distinguishable parts. Thus knowledge was divided into various disciplines, subjects, courses, and lessons. The Greeks had a passion for logic and loved parsing the whole of something into its parts. This is in contrast to the Biblical Hebrew conception of knowledge as wholistic and integrated.

Later, in a similar fashion, when converted Greek philosophers came to dominate Christianity, they reveled in systematizing what God had revealed narratively in His word, and moved the church toward a theoretical philosophical approach to studying God and His ways. But God chose not to write a "systematic theology." He revealed Himself and His ways in the context of stories, songs, and prophetic challenges to people’s hearts, more than just their logic.

The Greeks loved organizing knowledge into logical categories. (Bullet points and outlines are examples of how we are still influenced by Greek thinking.) Thus what was known and taught was segmented into distinguishable disciplines. Mathematics, History, and Science were separated from one another as distinct subjects to be studied. The schools developed orderly curricula with distinct courses and sequenced lessons whose results were specific and measurable.

To the Greeks, the goal of education was for the students to LEARN what their teachers KNEW. The focus was on their intellect. They focused on the content to be transferred from the teacher’s mind to that of the student. On the contrary, to the Hebrews the goal of education was for disciples to become LIKE their teachers. The focus was on their heart, their character, their life. The learner was not a "student" (defined by studying), but rather a "disciple" (defined by following). This is how Jesus taught. He said (Luke 6:40), "everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher."

Content-focused instruction is dependent on the curriculum. Student-focused instruction is dependent on the relationship. Ultimately neither the content nor the student should be the center of what we do. Jesus must be our focus. We must orbit around Him. But how does He want us to teach our children?

In the next part of this article we will explore more fully how Jesus, the Master Teacher of all time, taught His disciples, and why we should follow His example.

http://www.BoldChristianLiving.com
Copyright 2006 Jonathan Lindvall

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