Recently, I read an article about educating children and how
we are not doing the best job of it. The article highlighted the work of Alfie
Kohn, who wrote down 10 truths we know about educating kids that we ignore when
we actually teach kids. As I read these 10 ideas, each one resonated with me in
my education but also how I teach the kids at church. In the next few posts, I
want to investigate each one and how it relates to church ministry. Here is his
first point:
#1. Much of the material students are required to memorize
is soon forgotten.
While the first church related thing that comes to mind is AWANA,
this is true about memory verses in Sunday School or Children’s Church. In his
explanation he says this:
“Knowledge is less
likely to be retained if it has been acquired so that one will perform well on
a test, as opposed to learning in the context of pursuing projects and solving
problems that are personally meaningful.”
Getting a section “signed off” in Awana or being able to say
a verse in front of the Sunday School class can be seen by the child as a test.
That is the perceived purpose for memorizing scripture. As he said, this is not
the best way to help the child remember. My oldest son was a prime example. He
had a great short-term memory. He would not do any work on his Awana book all
week. On the way to church, he would start looking at the verses and be able to
get 3-4 sections done in a night. The reviews were harder for him because he
had forgotten the verses by that time and they had more verses to remember. He
made it through Cubbies, Sparks and TnT (Timothy Award) this way. If you ask him
now (he is in college) about the verses, he can hardly remember any of them. In
the books, Awana tries to tie the verses into the whole section and they try to
teach the clubber more about what the verse means. Unfortunately, as Awana
Leaders, too often we are too concerned with getting the section signed off so
we can move on to the other kids than making sure they fully understand the
verses they are saying.
So how can we help this? One, be more intentional in
explaining the verses. Two, make the purpose of memory to be understanding and
application rather than “performance”. In Awana, one of the Children’s Ministry
Director’s I worked under impressed on me the importance of asking a child what
the verse means after they say the verse. If they can put it in their own
words, they understand what it is saying.
In our Children’s church and in some Sunday School material,
they have a memory verse(s) for multiple weeks. I see this as more beneficial
in that repetition over the multiple weeks can help reinforce the verse. Also,
it gives the teacher more opportunity to explain the verse in different
contexts and in different ways. For example, teaching Psalm 119:11 “I have hid
your word in my heart that I may not sin against you”: One week we would write
the verse on a board, say it, then erase a word, then say the verse and repeat
until the verse is gone. Then, I would explain how we can read the Bible and
forget what it says. That does not help much; we need to make sure we can
remember what God says. That is why we memorize verses. The next week we would
have cards with the words printed on them and have the kids put them in order.
Then I would explain how having Bible verses in my head helps me when I am
being tempted, just like Jesus did in the wilderness.
My point is that rote memory is not the most helpful way to
learn. On the other hand, memorizing Scripture is important to the spiritual
walk of our kids. Thus, we need to be careful and make sure that just being
able to spit back some words that are in the Bible is not the goal of
memorizing Scripture. Understanding them and applying them to our lives is the
goal. That is why I love Psalm 119:11 and have used it as one of my ministry
verses: it does not stop with the first phrase “I have hid your word in my
heart”. It goes on to tell us why we should: “So I may not sin against you.”
Memorization and application. “They go together like peas and carrots.” (Forest
Gump)
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