TEACHING CREATIVELY: Making A Difference in Lives
(Tune: I Have the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy)I want to stay in my box where I’ve always been.
It’s so comfortable!
It’s so comfortable!
It’s so comfortable!
I want to stay in my box where I’ve always been.
It’s so comfortable!
I don’t want to have to change.
This enclosure with flat sides, known as a box, is:
1. Confining
2. Restraining
3. Has limited boundaries
The Sides of the Box
The sides of the box can be made of various things, including:
1. Tradition
2. Lack of ideas
3. Limited funds
4. Complacency (Content to teach boring, uninteresting, non-life-changing lessons week after week after week.)
The Challenge
1. Fling out your arms.
2. Knock down the walls of your box.
3. Step out of that suffocating enclosure.
4. Take a deep breath of the fresh air of creativity and new ideas which literally surround you the moment you step away from your box.
5. Stretch your mind to think and learn in fresh, new ways.
6. Accept the challenge to be an adventurous, daring, dedicated, zestful children’s teacher – teaching from the natural outflow of what God has done in your life and making a significant difference in lives tomorrow.
Church is over. The family climbs into the car, heading home. Mom turns her head to junior in the back seat and says, “What did you learn in Sunday School today?” Junior screws up his face, thinks for the longest time, and finally shrugs his shoulders: “I don’t know.” And the teacher spent ONE HOUR teaching — but it’s quite possible she has not heard about point # 1 — her focus was fuzzy.
1. Begin my lesson preparation with prayer, asking God, “What ONE key principle do the boys and girls in my class need to assimilate in their lives?”
This becomes your lesson aim. Sometimes teachers just open their lesson and find out what the Bible story is on for that week, then back up and find out what the supporting activities are. They haphazardly get the materials together, do the lesson and say, “Whew…over with for another week.”
Some teachers say, “There’s just too much stuff in this lesson. We don’t have time.” Other teachers complain, “There’s not enjoy stuff in this lesson. What do we do?”
Most published curriculum — right at the beginning of each lesson — gives you their purpose, their focus. This is the lesson aim.
You KNOW the pupils in your class better than the editor who wrote these lessons. Will the suggested aim work in your situation? Your curriculum writers may have listed several lesson aims. You may study the supportive scripture and read through the suggested story – you may not be able to figure out what that lesson writer was thinking when that particular aim was chosen! So you go into your class confused — fuzzy in your thinking – no clear focus. Then we wonder why the pupils are not learning!
Ask God what HE wants to happen in your class each week. If you want to make a difference in lives — you must know your lesson focus. Personalize it. Write it down.
Example: If your lesson focuses on the story of Abraham and Sarah and baby Isaac, the Lord may say to you that the children in your class need to firmly understand: I can trust God to keep His promises. It needs to be personalized because during the one hour you teach — you want your class to say this over and over and over — so they leave with one key concept that can make a difference in their lives in the tomorrow’s.
2. Post the lesson aim around the room.
Every time there is a free moment in session, say it together. Post on it on the door and say before leaving. For students to take notice of visuals, attach them to unusual locations: yourself, floor, windows, ceiling.
3. Weave all activities through my purpose aim.
a. The story should highlight your purpose.
b. Activities and games should review your purpose.
d. Scripture memorization should reflect your purpose.
c. Music should reinforce your purpose.
4. Send lesson purpose home in written form.
Why? There WILL be a percentage of your children who DO take it home rather than making it into an airplane, so parents, relatives, friends and neighbors will see it.
5. Realize that teaching is more than one hour at church.
“Children don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Are you willing to invest time in the lives of your pupils:
a. Phone calls
b. Letter
c. Quick home visits
d. Attendance at special events
6. Decide what creative methods will carry the lesson aim, incorporating as much multi-
sensory learning as possible through:
a. Seeing
b. Smelling
c. Tasting
d. Hearing
e. Feeling
f. Doing
Seeing and hearing could be viewing a video of Jesus calming the storm. Acting out the story while being sprayed with a mist of water would be the doing and feeling. Add an open can of sardines, you’ve got the smell of the ocean!
Our senses are the primary way information goes the brain. When an activity appeals to 2 or more senses, more learning happens. When you use multisensory learning, boredom is reduced. Reduced boredom means reduced behavior challenges.
Some kids need to be moving or touching something in order to learn best. There’s a reason why Billy likes to fidget with a toy car during the lesson and why Susie likes to hug the teddy bear she brings each week. Why not put something related to the lesson in Billy’s hand – and something to Suzie from the story to hold and interact with?
Methods are not ends in themselves but only a means for reaching your goal which is placing kids in a position where they’re ready to allow God to enter their lives with His transforming power!