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Adult Lecturing
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This question is not particularly about educating children, but just a thought that came to me. Children learn best with minimal lecturing, but do adults also? When we go to church and the pastor “preaches”, is that different from lecturing on a school topic? There is no discussion, no narration from adults, not much participation apart from “amens” and the like. Do children learn differently than adults in this matter? Do you think it is because children need to learn more through stories, facts clothed in ideas? We realize that it is better not to preach to them, but let the story “paint” the morals for the most part. But as adults, we are preached to every week and we learn that way.
Just thoughts that are going around in my head…
Well, this is what comes to my mind off of the top of my head….I hope this makes sense. 🙂
I think the reasons that sermons in church work for adults (as far as learning that day’s lesson) is because it follows the pattern laid out by Jesus in scripture. Jesus taught/preached in that way to the people. It works for us as adults because it is a model of how Jesus taught the adults of his day.
Lecturing children as a form of teaching in their education (academically) is a tool that is man-made. The modern day education movement (lecturing children, multiple choice tests etc.) was an idea contrived by man, and that is why it doesn’t work, in my opinion.
When something follows a “God-designed” pattern, it just works. When something follows a “man-made” pattern, it usually does not work.
This is my opinion! Hope it helps!!
Liz
I find it interesting that Jesus used so many stories and illustrations and word pictures in his teaching. It seems like the audience perks up/tunes back in when the speaker tells a story to illustrate his point. Story-telling seems to be a universal teaching method for all ages.
I believe that adults do not learn best by lectures either. I do not remeber much at all from my college lectures. I remember much more from my high school book socratic seminars. When I really learn something and meditate it from a sunday sermon, it is when the Holy Spirit is making connections with in my life. Either he has been teaching me that same lesson throughout the week, month…. or he convicts me during the sermon and causes me to meditate on it throughout the rest of the week. I was actually thinking about this yesterday. If I lecture my kids and make all of the connections for them they will remember it for a short time and then it will vanish. However, if I introduce them to something, allow them to contemplate it, explore it, figure it out, make thier own connections then it is really something that they injest and that knowledge lasts a life time. The lessons that I remeber best from my elementary and middle school years are exploration with sciences where I really had the oppportunity to touch, or visual how and why things worked. These I never forget, the lectures I did. As Sonya and Liz said, Jesus often used parable (often real taniglable things that the people understood) to teach the people real trues. I believe more often then not he gave the parable and then allowed the poeple to cotemplate the parables and try to discover the truth that he was portraying.
Thank you for the thoughtful replies:) I agree that adult learn best with stories included too. Liz, your conclusion is very thoughtful and may indeed be a factor in how we learn.
Yesterday I read this interesting sentence in the book Charlotte Mason Summaries: “At the beginning, knowledge must be conveyed through interesting books, only later, when interest is secured, will students be so captivated by a subject that they can appreciate the drier facts.”
I know that Charlotte Mason said that when devising a syllabus, “Knowledge should be communicated in well-chosen language, because his attention responds naturally to what is conveyed in literary form.”
So I see here that the books secure a child’s interest and therefore his attention. I believe that to be the biggest reason that children need stories more than lectures.
I know that my interest in the things of God, for example, is already secured….I am captivated by the subject (Bible) already…so perhaps that is why I can learn while listening to a preacher lecture me? He has my attention because the topic has my interest.
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