The Lecture Method by M. E. Kern

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jan 26, 1905

The Lecture Method

By M. E. Kern

Bible Teaching—No. 4

The Lecture Method

FOLLOWING this I would suggest that—

5. The teacher should not make it a practise to lecture to the class. One of the first principles of pedagogy is thus expressed: “Knowledge can be taught only by occasioning the proper activities of the learner’s mind.” This is not done by continual telling, but by awakening thought, and having the pupil study for himself. In fact, “telling is not teaching.” “No error in teaching has occasioned more bad work than the assumption that knowledge can be transferred from one mind to another, that mere telling is teaching.”

The following from Baldwin, in his “School Management and School Methods,” is to the point: “The lecture has its place in class work. Where?—Not in the elementary; not usually in the high school; not usually in the freshman and junior college classes. Elementary pupils are not prepared to profit by lectures. The true elementary oral work is the conversation, and not the lecture. High school pupils are trained to think with the lecturer, and the occasional lecture proves highly beneficial; but the lecture is not the form of high school educative class work. As a rule, the freshmen and sophomore college students are hurt, not helped, by the too frequent lecture. The occasional lecture or course of lectures on some good subjects do great good, but thorough teaching during these precious years is imperative. The place for the lecture in class work is in the junior and senior college classes, in the graduate work, and in the professional schools. The advanced students think with the lecturer as he leads them into fields of research, and into the realms of philosophical investigation. But even in the advanced work the lecture must be supplemented by good teaching.” He further says, on “Revealing and Concealing:” “God reveals a little, and leaves man to find out the rest. Jesus taught a few truths, and wisely left us hungering and thirsting for more. The great preacher unfolds one or two truths, but awakens a burning desire to know all truth. . . . The novice tells us all he knows, but the wise teacher conceals all but the one thing needful.”

Constructive Work

6. Let the teacher require much constructive work from the student. It is one thing to know a thing, and another thing to tell it. “Writing makes an exact man.” There is no better way to train our students to definiteness of thought and resourcefulness than the requirement to produce something. Nothing will give more independence of thought (and by that independence of action) than research and theme work required. And the one great thing our young people need is to learn to do something. Many of our youth, even after finishing school, seem timid and helpless

when thrown upon their own responsibility. Our youth need to learn to think and act for themselves. They will never learn that by having others wrestle with difficult subjects, and try to impart to them the results. Essays and outline maps are a wonderful help in Bible and history work. They fasten the truths on the mind of the student in a way that nothing else does.

Recapitulation

To recapitulate, my suggestions are:—

1. Students should be properly classified according to their ability to work.

2. “The instruction in both matter and method must be adapted to the capabilities of the learner.”

3. Let the pupil be thoroughly grounded in Old Testament history before taking up Bible doctrine as such.

4. There should be definite and systematic outlines for the student to follow.

5. The teacher should not make it a practise to lecture to the class.

6. Let the teacher require much constructive work from the student.

Let me close by repeating again from the spirit of prophecy:—

“As an educating power the Bible is without rival.”

“Let every student who values the heavenly treasure put to the stretch his mental and spiritual powers, and sink the shaft deep into the mine of truth, that he may obtain the celestial gold,—that wisdom that will make him wise unto salvation.”

“If God’s Word were studied as it should be, men would have a breadth of mind, a nobility of character, and a stability of purpose that is rarely seen in these times.” M. E. KERN.