p. 39 | REVIEWING by George A. Peltz

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · January 15, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 3

REVIEWING

By George A. Peltz

MUCH is said about the importance of reviews, but little comparatively is done in that direction. There is a very general confession of inability to do this work, and not a few make the confession before giving the matter a fair test. Is the emphasis laid by educators upon reviews and reviewing too emphatic? Is such work of any special value in the Sabbath-school?

Fairly to answer here requires that we have a good understanding as to what measure and kind of review work should be undertaken in Sabbath-school. If, as a teacher advances with a given lesson, the closing portions are in any sense dependent for their full effect upon the parts which have gone before, then certainly he must review those earlier parts; else the full force of the conclusion is impaired. This is reviewing in its narrowest sphere. It is followed merely to secure unity in a lesson; merely to deliver the force of a lesson as a solid ball, rather than as scattering shot. In every sermon, lecture, address, or oration, there is more or less of this.

In such reviewing let it be remembered, however, that the profit of the pupil will be proportioned to his own active mental participation in the process. If he merely listen to the restatement by his teacher, he may or may not be in a state of attention sufficiently close to secure to him the substance of the statement. But if he be questioned on the previous facts,—if he be so compelled to recall and restate them,—the probabilities are that this effort will fix them in his mind. A review of this kind is inseparable from good teaching, and it is proportionately profitable as the pupil participates in it. This work, then, is of special value in Sabbath-school.

But what is true of the opening and closing portions of every lesson which includes a subject, is measurably true of most lessons in their relations to one another. Usually in every series of lessons there is progress in the development of a history or of an idea. One lesson may not be so closely related to its successor as the first portion of a lesson is to the last, but in proportion as the relation is close and vital, the connecting review should be emphatic. Any one set of facts in a connected history or discussion, can take position intelligibly only as the precedent facts are clearly seen. In Sabbath-school it is desired that the facts of each lesson shall take position intelligibly; therefore such reviewing as shall place the precedent facts in proper position, is essential there.—Rev. George A. Peltz.