p. 759 | THE QUESTION CORNER by C. C. L.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, December 2, 1884

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 61, No. 48

THE QUESTION CORNER.

By C. C. L.

BLACKBOARD ILLUSTRATIONS.

Is it advisable for the teacher to use a blackboard with a class of children? and is it better to have the picture made beforehand, and simply explain it in the class; or to draw as the lesson progresses, and so the children can watch the process? V. A. T.

A blackboard is a most important help in teaching a class of children or a class of grown people as well. There is scarcely a lesson which cannot be illustrated or made more impressive by the use of the blackboard, and no school—yes, I will go further, and will say no class—should be without one. Each class should have a small tablet about one and one-half by two feet in size; and there should be a larger one for general use before the whole school.

The small tablets may be made in several ways. The best material is heavy “binders’ board,” such as is used in making book covers. A sheet of this, trimmed to the proper size, having one side painted with two or three coats of liquid slating, makes the ideal tablet for class use. Where the “binders’ board” cannot be obtained, a piece of wide board, planed smooth and painted with liquid slating, will do well. If you cannot get the slating, the board may be covered with black, unglazed cambric, stretched tightly, and fastened with tacks along the edges of the board. This makes a surface which will take chalk better than a board surface covered with ordinary black paint. One who has tried it says a still better surface may be obtained by tacking upon the board a piece of dark, unglazed, oil-cloth window curtaining, which may be obtained for eighteen or twenty cents per yard. I have dwelt thus at length upon how to make a blackboard,—a point not mentioned in the question,—on account of the fact that in harmony with the action of the General Sabbath-School Association at its recent session, an effort will be made to secure a more general use of blackboard illustrations in the Sabbath-school work. This matter will doubtless be fully discussed at the proper time.

With reference to the second part of the question, I certainly think it would be better to draw the illustration as the lesson goes forward; for the children will be intensely interested in watching the progress of the work. Of course the teacher should practice beforehand until he is able to execute the drawing with reasonable rapidity and skill; and until the teacher has by practice acquired some proficiency in the art of drawing, it might be well to prepare the more difficult illustrations out of the class. But illustrations made in the class, and in the making of which the children have themselves had a hand, will, as a general thing, produce a deeper impression upon the children’s minds than a finely executed drawing which the teacher has prepared beforehand. Be careful that the children do not become more interested in your drawing as a picture than in the lesson you are trying to illustrate.

POOR LESSONS NO REASON FOR ABSENCE.

Will a poorly learned lesson be a good excuse for staying away from Sabbath-school? C. W. M.

Certainly not. To have a poor lesson is bad; but to have a poor lesson and be deliberately absent from school on that account, is a great deal worse. There must be some humiliation connected with having a poor lesson, else the temptation to be absent from the class had not been suggested; but that humiliation the offender richly deserves as a punishment, and its salutary effects he greatly needs as a means of discipline. So, by all means, do not sneak away from deserved punishment, or deprive yourself of needed discipline, but accept them both in a manly way. Of course these remarks do not apply if the lesson, from any good and sufficient cause, cannot be learned; but in that case the individual should be in his place for the sake of his influence in favor of regularity and on account of the opportunity of learning something from the recitation. C. C. L.