RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Evening Star, Issue 23379, 23 September 1939, Page 4

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

[By Forward.]

44 Blessed is tho Sunday school that is properly organised for its work, for it knows where it is going and will know when it gets there.” 44 Forward ” acknowledges receipt of tho latest issue of 4 S.S. Progress, the quarterly magazine published by Air A. H. Reed in the interests of religious education, and containing articles from current literature on various aspects of Sunday school work. This issue contains articles giving suggestions on 4 Hymn , Singing,’ 4 Prayer in the Sunday School,’ 4 The Art of Story-telling,’ ‘The Successful Loader,’ 4 Teachers’ Meetings,’ and 4 Anniversary Celebrations.’ The fact that -with this issue 4 S.S. Progress ’ commences its eighteenth year is evidence of its usefulness to Sunday school workers. THE TRAINING CLASS. One of the basic factors in the building up of the future church out of tho Sunday school is that there should be first-class teaching in the _ Sunday school, and no school can achieve this without training classes. For every school we suggest a motto: 44 Improve your training classes,” or where they do not exist, 44 Create training classes.” Let us concentrate on this vitally important function—teacher training. If you have no training classes, create them. If they are weak, improve them. if they are strong, make them absolutely first-class.— 4 New Chronicle.’

SHOULD TEACHERS MOVE UPP Mrs Ernest Hayes was asked to discuss this question in the following letter:—“We are a fully-graded school. The intermediate has recently had a change of leader, and he has ascertained that some of our teachers have already had some of their children six or seven years, and is rather anxious to change round the teachers and scholars, but it is a difficult task, and some feel that to change a teacher of scholars at the age of 13 to 14, without any real reason, will lead to a loss of scholars and no great advantage. The position seems to have ansemin this way. The teachers seldom want to pass up from one department to another, and the easiest way to get them to go from primary to junior is to take their class through when they come to the top. About the middle of the junior department the boys and girls are separated, but frequently a teacher is left with a few or the old scholars, and at the top of the junior department again goes_ through with the children, and continues. It seems obvious that a teacher who has been used to junior would find it difficult when going into intermediate to give up that class and take middle intermediates if they have no previous experience of that departnieut. Can yon advise us where the change of teacher should take place, and if you consider it a mistake for a scholar to have the same teacher for several years?” In reply. Mr Hayes writes: “I am "lad this question has been raised, for it often perplexes workers, and there seems to be a great deal of misunderstanding, to say the least of it, in people’s minds about this question or promotions. I remember at a confer-, ence I was conducting many years ago, one superintendent proved _ a _ positive nuisance because he would insist that in a graded school every class was promoted away from its teacher at least once a year ergo, grading was thoroughly bad. Apparently, the good man had got the idea from somewhere that once a year, presumably at a given signal, there was a general, post ’ in every department of the school, the teachers remaining glued to their chairs, while all the scholars stampeded to new classes. This may not be exactly what my critic meant, but nothing could shake bis conviction that grading was thoroughly bad because it took all the scholars away from their teachers once every year. “ I hope that in no case grading means any mechanical or machine-like action at any point, regardless of the human element. On no important detail is any hard-and-fast method binding on every Sunday school, _ since we must always adapt our organisation to fit the growing needs of the scholar, and not force the living child through a machine. In other words, this question of promoting scholars away from their teachers cannot be settled by rule or fiat, even in the primary department. " I have always found in practice that a little common sense, plus a knowledge of the individuals concerned, is the best guide as to the course of action to take in every case. Generally speaking, the usual practice is to promote the teachers through the departments, since we want to keep the circle of teachers moving upwards through the training classes, so that all teachers will in time be trained and get experience in every department. “ Whether the same scholars remain with the same teacher year after year is entirety a matter for local decision One has found, except in very rare cases, that classes inevitably change in personnel from time to time through rearrangement of the scholars, or teachers leaving, which does mean that in the course of the years very few. if any,_ of the classes remain intact from the primary to the intermediate. Only one such case has come within my experience, when a lady teacher kept a number of boys from her class in the primary right through the junior and on to the intermediate, and the plan _ worked excellently. She was certainly an exceptional' type of teacher, and Lad gained a personal ascendancy over the boys that was very fine. If I had, for the sake of some arbitrary rule, insisted on taking her boys from her in. say, the junior department, I should have qualified for an asylum, since there was everything to lose and nothing to gain from any such mechanical severance. Had the boys in question shown any . desire for a change, the position would, of course, have been entirely different; but as it was, it was clearly a case of leaving well lone.

“ I think I have now answered my correspondent’s inquiry. The fact that certain teachers have had their scholars six or seven years is no real reason for a change. The leader must decide, from both observation and inquiry, whether such teachers or children manifest a desire for a change. I should certainly not be guided by only a rule or the teacher in such a matter, since it is what is good for the scholar that must decide such a point. “ The case for a wholesale change in classes and teachers rests upon the claim that it is far better for the general Christian education of. the child that he should pass through the hands of several teachers at least, rather than he aways tied to the ideas and methods of_ one person. This is certainly a point—but. on tbe other hand, it is fare more important that we should not cut aijy personal link that may he vital between teacher and scholar, since in the last resort the school may be depending for its hold on a particular scholar or group of scholars, on the personality of a particular teacher.

Some superintendents, recognising the fact that losses are made when classes are changed in a department, and when children move up from department to

department, try to make any necessary changes between teachers and scholars occur in the middle of the department period, rather than at promotion time.”