Teachers always remember, attitudes sets the tone for the class.
2 Timothy 2:2 – The impact of teaching told by Paul.
Paul is charging Timothy to teach others as he taught Timothy.
Everything you teach impacts others.
The Laws Of Teaching
The Law Of The Teacher
A class doesn’t die, the people in the class dies.
Philippians 3:13-14 – Paul is looking at the past, present, and future.
Paul is grabbing a challenge. Paul continues to reach.
You may retire from a job but never from Christian life.
***The greatest threat to teaching is satisfaction.***
If you’re giving a divine message don’t bore them with the Word of God by not making it interesting. Make the Word of God interesting.
Sometimes you read too much and reflect too little.
People are under the Word of God but not in the Word of God.
Be an authority of the age group you are teaching.
Care for each of your students and pray for each student.
We are not to label our students. We are to pray for our students.
[Luke 6:40-The Last Part] Everyone will be fully trained just like his teacher.
God wants to use you as His instrument but He has to clean you up first.
As teachers, all the student wants to know is that you care about him/her.
If you stop growing today you stop teaching tomorrow.
You need to know the material and the student.
When we grow in the Word of God, we pass on knowledge.
SEVEN LAWS OF TEACHING (1)
1 – Preparation
2 – Attention
3 – When you’re teaching, you have to have a vocabulary you and your students understand. You have to communicate with your students on their level.
4 – Let the known explain the unknown.
5 – Make sure your student is in an attitude of discovering something.
When you have a teacher that stimulates you, you have a great teacher.
We want to create curiosity in our students. The way people learn determines how you teach.
The Law Of Education
Learning is an ongoing process.
The emphasis in our educational system today is: testing is essentially a cramming meter and teaching is telling. Teachers are interested I how much a student can cram into his head and then regurgitate onto a piece of paper.
The ultimate test is not what we do but what the student does.
Teaching is a science and art.
As a science it’s a basic law. As art it’s knowing what the exceptions are.
Beginning Student – A great deal of encouragement is needed. Get a student involved.
Weak/Discouraged Student – They will hang around after class. They will say “I don’t think I can make it.” You have to believe in your student so he/she can believe in him/herself.
Older Student – They are good learners but conditioned not to wanting to learn because they think they know everything. Don’t sell them short.
Disadvantage Student – People think they are not sharp but don’t believe that. They are deprived, handicapped. It might take some time.
***When you have a resource person, let them talk.***
Teaching Goals
Goal number one: To teach people how to think. If you want to change a person permanently change their thinking and not just their behavior. If you change only his behavior, he won’t understand why he’s made the change. It’s only superficial, and usually short-lived.
A second goal: Teach people how to learn. Create learners who will perpetuate the learning process for the rest of their lives. Learning is a process. It’s going on all the time. Stop learning today and you stop growing tomorrow. Your task as a teacher is to stretch the human mind –which, by the way, is like a rubber band; once you stretch it, it never quite returns to its original form. Don’t throw your mind into neutral. Make sure you teach your students to think.
The third objective: Teach people how to work. This brings us back to the principle of never doing anything for a student that he is capable of doing for himself. If you do you will make him a cripple…a pedagogical paraplegic.
75% of the people in America never think.
15% of the people in America think they think
10% of the people in America think
Process – is going on all the time
Logical – to make sense of things
Synopsis – It moves from the big picture (synopsis) to an analysis of the parts-breaking them down, seeing their meaning in light of the whole, and then putting them back together again (synopsis) so everyone walks out the door thinking, Now I understand it and can use it.
***Truth is always most profitable and productive when you can see it for yourself.***
Discovery – The name of the game. We need to teach who is to grow.
***We are doing too much for our students and that makes them crippled.***
Four Basics
Teach them to read. Reading is a basic skill.
Teach them to write. Don’t say “Don’t do that” unless we say “Do that”.
Teach them to listen. Pay attention and listen to what’s being taught.
Teach them to speak. Learn to speak by speaking.
The Law Of Education is to steer the students.
You don’t have to always get through with your program. Let the student learn through discovery and discussion. Be a coach and stimulator.
THE LAW OF ACTIVITY
Your task as a communicator is not to impress people, but to impact them; not just to convince them, but to change them.
MAXIMUM INVOLVEMENT MAXIMUM LEARNING
The Law of Activity tells us that Maximum learning is always the result of maximum involvement. The activity in which the learner is involved must be meaningful.
***Purposeful activity implies quality activity.***
Never forget your purpose. Your objective determines your outcome. You achieve that for which you aim.
Christianity is the most revolutionary force in history. It changes people.
Churches and Christians don’t want change. They resist the very change they were meant to bring about.
There is a direct correlation between learning and doing. The higher the learners involvement, the greater his potential for learning. The best learners are participators; they’re not merely watching the action from the outside, but are deeply engrossed in it, involved to the hilt. They‘re also enjoying it more than learners who aren’t involved.
Activity in learning is never an end in itself, it’s always a means to an end.
I DO – AND I CHANGE
CHINESE PROVERB:
I hear, and I forget
I see, and I remember
I do, and I understand.
I would make one addition to that proverb. In my judgment, when you do, the result is more than understanding; you also change.
Get students involve. Let them learn by usage. Let them learn in the process of activity.
The same is true in other aspects of Christian life. The finest way to learn to witness is by witnessing, not by reading books about witnessing.
In the spiritual realm, the opposite of ignorance is not knowledge, it’s obedience. In New Testament understanding, to know and not to do is not to know at all.
MEANINGFUL ACTIVITY
1. Activity that provides direction without dictatorship. When you give assignments-and you should-to get your students more involved in the learning process, remember to always provide a sphere of freedom. You want structure-not a straitjacket.
So the ultimate question to the learner is “What do you want?”
Education must come from the individual learner. You as the teacher cannot pour it in-you have to draw it out. “To draw out” is the root meaning of the word education.
So provide direction, not dictatorship.
2. Activity that stresses function and application-that is activity that immediately lets the learner put to use everything that’s just been taught. Which implies that it’s best not to teach at one time more than can be absorbed and used.
3. Activity with a planned purpose. Objectives determine outcomes. You achieve that for which you aim.
4. Activity that is concerned with the process as well as the product-So students not only know WHAT they believe, but why.
If you give your students only the product-you limit them by your own limitations. But give them the process and you launch them on a path with no limitations.
5. Realistic activity that includes problem-solving situations. Where are they? What are they struggling with? What temptations are they facing?
Studying the life of the Savior, the greatest Teacher, makes it clear that He didn’t cram a lot of heads full of a collection of theological facts. No, He involved His disciples in the process so that later the pagan world was compelled to testify, “These are they who have turned the world upside down.
Television is lethal. Those who repeatedly watch television can gradually become brainwashed by what they see.
The word hear, is always associated with the word do. When you read the word hear in the New Testament, you can also read it do. Because the Lord Jesus welded those words together when he said, “He that hearth my words and doeth them, he it is who loves me…Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things I tell you?” His implication? “Either stop calling me ‘Lord,’ or start doing what I ask you.”
The name of the game in Christian education is not knowledge-it’s active obedience.
The question is what do you want not what does the professor want.
Education must come from the individual. You have to draw it out.
How will the student use this material?
Human beings hate human work.
What’s the purpose of these assignments? What do I want to accomplish?
When you teach, ask yourself what you want the students to know.
You build into their life. Then they know what they want.
They learned nothing from the feeding of the 5,000.
Walking on the water – “LORD SAVE ME”. Peter walked back to the boat never taking his eyes off of Jesus this time.
You can never share all you have received. There is always leakage in what you’ve learned.
Direct relationship between meaning relationship and activity.
Effective learning comes from seeing, hearing, and doing.
When you get involved in the lesson, you learn more.
THE LAW OF COMMUNICATION
We live in the age of communication.
Alternate communication is when God gave His Son.
Communication – Common Ground – On the Same Level
Communication is our number one problem.
All communication begins with a concept, feeling, action.
Most of us settle for intellectual communication.
God takes His truth and wrap it in a person.
If you know something thoroughly and you feeling something
Advantages – You can watch me.
You can ask me questions.
Words alone 7%
Tone of voice 35% - How you say what you say
Body language 55% - Gesture, body movement
Kids pick up on your vibes.
We are to communicate by life and message.
There are two types of people in communication: the sender and the receiver.
The main focus of the teacher is the students.
The major part of communication is listening. You have to have a plan.
Communication is the reason for our existence as teachers. It’s also our number one teaching problem.
BUILDING BRIDGES
The word communication comes from the Latin word communis meaning “common”. Before we can communicate we must establish commonness, commonality. And the greater the commonality, the greater the potential for communication.
The classic biblical illustration is in John 4 – Jesus and the woman of Samaria. Notice what they have in common: Both are thirsty.
The Law of Communication compels that very process: BRIDGE BUILDING – To truly impart information requires the building of bridges.
THOUGHT - FEELING - ACTION
All communication has three essential components: intellect, emotion, and volition-in other words, thought, feeling, and action. So whatever it is I want to communicate to another individual, it involves
…something I know,
…something I feel,
…and something I’m doing.
All three components must be present.
***Emotionalism – emotions out of control and is dangerous.***
The most effective communication always includes an emotional ingredient-the feeling factor, the excitement element. If I claim to be committed to the eternal truth of the Word of God, then it must be reflected in my values, in what I prize, in where I put my time and my money, in what I get excited about.
No one in the world can teach you anything better than the gestures you’ll use naturally and comfortably if you really feel what you’re saying. And if you don’t feel it, adding gestures will only make it a contrived performance. All you’ll be doing is putting on an act, and people will see right through it. Not only has the truth failed to excite us, but it too often has failed to change our behavior.
***What you are is far more important than what you say or do.***
God’s method is always incarnational. He loves to take His truth and wrap it in a person. He takes a clean individual and drop him or her in the midst of a corrupt society, and that person-because of what he know, feels, and does-convincingly demonstrates the power of God’s grace.
THE LAW OF COMMUNICATION/LANGUAGE-BOOK NOTES #4
***The Golden Rule “Doing unto others as you would have them to do until you.***
THE WAY WITH WORDS
Words are symbols; we take those symbols and arrange them systematically in a particular order – a syntax, a grammar – and thus we have language as a communication tool. But we can’t get hung up there. The symbols – the words – are not what we’re trying to get across. It’s not a word message we communicate…but a life message. We’re in the life business, not the word business.
Question: Is it more important to witness by your lips or by our life?
Answer: If witness through our lives alone was enough, then everyone exposed to
Jesus Christ during His time on earth should have been converted. He was
the only person who ever lived a perfect life – yet even He shared His
message verbally as well.
So communication is both verbal (primarily speaking and writing) and nonverbal (actions and “body language”), and both these forms must be congruent: What you say must correspond with what they see.
Jesus Christ never did anything that contradicted what He said. His actions and His Words were always in perfect harmony.
Research has shown that our words account for only 7% of everything we communicate to others. Teaching, therefore, involves a delicate balance and relationship between content and communication, between facts and form, between what you teach and how your teach it.
***How tragic it is to clothe the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ with rags.***
PREFECTING YOUR COMMUNICATION
Let’s review the process: We take concepts and feelings and actions, translate them into words, then communicate them through speech – which require two things: preparation and presentation.
- Preparation – In preparation you give your message form and features. Your message needs structure; it needs to be packaged. You need an introduction – something that will capture them – bang! You also need a conclusion.
Between the introduction and the conclusion you need illustrations in your spoken message (as well as actual visual aids – which should always be included whenever possible). These are windows that let in light, so that your hearers can say “Aha, I see it!” Don’t pull illustrations from someone else; get them yourself right from the lifestyle of the people you’re teaching. Talk in terms of where they are – which means you’ve got to know them well and be sensitive to what’s on their minds and heart’s right now.
***Never forget: A good communicator is receptor-sensitive.***
- Preparation (continued) – So the test of communication is not what you as the teacher say, but what your students say; not what you think, but what they think not what you feel, but what they feel; not what you’re doing, but what they’re doing.
- Presentation – involves, among other things, enunciation-speaking clearly so people understand exactly what you’re saying. Another factor is the volume of your voice.
Another Pointer: Vary both your pitch and your speed. Pick them up when you want to convey excitement. Bring them down when you’re emphasizing a major point.
DISTRACTIONS
Distractions come in two forms. Some are within the individual hearer, and can’t be controlled:…the woman who was too stressed to sleep last night. Other distractions you can control, such as the room temperature (environment)
FEEDBACK
Get feedback. As the teacher I want to find out what the learners know, how they feel, and what they’re doing. I’ve got to get the learners to tell me what they’re learning. The number one question I will ask them is “Do you understand?” If the answer in NO, I have to go back to square one.
I can also get feedback by asking them to write it in their own words: “Tell me how you can apply this in your sphere of influence.” Or I can ask, “Do you have any questions?”
Feedback brings us back where we started: The concept – feeling – action is being translated into words. But this time it’s not your concept – feeling – action and your words, but theirs – the learners.
THE LAW OF THE HEART #5 – BOOK NOTES
“Teaching that impact is not head to head, but heart to heart.” That’s the law of the Hearteart, and it’s true as long as you understand the biblical meaning of heart.
To the Hebrews, heart embraced the totality of human personality – one’s intellect, one’s emotions, one’s will. So the process of teaching is that of one total personality transformed by the supernatural grace of God, reaching out to transform other personalities by the same grace. What a privilege!
CHARACTER - COMPASSION - CONTENT
Socrates summarized the essence of communication with three fascinating concepts that he called ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos embraced character. Pathos embraced compassion, Logos embraced content.
Ethos meant establishing the credibility of the teacher – his credentials. Who you are is far more important than what you say or do, because it determines what you say and do.
Pathos, or compassion, concerns how the teacher arouses the passion of his hearers, and massages their emotions. Your emotions will run in the direction of your action. That’s the secret of motivation.
Logos – The logos concept involves the marshaling of evidence. It engages the mind and gives understanding.
The teacher’s character is what produces the learner’s confidence. When I see the equality to your life, I know you have something significant as a teacher to contribute to me. I can trust you.
Understand that the basis of all effective communication emanates from within. Ask yourself periodically, “What kind of a person am I?”
Second, it’s your compassion that produces the learner’s motivation. If I sense you love me, I’ll be eager to do all kinds of things you want me to do.
Third, it’s your content that produces the learner’s perception. You as the teacher have seen it – now I as the learner see it. I understand it, I have discovered it. It is mine, woven into the fabric of my life.
The greatest communicators – the greatest teachers are the people who have great hearts. They communicate as a total person, and they communicate to the total person of their hearers.
THE TEACHING – LEARNING PROCESS
Teaching is causing.
Causing people to learn. If the learner does not learn, we have not taught.
Teaching is what you do; learning is what your students do. The student must do the learning; all the teacher can do is teach. So the focus in teaching is primarily on what you as the teacher do, and the focus in learning is primarily on what the student does.
Learning is change.
Learning means a change in your thinking, a change in your feeling, a change in your behavior. Learning means that a change takes place in the mind, in the emotions, and in the will.
How do we keep the world from squeeze-molding us? Paul answers “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It’s by transforming. A metamorphosis. It’s not a transforming from without but from within – “By the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.”
CHANGE - Radical change. This we are conformed to the likeness of God’s Son.
“When God reveals Himself to you, you are responsible. The ball is in your court.”
WHERE LEARNING BEGINS
All learning begins at the feeling level.
If the students’ attitude is positive, they tend to embrace what they hear. If their attitude is negative, they tend to walk away from it.
If I have negative feeling about you, I will reject what you’re saying because I reject you. But if I like you – and if I know you’re interested in me – you can get me to do the most incredible things in all the world. And there’s a good possibility I’m also going to like your Lord, who made you the way you are.
No one cares what you know until they know that you care.
You are to get a relationship and establish a rapport with your audience so that your audience is free to interact with you on the subject you’re teaching. You do it with heart.
NEVER FORGET THE FACTS
It makes all the difference in the world what you believe, because what you believe determines how you behave.
We understand God’s word by studying it.
God wants to communicate with us, and He has written His message in a Book that contains everything we need for now and eternity. This is our given. This is our message.
Christianity is based not merely on experience (though it produces an experience), but on historical fact.
Paul reminded us of this in 1 Corinthians 15. What is the essence of the gospel? Paul said it is four historical facts:
Christ died.
He was buried.
He rose again.
He appeared to certain people.
Content is critically important from a biblical point of view. We’ve got to know the truth God has revealed. Never forget the facts of the word of God. There is also the feeling level, the emotions, and there’s the level of the will – action, behavior.
Until the mind has been changed, and the emotions have been changed, and the will has been changed, biblical teaching and learning has not taken place.
BE A PERSON OF IMPACT
If you want to be a person of impact:
Know your students. The more you know of their needs, the better able you are to meet them. This takes commitment and time. You’ve got to be willing to pour out your life. It means getting personally involved with your students, both in and out of class, both formally and informally.
“You can impress people at a distance. But you can impact them only up close. And the closer you are to them, the greater and more permanent the impact.”
Have you ever let people see you when your guard is down? They really need to see you when you’re discouraged or when you’ve lost your temper. Then they won’t deny your humanity, but realize you’re cut from the same cloth they are.
Earn the right to be heard. Credibility always precedes communication. Ordinary people are people who change lives – and our celebrity society has never figured that out. So win a hearing.
Be willing to become vulnerable before your students. Let them know what you’re struggling with, and what you’ve struggled with for years. Get the picture of how to pass on to others what God has taught you through those stretching experiences and those agonizing failures – experiences that made you the person you are.
The Law of the Heart
Love makes a difference.
The heart is a symbol of love and caring.
All our deeds both good and bad begin from the heart.
Good teaching sometimes take a back seat.
When God wanted to communicate with us He used man.
Why did the disciples follow Jesus? The disciples followed Jesus because He loved them.
Many are under the Word of God but not in it.
***The trust factor is the greatest commodity in communication.***
[You need to build a relationship with your students so they can trust you.]
Dying has nothing to do with your age it has everything to do with your attitude.
I like you and I like your Lord.
Let the student know you are for real.
Ordinary people have the extraordinary ministries.
People need to see you when you’re discouraged and then they won’t/don’t forget that you are human too.
Teaching from the heart allows you to be a risk to yourself.
Two Principles
- Non-Threatening
- Made Himself Available
Be yourself.
A good heart is better than all the heads in the world.
THE LAW OF ENCOURAGEMENT #6 – BOOK NOTES
MQ
The number one problem in education today is the failure to motivate learners…to get them off the dime and into action.
The longer I teach, the more convinced I am that a person’s MQ – his Motivation Quotient – is more important than his IQ – Intelligence Quotient.
Lack of application leads to nothing to capture and direct their ability and energy. This leads to not be motivated to apply yourself.
The Law of Encouragement is this: Teaching tends to be most effective when the learner is properly motivated.
Underline the word properly in the definition, because it tells us there’s such a thing as improper motivation-illegitimate motivation that can bring devastating results.
***Doing good things does not ensure good results. It’s all determined by the reason for motivation.***
Another improper motivation is guilt. Yet another improper motivation involves deceit-intentional and unintentional.
Let’s stop promising people more than Christianity promises them, more than the Scriptures promise them. Don’t say, “If you come to Christ, all your problems will be solved.” That’s how people get disillusioned. Sure, Christ will meet their needs, but not according to your script, or in your time, or in your way.
***Be careful what you tell people as a tool for motivation.***
AWARENESS OF NEED
There are two levels of motivation. The first is extrinsic motivation-motivation from without. The second is more significant-intrinsic motivation, which comes from within.
Your task in all extrinsic motivation is to trigger intrinsic motivation. We can see something of how God accomplishes this internal. Motivation in a verse of Scripture I suspect you have committed to memory-Romans 12:1 – “Therefore I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship.
God never asks you to do anything for Him until He fully informs you of what He has done for you. When finally you are gripped by all He has done for you, your most logical, reasonable, intelligent, and natural response in return is to give everything you’ve got-your mind, your emotions, your will-to His Lordship. Now you’re internally motivated, and on your way to maturity.
As a teacher-a motivator-you want to help people develop into self-starters. You want them to do what they do…not because you ask them or you twist their arm, but because they themselves have chosen to do it. One of the best ways to trigger this choice is to help the learner become aware of his need.
The need has to be a felt need. That’s why much of your method in teaching should be exposing your students to real-life experiences.
GOOD TRAINING
You motivate people by correctly structuring their training experience. Training involves four major stages. The first is the telling stage, and we’re usually strongest here. I always recommend in this stage that the content be recorded both in writing and on tape. Put it in a form they can review it repeatedly. Only then will they really begin to catch on.
The next stage is the showing stage. You provide a model. What does it look like? Flesh it out. When they see it in action, they’ll say, “Hey, that’s what I want.”
Stage three and four involves doing – but in different ways: first in a controlled situation, then in uncontrolled, real life situations.
Another mark of training is giving people responsibility with accountability.
The more you put into something, the more you appreciate it. The greater the investment, the greater the interest.
A leading authority on training tells me that some of the best training in all the world is taking place in the cults.
THE PERSONAL TOUCH
The application: when your teaching has the learner’s name written all over it-when he sees that, in effect, his name occurs throughout the Book, and it’s personal- it will make a big difference in his level of motivation.
I think the reason God has used me is that, by His grace, the Holy Spirit has developed in me an incurable confidence in his ability to change people.
I trust the Spirit has given you that same confidence, because if you don’t have it, your impact will always be limited. The Spirit of God wants to use you as His motivational tool working external upon the learner, while He is at work internally. You have to be willing to flow into other people’s lives.
I’m convinced that everyone-no exception-can be motivated to learn, but not at the same time, and not by the same person…and not in the same way.
***You need to walk by faith to be a good teacher, and you need a lot of patience.***
And you are not God’s answer to every individual. That’s what the body of Christ is all about.
CREATIVE MOTIVATION
How do you get them hooked? The same way you as a teacher can hook anyone: Once you get to know your students, let them get to know you, and then build creatively on that knowledge.
And since God motivates people in different ways, we need to be creative, and to use a variety of methods.
With teenagers we should have learned by now never to prohibit without also providing – it’s not enough to say “Don’t do that” without also saying “You can do this.” Our problem is that we aren’t willing enough to put our creative hooks into the areas of their interests and abilities.
THE POWER UNLEASHED
“How in the world do you get a person motivated?”
“When you sock someone with 20,000 volts of electricity, they don’t turn to you and ask, “Did you say something? “No, they move.
The key question is…Are you motivated?
Because motivated people become change agents.
So many people in our churches have never become impassioned about the only thing ultimately worth getting impassioned about.
So if it’s exciting…get excited!
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