More often than not, teachers do the talking and students do the listening. But talking is not always teaching and listening is not always learning. There are alternatives to the talking-listening model of education. A lively question-discussion session, for example, can help both teaching and learning take place.
Questions draw responses; and well-designed questions can engage minds, draw useful responses, and promote discussion.1Herein lies a lesson planning strategy that can make Sunday school classes more interactive and educational.2
Using question sheets
Perhaps the easiest way to illustrate the point is to share an experience. Some time ago I was asked to fill in as a substitute for our senior Sunday school class. The students – all teenage boys — were studying the commandments of Christ, and I was given free rein with the subject. I needed a quick lesson plan!
I decided to focus on matters of conscience, especially in relation to the way we deal with violence in the world. The entire lesson was developed around a single problem:
What would you do if an intruder entered your home, pulled a gun, and threatened to kill your mother?3
If you pose this as a one-off question, you might get a few quick responses from your students and then have things lapse into unproductive silence. It is not an easy question for a young person to answer on the spot. I wanted to make sure that this didn’t happen. I wanted the kids to think about human nature and the way people often react in situations like this; I wanted them to think about the Biblical principles involved, and, as much as anything, I wanted them to have a little time to think before they spoke.
We used three question sheets that expanded on the problem and allowed us to accomplish all of these things. The question sheet strategy worked very well.
First question sheet: What would you do?
The students were each given a copy of the first question sheet as soon as they walked into class. We read the problem together and then they went to work. They were given three or four minutes of quiet time during which they were asked to ponder the problem and choose how they might respond. Here is what the first question sheet looked like:
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What would you do? What would you do if an intruder entered your home, Circle one or more choices. A — Tell the man that he has no business doing this and if he doesn’t get out you will call the police. B — Try to bluff the intruder into thinking that you have already called the police. C — Grab a gun and try to kill him first. D — Try to knock the gun out of his hand. E — Turn your pit bull loose on him. F — Jump in front of your mother to protect her. G — Slip into another room and contact the police. H — Other. Please specify your own choice of action. (writing space) |
After think time was up, rather than make the students commit to any of these courses of action, I asked them to evaluate each of the options, one at a time. What did they think about each choice? Was it likely to work or not? What might be the probable outcome? Would the outcome be what they wanted? Could they think of any alternatives?
The students basically critiqued themselves as the discussion went along. It was interesting to see what they were thinking; and it definitely was not time for me to jump in and tell them “all the answers!”
Second and third question sheets: The issues involved
When this discussion had run its course, a second question sheet was handed out and we started to think more specifically about the Biblical issues involved in the problem. Again a few minutes of think time were given for the students to formulate answers to the questions before I opened it up for discussion. Here is what the second question sheet looked like.
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Issues involved What would you do if an intruder entered your home, Assume that you and your mother are Christadelphians. 1 — If you react with violence, what are the possible outcomes? 2 — If you react with nonviolence, what are the possible outcomes? 3 — What would the consequences be if you succeeded in killing the intruder? 4 —What would the consequences be if you tried to kill the intruder and failed? 5 — What would the consequences be if the intruder killed your mother? Killed you? Killed both of you? |
Ample writing space was provided after each question.
These questions further probed the nature of the students’ thinking. Did they see the practical value of Christ’s nonviolent teaching? Did they have a conscience about inflicting harm on someone else? Were they prepared to accept the consequences of their actions? Did they have enough faith to act in a Christ-like manner, even if it failed?
It still wasn’t time for me to tell the students what to do. The point of these questions was to let them work things out for themselves while I listened to see just how Biblical they were thinking. Could they begin to identify the Biblical issues at stake?
The last question sheet followed up on this one and was handled the same way. Here especially we began turning up Bible passages to get God’s guidance on the problem. At this point, too, the students were encouraged to evaluate the wisdom of their choices in light of God’s wisdom. Were the choices they made the same thing that Christ would have done?
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Issues involved What would you do if an intruder entered your home, 6 — Which of the choices on the first sheet require you to take matters into your own hands in an attempt to save your mother and yourself? A B C D E F G H 7 — Which of the choices on the first sheet require you to trust God more than yourself? A B C D E F G H 8 — How could you put faith in God and put Biblical principles into practice in this situation? 9 — What do you think Christ would do in this situation and why? 10 — What relationship must a Christadelphian have toward his enemy? (Writing space provided for questions 8-10) |
With these three question sheets, we were not at a loss for things to do and talk about. A full and vigorous Sunday school session was the result. But there was still something I wanted to get across to my students. They needed to know that God’s way really works and is not just theoretical. For this we needed more time and more things to think about.4
A footnote on the preparation of question sheets
Framing good questions doesn’t just happen. It takes work. I suggest that you do two things when you develop a question sheet.
- Set it aside for a few days after you have finished it and then come back to it. Do the questions still make sense to you? Do you remember why you asked each question? And are you really asking what you want to ask?
- Give your question sheet to someone else to read. Do they understand the questions and interpret them the same way you do? Do they see the point of the questions or do you need to tweak some of them in order to clarify things?
- See “The Questions We Ask”, The Tidings, June, 2012, pp.228-231; July, 2012, pp.281-285.
- This strategy also works for CYC, the midweek Bible class, and other educational forums.
- Not long ago, one of our Christadelphian young people in New England was asked this question by a military recruiter after he told the recruiter that he was a religious conscientious objector. It takes some careful forethought to answer this question well.
- See next month’s article: “God’s Way Works! The Use of Case Studies”.
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