10 What Are Christian Education Methods?

At parents’ day in his child’s Christian school, Bill came away with a distinctly positive impression of the devotion the school’s teachers exhibited toward his child and her learning. Bill and his wife had always known that their child’s Christian school teachers devoted their full energies and creativity to their teaching practices and methods. Bill and his wife could tell from the photos, videos, and descriptions the teachers shared, the schoolwork and developmental progress their child exhibited, and the few glimpses that they got of teachers interacting with their child, around pickup and drop off. But on parents’ day, Bill finally got to see his child’s teacher in live action in the classroom. And what he saw was not only a loving and devoted teacher but also a teacher incredibly skilled at her craft.

Methods

Theory leads to method. Teachers may or may not expressly commit to the teaching and learning theories discussed in the prior chapter or to other useful education theories like behaviorism and cognitivism. Yet the methods they employ will still reflect their beliefs about how students learn. If you can’t tell a teacher’s theory from the teacher’s parent communications, then examine the teacher’s methods to discern the theory or approach. All practitioners, whether of teaching or another profession, have their favorite, go-to methods and practices. And from those practices, you can tell at least something about what they believe to be the nature, role, and purpose of the individuals whom their practices affect. Jesus himself said that you would know his followers by the love they show one another. The methods of your child’s Christian school teachers should reveal to you their full embrace of Jesus Christ, in the love that they show your child and one another. Consider the following instructional methods and practices you may observe in your child’s Christian schooling, through which the school’s teachers exhibit their love for teaching and learning, and their full commitment to your child’s loving development.

Direct

One thing you should readily observe in your child’s Christian school classrooms is their order and structure. Many children learn best in an orderly environment, with a highly structured presentation followed by practice routines. Jesus himself taught using structured, layered, overlapping, and connected lectures and routines. Direct instruction is the phrase generally associated with a highly structured, traditional form of teacher-led instruction, guiding students through precisely designed practice routines. Studies of direct instruction show its powerful learning effect generally and especially on student populations with varied or only developing academic skills. Direct instruction focuses on clear and explicit teaching of course content, seeking mastery of foundational knowledge. Direct instruction has the teacher first present the knowledge and exhibit the skill, then has the teacher and class exhibit the knowledge and practice the skill together, and then concludes with the student alone exhibiting the knowledge and practicing the skill, typically in some form of assessment. Direct instruction is an I do, we do, you do approach to teaching. Direct instruction repeats this iterative process for each discrete chunk of learning before assembling the learning into the student’s whole performance. If you look around your child’s Christian school classroom and see multiple beautifully ordered displays on the wall, suggesting regular student practice of carefully designed routines, then your child is benefiting from direct instruction.

Mastery

Your child’s Christian school teachers may regularly seek to extend your child’s direct instruction to the point of mastery learning. Mastery learning aims to have each student reach a high degree of competence at each small and progressive step of learning. Students may, for instance, have to achieve an 85% or even 90% score on a quiz or test, before advancing to the next unit of learning. Mastery learning plainly involves a high degree of program rigor, the kind often associated with college-prep academies, which many Christian schools effectively are. Mastery learning can also facilitate students progressing at their own pace, enabling students with advanced academic skills to learn more, while students needing more time to learn can take the extra time that they need to do so. Again, the smaller class sizes and advantageous student socioeconomic and academic profile typical of many Christian schools lend themselves well to the high expectations and rigors of mastery learning.

Inquiry

So, Christian school teachers typically employ precise direct instruction routines to ensure that each child masters the requisite knowledge and skill base without gaps in learning. Yet Christian school teachers also commonly balance that rigorous instruction with inquiry learning. Students benefit not only from highly structured practice but also from free investigation and exploration, in the form of the discovery-based theory that the prior chapter addressed. Jesus himself sent his disciples out in pairs and groups to practice what he had preached and to report back the results, in a form of inquiry learning. The encouragement of those disciples at the heartening response they mostly received to their teaching proved the success of Christ’s inquiry method. Smaller Christian school class sizes and the generally advantageous socioeconomic status of Christian school students can make inquiry-based instruction more possible and fruitful than in other schools. In STEM instruction, for instance, Christian school teachers may assign week-long skills projects to groups of students, allowing students to work largely on their own in their groups, while continuing with direct instruction on the knowledge base related to the projects. Value inquiry learning in your child’s Christian school.

Demonstration

Christian school teachers also use demonstration as a method or practice, just as Christ taught in a highly demonstrative method. Christ walked the walk while talking the talk. Christ brought to life, in compelling demonstration, the things that he taught his followers. Christ performed miracles expressly to attract and point his followers to his good-news message. Christ turned water into wine, walked on water, multiplied fish and bread, healed the sick, and raised the dead, among other miracles. Yet Christ also carried himself with humility, spoke gently, acted boldly and bravely, maintained self-control, served others, and forgave offenses, in demonstration of the good character he taught. Christ even washed the feet of his disciples on the night before his crucifixion, with the express message that his disciples were to do likewise, serving and giving themselves for others. Christian school teachers likewise seek to demonstrate what they teach, both in Christ-like character and in academic subjects. When you observe your child’s Christian school classroom, you are likely to see teacher demonstrations, student demonstrations, and student practice as a key method of Christian school instruction.

Personalized

Christian school teachers can also have the opportunity, and readily demonstrate the commitment, to provide personalized or individual instruction to students. Smaller class sizes with orderly behavior can enable a Christian school teacher to examine and guide, correct, or assist the individual work of a student, while other students are also working in class on assignments. If you get a glimpse of your child’s Christian school classroom, you may observe the teacher moving from student to student as students silently work on assignments, with the teacher pausing at length here and there to assist individual students. Your child may also receive personalized instruction from regular classroom teachers and student support teachers or aides, in study halls, on breaks, in pull-out sessions, and before and after school. Teachers are not tutors but can sometimes act like a tutor, in brief and frequent, or longer and periodic, personalized instruction. The devotion of Christian school teachers to each student’s academic progress and general welfare encourages this highest level of commitment to individual student progress.

Mentoring

The highly relational aspect of Christian school teaching and learning, already described in the prior chapter on teaching theory and approaches, translates readily into teacher mentoring and coaching. Teacher mentoring is similar to both teacher demonstration and individualized instruction. Yet mentoring differs in that it involves a longer-term teacher-student relationship, focused not on discrete learning but instead on overall attitude toward holistic development. Mentoring may, for instance, involve the teacher and student sharing a non-academic activity or task, like preparing classroom displays together, while teacher and student simultaneously share life events and stories, with the teacher subtly guiding and encouraging the student. Christian schools may also conduct formal or informal programs arranging special mentoring relationships between needful students and school administrators, program staff, sports coaches, alumni, students at higher grade levels, and relationally skilled student peers. Mentoring is a biblical practice that Jesus and his disciples and apostles employed and endorsed. Expect your child’s Christian school to likewise do so.

Discussion

Your child’s Christian school teachers are also likely to regularly involve students in discussion, as another teaching method that Jesus employed. Teachers may lead discussion, first to elicit, assess, and reinforce factual knowledge students are learning, and then to challenge students to apply, evaluate, and synthesize that knowledge, through progressively higher levels of reasoning. While we generally associate with Socrates the practice of using probing questions to teach, even calling the ancient practice the Socratic method, Jesus himself used probing questions to inform, educate, and guide his listeners. Jesus especially used probing questions to challenge outlooks and change hearts. Christian school teachers thus don’t use the discussion method primarily for factual clarification, as one might observe in a public school classroom, or for logical and philosophical discernment, as Socrates practiced millennia ago. Christian school teachers instead primarily use discussion to evaluate and integrate lesson topics through the Christian lens and worldview. Helping students learn to integrate and apply their faith is, after all, Christian education’s mission. You should soon be pleased to find your child evaluating and analyzing home experiences, too, through the biblical lens your child is learning and adopting in Christian school.

Storytelling

Your child’s Christian school teacher is also likely to employ storytelling as an instructional practice and method. Jesus was the premier storyteller. Jesus used stories both to make his teachings memorable and to reveal how his teaching works itself out in context, example, and narrative. Thus, Christian teaching isn’t so much learning formulas, instructions, and principles as it is instead seeing how God’s desires and designs work themselves out in their social and personal context. Jesus’ parables were each a story, while also each illustrating underlying foundational principles. Jesus’ stories didn’t just communicate commands, principles, and instructions. They also revealed the pattern of God’s designs and his cosmological structure. Catching a glimpse of your child’s Christian school classroom, you are likely to see the teacher reading aloud and interpreting Bible stories and other informative historical and biographical accounts to students. You are also likely to see students reading and reciting stories, while interpreting and applying them in papers, posters, and presentations. You may also see your child writing, rehearsing, and drawing out your child’s own story.

Rehearsal

Your child’s Christian school teacher is also likely to employ several forms of rehearsal, repetition, arrangement, and elaboration to help students learn and remember. Jesus was his utterly masterful self in that respect, too, as in every other teaching method that he employed. To help his listeners understand and recall his lengthy oral teachings, Jesus used pithy, rhyming, alliterative, allusive, and humorously or shockingly exaggerated expressions. Jesus especially needed to do so because his disciples and other followers weren’t generally writing down what he taught. They were instead listening and then rehearsing, recalling, and repeating what he said, to remember every word, account, illustration, symbol, subtlety, command, and principle. Getting a glimpse of your child’s Christian school classroom, you may thus hear the teacher calling out key words and phrases, with the students repeating the callout in responsive fashion. You may also see the teacher urging students to use memory aids like mnemonics, acronyms, alliteration, and rhyming, to recall both scripture verses and passages, and the key concepts and events reflected in their academic subjects. You may also find your child memorizing and repeating Jesus’ words and other scripture using these methods.

Support

Academic and behavioral support services are also a common, significant, and dedicated instructional practice for Christian schools. Individual students can struggle with specific topics, skills, and behaviors, whether one attributes the struggle to developmental differences, socialization needs, or disabilities. Christian schools typically maintain qualified teaching staff and support professionals to provide support services. Those services may occur with monitoring and individual support in the classroom or in pull-out sessions in another room in the school for individual or small-group instruction, testing, and other support interactions. Christian school support professionals may include teachers, specialists in disability support, social workers, psychologists, and other professionals, as one would also find in the public schools. While Christian schools may not receive the same substantial federal funding for disability services that the local public schools receive, Christian schools generally have the right under federal legislation to have the support of the local public school district for certain disability services, including disability evaluations, speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and audiology and vision services.

Reflection

What teaching practices and methods were most helpful to you in your K-12 schooling? What teaching practices and methods would you believe would be most helpful to your child? Do you believe your child would respond well to clear, orderly, and structured direct instruction? Do you believe your child would respond well to rigorous and challenging mastery learning? Do you believe your child would also benefit from group-based and student-led inquiry projects? Do you think that your child would benefit both from teacher and peer demonstrations, and the opportunity to demonstrate your child’s own learning to others? Does your child need individualized instruction? Would your child benefit from mentoring? How does your child respond to probing questions in discussion? Does your child benefit from storytelling? Would linguistic and memory rehearsal practices help your child? Does your child need support-professional intervention?

Key Points

Christian school teachers use many teaching methods and practices.
Christian school teachers often use direct instruction of precise design.
Christian school teachers promote mastery learning in discrete units.
Christian school teachers may offer inquiry-based project instruction.
Christian school teachers use teacher and student demonstrations.
Christian school teachers offer personalized, individual instruction.
Christian schools offer teacher, alumni, student, and peer mentoring.
Christian school teachers use probing questions in Socratic discussion.
Christian school teachers use Christ’s storytelling methods.
Christian school teachers use Christ’s linguistic rehearsal methods.
Christian schools offer substantial support professional services.

Read Chapter 11.