I highly recommend Bible class teachers read The Seven Laws of Teaching by John Milton Gregory. It was published in 1884 as an instruction manual for Sunday school teachers. The basis for the book is the concept that teaching has “natural laws which are as fixed as the laws of circling planets or growing organisms.” Therefore, Gregory argues, if these simple laws are adhered to, knowledge must be communicated.
Even though this book was first published 137 years ago, it still holds fundamental principles and great ideas valuable for today’s teachers. A few years ago, I was reviewing another book I had used for a teacher’s workshop, and I was surprised to learn that the author used Gregory’s book as a key reference. That discovery led me to read The Seven Laws of Teaching for myself.
Gregory was involved in public education in the state of Michigan and was at one time the state superintendent of public instruction. Gregory was also the first president of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Below is a listing of the laws from The Seven Laws of Teaching. In the book Gregory discusses methods carrying out each law as well as mistakes and violations. I plan to discuss some of the ideas from this book in futures posts. As you read the list, think about what steps you take to practice one or more of the laws. Please let me know in the comments.
1. The Law of the Teacher – A teacher must know that which he would teach.
The Law Stated as a Rule – Know thoroughly and familiarly the lesson you wish to teach – teach from a full mind and a clear understanding.
2. The Law of the Learner – A learner must attend with interest to the material to be learned.
The Law Stated as a Rule – Gain and keep the attention and interest of the pupils upon the lesson. Do not try to teach without attention.
3. The Law of the Language – The language used as medium between teacher and learner must be common to both.
The Law Stated as a Rule – Use words understood in the same way by the pupils and you–language clear and vivid to both.
4. The Law of the Lesson – The lesson to be mastered must be explicable in terms of truth already known by the learner–the unknown must be explained by the known.
The Law Stated as a Rule – Begin with what is already well known to the pupil upon the subject and with what he has himself experienced—and proceed to the new material by single, easy, and natural steps, letting the known explain the unknown.
5. The Law of the Teaching Process – Teaching is arousing and using the pupil’s mind to grasp the desired thought or to master the desired art. As a rule tell him nothing that he can learn himself.
The Law Stated as a Rule – Stimulate the pupil’s own mind to action. Keep his thought as much as possible ahead of your expression, placing him in the attitude of a discoverer, an anticipator.
6. The Law of the Learning Process – The pupil must reproduce in his own mind the truth to be learned.
The Law Stated as a Rule – Require the pupil to reproduce in thought the lesson he is learning–thinking it out in its various phases and applications until he can express it in his own language.
7. The Law of Review – The test and proof of teaching done must be a reviewing, rethinking, re-knowing, reproducing, and applying of the material that has been taught.
The Law Stated as a Rule – Review, review, review, reproducing the old, deepening its impression with new thought, linking it with added meanings, finding new applications, correcting any false views, and completing the true.