Training People to Teach

If Harvard cannot assume their professors can communicate, how much less can churches.
— Howard Hendricks

A young woman, an award-winning interior designer, saw that her church needed a Sunday school teacher for one of the children’s classes. She volunteered. They put curriculum in her hands and said, “If you can read it, you can teach it.”

She couldn’t. She tried, she read, she stumbled through some classes—and she quit. Though it has been years since, she was traumatized by the experience, and if anyone asks her to teach, she responds with a decisive, “No!”

She is not the only gun-shy ex-teacher sitting in the pews of our churches. And who can blame her? At the same time, who can blame pastors, Sunday school superintendents, and education committees? Just as my daughter-in-law had curriculum shoved in her hands, many pastors have teacher training dropped in their laps, having little more expertise in teacher training than she had in teaching. And training teachers can be as tough as teaching a primary class.

But it’s not impossible. In fact, multitudes of churches across America—both large and small—are doing an outstanding job of equipping volunteers to teach with excellence. As I have participated in and observed such programs, I see a few common threads that run through their teacher training.

Causing to Learn

First and foremost, effective teachers understand, consciously or intuitively, what teaching is and isn’t. Unfortunately, many teachers still think of teaching as dumping content. They assume that when they have unloaded the weekly information from the curriculum, they have taught. As long as they didn’t forget what to say or stumble around in the lesson, as long as the students didn’t break into bedlam or look too bored, they have succeeded.

But open eyes and a smooth presentation do not measure effective teaching. The ultimate question is not what the teacher does but what the student does as a result of what the teacher does.

Years ago I discovered that the Greek and Hebrew verbs translated in the Bible as “teach” could frequently be translated as “to cause to learn.” For example, in classic Greek literature there is a passage where a man picked up a stone and threw it at a tree; then he explained to his son, “This is how you hold the stone. This is how you extend your arm. Keep your eye on the tree and follow through.” The father then said, “Now I will see if I have caused you to learn.“

This way of looking at teaching revolutionized my approach. Instead of getting worked up about how I was going to tell students what I knew, I began focusing on how I could get them to learn. That made me a much better teacher. So at the beginning of teacher training, I want teachers to see their task in this light.

Building a Database

No one can teach off a blank disk. Teachers need a database from which to draw: Bible facts, doctrines, and teaching principles.

So when we gather, I teach principles of effective teaching, especially how students learn. A body-building coach who understands the physics behind muscle development will train better athletes. He understands, for example, that daily weight training on the same muscle groups will tear down muscle fibers without giving them a chance to rest and rebuild.

Likewise, teachers will often fail at causing students to learn unless they know that people learn better when they participate in their learning, when they use what they learn, when they are motivated to learn. The Seven Laws of Teaching by John Milton is one book among many that can give teachers guidance in how people learn.

To put teaching in perspective, it’s not just any teaching we’re doing, but Christian education. So I always include some basic doctrine, Old and New Testament introduction, and basic hermeneutics in my teacher training.

The problem, of course, is I don’t have time to teach much more than the basics, but effective teachers need continuing enrichment. That’s why I teach teachers to study the Bible for themselves. One of the first things I cover when leading a teacher training seminar is inductive Bible study, giving teachers the mental rod and reel to fish for themselves.

Equipping teachers for independent study makes them feel competent, more sure of their teaching, more excited about their work. Bible study and teaching become an adventure of discovering what the Bible teaches. Instead of being completely spoon-fed by me, suddenly they feel free to contribute some of their own insights. We can’t teach people everything they need to know, but we can teach them where and how to find it.

How full does the database need to be before you put teachers in a class? When I pastored in Aurora, Illinois, I developed a detailed, eight-month teacher training program. Twenty-seven volunteers faithfully attended the whole course. At the end of those eight months, after they had been sufficiently informed of the basics for teaching Sunday school, I asked for volunteers to teach a class. Of all those thoroughly prepared, eminently qualified people, not a single one volunteered.

They were paralyzed. I had taught them so many things to avoid, so many principles to follow, so many do’s and don’ts, they couldn’t imagine themselves succeeding in the classroom. The more I had taught them, the more threatening the classroom had become.

Since then I’ve learned not only to tone down the information I share but intermittently to involve recruits in assisting a mentor before they finish their classroom training.

Mentoring Skills

As important as it is for teachers to have a base of knowledge, it is not enough. While I was Christian education director at a church near Dallas, one teacher walked into my office, tossed his curriculum on the desk, and said, “I’m through.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I’m quitting as a teacher.”

“Why?”

“Have you been near my class lately? Noise pollution. Kids are climbing the walls. I can’t take it anymore.”

This man was an engineer, as sharp as a compass point, but apparently he couldn’t figure out how to teach fifth graders. So I said, “Well, maybe we have you in the wrong department. What would you think about teaching a different age-level?”

He was too discouraged to say yes, but several weeks later he asked me, “What’s that other teaching job you were talking about?”

“We’re starting a class for collegians, and we don’t have a teacher.” After a few days of thought and prayer, he agreed to teach that group, and he was an instant success. He was able to use his usual vocabulary and put his active mind to good use: when critical thinkers challenged him and went for his jugular, he came alive. He enjoyed teaching again, and it was no surprise when I discovered the collegians loved his teaching.

Was this man short on knowledge? No. Did he have the calling and gifts to teach? Absolutely. But he didn’t have the skills to discipline and teach young kids. Correcting his problem simply meant either teaching him the skills he needed or moving him to a class he already had the skills to teach.

The point: teachers cannot effectively teach without skills, especially the ability to communicate. Skills buttress confidence, one key to classroom effectiveness. Skills bring enjoyment in a job well done. All in all, skilled teachers are enthusiastic teachers.

Most teachers will be guided by curriculum, but I want them also to know how to organize a lesson, how to illustrate and tell stories, how to be logical, how to deliver a message in a way that sizzles. Just as a chef who knows the science of cooking can make the most out of a book recipe, so a skillful Sunday school teacher can optimize the curriculum.

What is the best way to teach skills? I was talking with the man who heads the training of ibm personnel, and I asked him, “Who’s doing the best training? Industry? The military? This is your field. Who do you think is getting the job done?”

“The best training is being done by the cults,” he said. “They send people out in twos, with one person always mentoring the other. Once the trainee is capable of going on his own, they say, ‘Now you’re on the verge of the greatest learning experience of all: taking what we’ve taught you and teaching it to someone else.’ “

Mentoring, of course, is not the invention of the cults. It is the model Jesus gave us, and we are wise to put it to effective use. Here are several things I’ve done to encourage mentoring of Sunday school teachers:

• Plant the seed early. Early in the training process, I tell teachers that I want them eventually to reproduce themselves, to mentor others into teaching. Naturally, beginning teachers are not ready to mentor, but when I announce the goal early, they begin thinking about what helps them teach well and how they might someday help another.

• Encourage some mutual mentoring. I want teachers to see themselves as part of a team, in which everyone works together, teachers helping teachers, and people mentoring one another to greater effectiveness. Although I make certain people official mentors, I want people to learn to think of themselves as responsible for others’ growth as well as their own—that, after all, is the heart of mentoring.

• Use the best teachers as trainers. Mentors will reproduce what they are, whether good or bad. Even if I’ve had only one good teacher, I’ve tried to multiply from that one good stock.

I’ve also put members who are public school teachers to good use. Even though some balk at year-long teaching assignments, many will agree to teach short term, especially if they are asked to act as a mentor to another. They not only feel affirmed for their expertise, they are able to raise the level of the church’s teaching ministry.

• Stagger hands-on involvement. When it’s been possible, I’ve tried to alternate formal teacher training with experience in the classroom. One week I gather future teachers to train them; the next week I disperse them into classrooms where they observe a trained and experienced teacher, help in the class, and perhaps teach a portion of the lesson. This not only gives people confidence, it makes them more eager learners in the training sessions.

• Affirm and honor the mentors. Some people may want to be mentored only by the pastor or Christian education director. But if I regularly affirm and honor the mentors in the department, teachers are more willing to be mentored by them. So I sprinkle generously in training sessions and conversation comments like “John is a marvelous teacher; anyone who is fortunate enough to watch him teach is going to learn something” and “Jennifer has got to be one of the best lesson planners I know.”

Igniting Passion

When I visited the Air Force Academy in Colorado some time ago, I talked with the head of the mathematics department. I found out the Air Force has a unique policy about tenure.

“We will not allow a person to teach in the Air Force Academy longer than five years,” he said. “After that the teacher must return to active military duty.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“We consider ourselves an infection institution: we want to infect men and women with enthusiasm for the military. We’ve found that a teacher who is removed from active military service for more than five years is no longer infectious.”

Like the military, the church wants teachers who impart not just knowledge and skills but also passion. Without passion there’s no life, no drive, no animating energy to the teaching. There’s no infectious quality to the message taught. Teachers need more than knowledge and skills to teach effectively. They have to want to teach.

Passion is the most important quality a teacher can have. Those hungry to teach will get knowledge and skills one way or another, whatever price they have to pay. And their passion makes their teaching compelling and winsome. The good news is that there are more people in our congregations with the potential for passion about teaching than we realize.

The Air Force Academy knows what ignites such passion: seeing the difference teaching makes. That’s why they put teachers back into active service.

Likewise, I’ve found that when teachers can see how their teaching is changing lives, renewing minds, and making disciples, they are often transformed from lethargic volunteers into incendiary mentors.

How do I help them see the difference teaching makes?

First, I let people see flesh-and-blood proof of the transforming power of Scripture. In church services, newsletters, and worker recognition banquets, I have people report how their lives have been changed through attending a class and putting the Bible into practice. Personal testimonies, which are contemporary parables, are one of the oldest and most effective ways of casting vision.

Second, I give platforms to teachers so they can tell others what teaching has meant to them. Periodically in our church we bring a teacher forward and just say, “Tell us what’s going on in your class.” Once some of these teachers get warmed up, they are hard to stop, and they’ll often conclude with something like, “If you’re not in on this, frankly you’re missing the greatest blessing in this place.”

Third, I put trainees under teachers who already have passion. Never put live eggs under dead hens. Passion is more caught than taught.

Fourth, I involve trainees in actual ministry. Studying teaching in a setting detached from ministry eventually quenches passion. Passion takes root in the soil of personal experience, where a teacher can see needs up close and personal, and lives changed before their very eyes.

Some time ago I asked a layman to accompany me on a ministry trip. It occurred to me that he shouldn’t be merely a spectator, so I asked him to share with the group what God had done in his life as a result of learning how to study the Scriptures for himself. He was elated. Riding home, he asked gingerly, “Do you suppose I could do that again sometime?”

Maximizing Resources

No one can train teachers effectively without drawing on other resources. Here are a few, which are occasionally neglected, that I’ve found helpful.

• Proper recruiting. Effective training starts with good recruiting. In the recruitment stage we need to avoid several approaches: (1) “I can’t get anyone else to volunteer so how about you?” (2) implying that teaching requires little commitment or effort, or (3) asking people to teach as a favor to the church. These misrepresent teacher training from the start.

Instead, good recruiting conveys an exalted vision of the teaching ministry. It makes clear to volunteers that teachers are in permanent training, that a teacher is like an artist, always growing, exploring new areas of his or her potential, experimenting, fine-tuning skills. Naturally, that’s the type of person ready and eager to be trained.

• Conferences and seminars. I have found that taking teachers to seminars enlarges their vision and equips them with skills better than anything else. In fact, a conference can do things I cannot.

When I was pastoring in Fort Worth, Texas, I once drove some teachers to a conference. Most of the way there we talked about ways to improve our Sunday school, but to most ideas, my superintendent would respond, “That’s a nice idea, but it won’t work in Texas.”

At the conference, the superintendent attended a session taught by a man from Amarillo who advocated the very ideas we had been discussing in the car. On the drive home my superintendent spent most of the time enthusiastically telling us his “new ideas” for the Sunday school!

• Cocoon training. In today’s cocooning culture, I’ve found it nearly impossible to get people out of their homes for an evening or weekend training event. But we also live in an age of audio tapes, video tapes, and literature—material that enables teachers to listen, watch, or read privately.

One surgeon, who picked up a series of audio tapes that I had recorded on the Book of James, said to me later, “Hendricks, I’ve listened to those tapes about twenty times, and I’m beginning to understand what you’re talking about.” There was no way I could have gotten this man to attend my lectures twenty times. But he did find time to hear and absorb the information when it was packaged for private consumption.

Many mothers need resources they can use after the kids go to bed. Some people prefer to learn by reading, others by listening, others by watching video tapes. The greater the diversity of resources we make available, the more likely we are to find an open door into our teachers’ minds.

• Curriculum. One often overlooked training resource is the curriculum. Good manuals include some teacher training into each issue. I remind teachers to pay attention to this material and—like a budding artist who learns brush strokes by observing and imitating the masters—to note the various elements of the lessons themselves, how the lessons are arranged and developed.

When my son graduated from Harvard, I asked him, “Bill, how many great teachers did you have?”

He thought a while and said, “One for sure, maybe two. Although I studied under internationally known scholars, when it came to teaching skills, I felt they were missing.”

At Harvard, a paragon of higher education in America, my son discovered teachers can be on the razor edge of research, can pile degrees upon degrees, but lack the ability to communicate that knowledge to the students.

If Harvard cannot assume their professors can teach well, how much less can churches. Proper training not only prevents us from producing gun-shy teachers, it also helps our teachers effectively communicate the gospel.