Kitabı oku: «Sunday-School Success», sayfa 11

Chapter XXXII
The Trial Balance

Some teachers omit the review, or pass over it in a perfunctory way. This is as if a merchant should never balance his books, or, taking a trial balance, should be heedless of the result. If we are to prosper in this our Father's business, we must be careful as any merchant to discover just where we stand with our scholars; we must test their progress often and thoroughly, and never rest satisfied or let them rest satisfied until they and we are assured that the balance is comfortably on the right side of the ledger.

One reason for the common shrinking from review day is because we have not manfully met it at the very beginning of the quarter. It is the preview that gives success to the review. When the teacher looks carefully through the twelve lessons ahead of him, grasps the underlying thread that binds them together, and forms his plan for a review at the outset, review day has lost all its terrors. Then every lesson becomes part of a consistent series. Then the weekly reviews, which alone make possible a successful quarterly review, lay each a course of a steadily rising edifice.

No clearness of knowledge may be expected unless the teacher knows clearly at the start just what it is that he expects the scholars to know; and the building grows with double certainty if the little workmen themselves are given glimpses of the architect's plans,—at least of a "front elevation." "For these three months," the teacher may say, "we are to study Christ's life as Mark records it. My plan is for you to vote each Sunday on the most important facts we have studied,—either in the lesson text or in the 'intervening events.' Sometimes it will be one fact; it will never be more than three. All together there are thirty facts we shall learn, and they will make an outline history of Christ's entire life."

How such a scheme, clearly and often stated, will clarify and systematize the quarter's work! Three or four times during the three months the teacher will propound brisk questions covering the points of all the previous lessons of the quarter, following this by a written test. Let him prepare for each lesson a card, on which he prints questions answerable by the facts to be learned. Fastening twelve hooks on a board, he hangs these cards on the hooks week by week, and uses them in these reviews and in the final review of the quarter. If the class is one of little tots, a symbol for each lesson, cut out of pasteboard or consisting of some object, may be hung up in place of the card,—such a symbol as a needle stuck in a piece of cloth, answering to the story of Dorcas.

Some such preparation will make thoroughly successful a written examination on review day. The questions should be simple and clear, and such as can be answered fully in a very few words. They should take up only the points on which emphasis has been laid throughout the quarter. If the teacher presents the plan in a jolly way, the class will enter into it heartily, as good fun.

For a change, now and then invite the scholars to bring in, on review day, lists of what each considers the ten principal events of the quarter. A comparison is to be made, and the events that receive the most votes will constitute a model list. This exercise in itself will make a pretty good review.

An excellent review may be based upon the six natural divisions of all lessons,—times, persons, places, events, sayings, teachings. The "sayings" are the short sentences best worth memorizing. A review "quiz" may take up these six points one after the other, carrying each over the entire range of lessons, sometimes chronologically, but more often at haphazard.

A more elaborate plan is to assign each of these categories to some scholar the week before, telling him, for instance, that you will depend upon him alone to fix the location of all the events in the twelve lessons. Carrying out the comparison indicated in the title to this chapter, you may do very thorough work by getting each scholar to keep a Sunday-school ledger. He will open up a page to the account of "persons," another to the account of "events," and so on, and will make weekly entries on each page. The quarterly review will then be indeed his trial balance.

I am very fond of a map review. Using a large outline map, sometimes one drawn before the class on the blackboard by a scholar who has practised the feat, I call for the first event of the quarter's lessons, and one of the class places a figure 1 at the scene of the event; thus with all the events in order. Then, reviewing again, I ask, pointing to the map, "What was event No. 7, here at Sychar?" or, "Four events at Jerusalem—what were they, in order?"

Another good way to use the map—a map, this time, drawn in outline on a large sheet of manilla paper—is to employ "stickers," bright bits of gummed paper, cut to various shapes. Blue stars, for instance, stuck here and there over the map, will indicate the points where Abraham is found in a series of lessons. They may be numbered, or not. Gold stars may show where Christ worked the miracles studied during the quarter. All the events in one year of Christ's ministry may be represented by green stars, in another year by scarlet stars, or purple stars. The method branches out into many fascinating applications.

Some teachers make large use of the golden texts. If these have been emphasized, they may wisely be introduced in the review. Write each upon a card. If you have artistic talent, you may make each card a thing of beauty, to be kept as a souvenir by the scholar. These cards will be distributed at random, and each scholar will be expected to answer the questions, first of the class and then of the teacher, on the lesson whose golden text he holds. I would not urge the recalling of lessons by titles, for the titles are not constituent parts of the lesson; but the golden text usually goes to the heart of the matter. Neither would I favor such a plan as the one last mentioned, that assigns one lesson to each scholar, unless the entire class is drawn into active participation by such a questioning from the scholars as I have indicated.

A pleasant and profitable review for some classes is based on the quotable passages in the quarter's Scripture. These memorable sentences are written on cards, which are distributed evenly. Every scholar is expected to tell when, where, and by whom his quotation was first spoken, and at the close of the exercise each scholar will be called upon to repeat all his quotations from memory. Then the teacher will gather the cards, mix them up, present the pile now to this scholar and now to that, and ask him to give the facts about whatever quotation he may draw. The success of this method of review, as of all others, will largely depend upon its previous announcement, the scholars having gone over the quarter's lessons at home with this coming test in mind.

The review may sometimes take the form of a contest; you may call it a "question tournament." Appoint leaders, and let them choose sides. Each side in turn has the privilege of asking a question of the other side. The question must be passed upon as fair by the teacher. The scholars on each side take turns in answering, and when the scholar whose turn it is cannot answer, his entire company has a chance. If no one on that side knows the answer, the other side gives the correct reply, and thereby scores one point. The side with the highest score wins the tournament.

Methods less brisk than this employ pen and ink. You may ask the scholars to bring to the class tabular outlines of the quarter's history. A little book, connected with the quarter's study in some way, may be offered as a reward for the best outline, if the teacher thinks it wise; some teachers would not. At another time ask each scholar to write a five-minute essay on some topic that will require study of all the lessons, the topics all being different. These essays are to be read before the class, and their themes should be as bright as the teacher and her shrewdest friends can make them. A variation of this plan is to propound to the class a series of questions, all requiring search through the twelve lessons, and allow each scholar to choose a question upon which he will speak for two, three, or four minutes before the class on review day.

Whatever your review gives or fails to give, be sure it leaves with your class a clear-cut outline or summary of the three months' study. Omit the consideration of lessons not closely connected with the story, like some of the temperance, Easter, and Christmas lessons. Center upon some graphical scheme whenever possible, if it is only a vertical line divided into decades along which events may be strung, or a circle so divided as to represent Moses' life or Christ's. If you can, group the lessons around some great personality prominent in them. Never fail to bind them together with the golden thread of their relation to Christ. Trace through them the progress of some thought or event, such as God's leadings that developed the Israelites, the growth of the Christian church, the unfolding of Christ's life, or David's, or Joseph's. Discover what unity the lessons have, and bring it out in the review.

If these matters have been discussed in the quarter's lessons, set them in fresh lights. It must be a new view as well as a review.

If you have succeeded well with one form of review, thank God, and—change the form next time. The methods suggested in this chapter are not equally valuable in all reviews. Make out a programme in January for the four reviews ahead of you, and plan them all differently.

And finally, review your reviews. Review them on the review day, going over the same ground at least twice, in varying mode; and in your weekly reviews thereafter take occasion now and then to revert to the work of the preceding quarter. A matter is not learned to-day unless it is learned for all days.

If the review discloses weak spots, strengthen them. If it discloses excellences, praise them. With steady and honest purpose, take on review day the trial balance of your work, and may God grant you a balance on the heavenward side of the ledger!

Chapter XXXIII
At the Helm

The superintendent of a Sunday-school is not the steam of the boat, for all true power comes from the Holy Spirit. He does not even tend the fires; that work the teachers must do. Neither does he make the chart by which the boat is steered; that is the work of the International Lesson Committee. No; the superintendent stands at the helm. He takes orders from the one Captain, and transmits them. Now he turns a wheel, now he pulls a bell-rope, now he shouts through a speaking-tube. In spite of the multiplied details, his work is simple. He has to know his ship, the waters, and the weather: that is, he has to know God, what he wants him to do; and his scholars, what they are capable of doing; and his teachers, what they are capable of getting the scholars to do. Knowing these three things, he will not fret himself with attempting impossibilities, tasks beyond the power of teachers and scholars and so aside from God's will for them, but he will know he has succeeded if his teachers work as hard as they can in getting their scholars to work as hard as they can to learn and do God's will.

The superintendent's work begins with himself, then goes on to his officers, then to his teachers, then to his scholars, then to other schools.

First, looking to himself, he must gain what some one lays down as the four essentials of success in Christian work: "consecration, concentration, tact, and contact." That is, his whole soul must be in his work; he must say, with Paul, "This one thing I do"; he must come in touch with his forces, and he must know how to handle them after he touches them.

There are some men that should never be superintendents. One of these is Mr. Long, who has to say everything in four different ways, each way being Broadway. Another is Mr. Twitchall, who jerks out his words between the jerks of his nervous body, who darts here and there like the snapper of a whip, and infects the entire school with the contagion of his restlessness. Mr. Black is another, that man of gloomy face and sepulchral voice. Mr. Daggart is another, for his tongue is dipped in the venom of sarcasm and knows only to scold.

My favorite superintendent is Mr. Short, the son of Mr. Bright. He has all his father's good cheer. His face is full of a sunshine that doesn't need to be put into words. He is cordial even more plainly than he is spiritual, but because he is spiritual. He is businesslike. He is modest. He remembers that he is only one, and the school two hundred, and he divides time on about that basis. He knows—oh, he knows the value of five minutes!

He has the grit of a bulldog, this Superintendent Short, son of Mr. Bright. When he is sure he has hold of a good thing, he does not dream of letting go, any more than those well-persuaded jaws. And he has the bulldog's independence and thick skin, but with more than bulldog reason; for is he not responsible to God alone? If God says, "Good!" what matters the sneer of a man? So he does the best he knows how, and keeps serene.

With all his independence he is modest and teachable, is Superintendent Short, son of Mr. Bright. He visits other Sunday-schools, and gets hints there. He visits the public schools, and gets many valuable hints from their superintendents. He reads everything that has Sunday-school methods in it, and from all this he gets hints. He goes around asking everybody, "How can I do better work? How can the school be improved?" and he receives into a teachable mind the hints he gets. When he has to find fault, he first praises what he can. Indeed, praise—for a wonder!—is his favorite form of criticism, and a stimulating form it is.

Withal, Superintendent Short is enterprising. He sets apart from his busy week regular times for his Sunday-school work, and makes a business of it. He is ready to spend money as well as time. He keeps a notebook crowded with new ideas, and carries them out one after the other in the order of their importance, as systematically as a great general conducts a campaign. He does not foolishly despise what is old and tested, but he knows how to freshen up old principles by new applications. He is broad-minded, too, with no "fads" or favoritisms, keeping equal interest in all departments of school work. And he does not stop with the mechanics of the Sunday-school. All his enterprise sets before it the one great goal of soul-saving.

Thus far the superintendent by himself; now a word about his relation to his officers. Just as the failure of a school on the spiritual side is quite often due to lack of a good teachers' meeting, so a failure on the administrative side is probably due to the lack of a "cabinet meeting," where the superintendent consults with all his officers and committees, and where each gets inspiration and counsel from the other. The teachers' meeting should be occupied with entirely different matters. It cannot take the place of a gathering of the executive, and ought to come on a different night.

This cabinet meeting must be set for a regular time, and nothing short of an earthquake must be allowed to break it up. Every officer should make a report to the cabinet, and the report should be in writing. The latter requirement saves time, adds dignity, and provides the meeting with definite statements as a basis for discussion.

A wise superintendent will utilize all his officers to the utmost. He will make the assistant superintendent assist. The theory is that the assistant shall be able, in the superintendent's absence, to do everything the superintendent would do. How can he learn, except by doing everything, now and then, when the superintendent is present? Many a superintendent has worn himself out doing five men's work rather than train four men to help him. Elijah trained Elisha to be prophet in his stead. If he had not done so, I hardly think Elijah would have been carried to heaven in a chariot of fire. Every worker should prepare his successor, should make himself unnecessary.

Let it be the superintendent's ambition, then, to create an automatic Sunday-school, one he can leave to run itself. He must keep himself in the background. He must test the matter by occasional absences, on foray for ideas in other schools. He must do as little as possible himself,—no danger but it will be enough!—and he must get as much as possible done by others. So he will create, not a machine, but an organism.

In the third place,—the superintendent and the teachers. He must individualize them. As Garfield, the young school-teacher, was wont to lie awake nights, tracing out on his sheet in the dark a plan of the schoolroom, locating each scholar's desk and planning for that scholar's growth as he did so, thus the superintendent should consider separately and regularly each teacher's task and abilities, trials and successes.

It is his joyous work to encourage them, to note improvement in their scholars, to repeat to them the kind words of parents, to give them a cheer in their arduous and difficult and, for the time, thankless tasks. When a superintendent has praised discreetly, half his work is done.

Of course, the superintendent will study his lesson as thoroughly as any teacher; and this is not by any means an unnecessary remark, though some may think so. Indeed, there are even many occasions when he may teach a class, though usually he is best left free during the lesson hour to greet the strangers, or, watching from some central post like a general in battle, to fly to the rescue of some teacher whose class may be getting mischievous, restless, or careless.

For the superintendent should feel at perfect liberty to sit quietly down with any class in his school, and should do this so often and easily that his coming ceases to be a disturbance to teacher or scholars. If the superintendent is not welcome, it will be because he does not know how to help unobtrusively, and he would better stay away.

The best relations are not possible unless the superintendent visits the teachers in their homes, and gets them to come to his for frequent private consultations or for an occasional social hour all together. The teachers' meeting for the study of the lesson will not take the place of these heart-to-heart talks, in which sympathy and appreciation, friendly counsel and united prayers, draw the teachers very close to their leader.

In the fourth place, the superintendent must know his scholars. If he has time to visit them, each visit will count; but that is in most cases too much to expect. Sunday-school socials and picnics will give him a chance to push a little further the knowledge of them that he will gain by his visits to their classes; but, after all, his best chance is in the passing salutation on the street. Often speak of the matter before the school, asking the scholars to greet you when they meet you; and then hail every urchin you run across as if he were your very own! If you make it a habit to tarry for ten minutes after the Sunday-school hour (tired?—never mind!), both teachers and scholars will besiege you then,—provided you have made yourself worth besieging! That you are to be in every way the children's hero goes without saying,—the glorious big boy to whom all the boys look up proudly, the chivalrous knight whose colors all the girls are glad to wear,—it goes without saying, that is, if you deserve to be superintendent at all!

Fifthly and finally, the superintendent and other schools. He has been getting from them all he can, if he is enterprising; he should give to them all he can. The large cities have their superintendents' unions, composed of those that hold now, or have held, this post of honor and responsibility,—and few associations are as delightful. Nearly everywhere, Sunday-school conventions are available; and to these, as gathering up in his own experience whatever his school has learned and accomplished, the superintendent should carry his freshest inspiration and his wisest plans. No superintendent can live—can be a live superintendent—to himself.

One thing should be said, to close this hasty sketch. If the superintendent is all this, or even part of all this, in his personal motives, and in his relations to officers, teachers, scholars, and other schools, he will always be a paid superintendent. He may have no salary; on the contrary, he may be decidedly out of pocket; but the rewards of his labor will be so abundant, so joyful, that not all the silver and gold in all the mines of earth could measure them.