Please Keep Your Opinions Humble

So they want me to write a curriculum. Technically I've never done this before, unless you call streaming together my mostly uninformed opinions on things and forcing other people to listen and be tested on them writing a curriculum. I think that's more like blogging with tests afterwards.

Seventh through twelfth grade. Those were the days. Arms a bit too long. Skin a bit too oily. Girls a bit too intimidating. Like Don said, playing video games was easier than changing. But, these are those I've been asked to teach a little bit of bible. So where does one begin?

There is a curveball thrown my way as well. And like most curveballs, its fun to look at but hard as hell to do anything with. It is this: the majority of students I am asked to teach scripture to are not believers. Great you say? Well remember this. One, they are highschoolers and there is not a more self-centered culture on the planet. Two, we're not just chatting about the scriptures over coffee here (though a good method). This is a high-school credit course. They must be tested on measurable objectives. Three, they've had classroom bible instruction of some kind or other everyday, since kindergarten. There is a bitterness factor involved.

"Gee Jess, you seem to have a real good attitude going into this thing", you might say. In all actuality, I could not be more excited. I just had to take a good hard look at what I was up against. And once I did, I realized a very interesting thing. I've been asked to teach people who are just like me. Self-centered: check. A distaste for discipline: check. At times bitter and fed up with the system: check (see Steinbecks and Shinerbock's "An almost funny article"). Still intimidated by girls: check. I'm just like them. I would hate to sit in a classroom for hours on end exegeting the bible, an instructor using it as ammo to assault my character..."...and that's why you should behave this way and not this way."

But, I love the bible. I love it. I'm looking at one right now, thinking to myself, "I love you." I love to read it, dissect it, and put it back together again. I even love letting it judge my character and motives sometimes. Why? What happened? How did it happen? Well, there's an answer that I believe to be mystical and one that is more natural. And the space that separates the two I estimate to be smaller than expected if any space between exists at all.

It is this: The story of God and His people.

I dig the story. I dig the twisting plot. I dig the vulgar parts. I dig the screwheads who are in it. I love, absolutely love, all the foreshadowing. I love the story, start to finish more than I love its individual parts. Am I allowed to say that? Cuz its true. God makes because He loves and loves being loved. He loves what He has made. What He made doesn't so much love Him so He redeems what He has made so it can love Him and He can love it. And they all live happily ever after. Did I miss anything?

THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO TEACH. THIS IS SOMETHING I CAN GET BEHIND. THIS IS WHAT THE LORD'S SPIRIT SCREAMS THROUGH THE CANNON.

At least...that's my humble opinion.

So there are those among you who are smarter than I in these issues: both the scripture and just teaching in general. It it to you I submit a bit of what I have so far. Keep in mind it is just a start and the teachers need to be introduced to this philosophy on teaching scripture as much as the students need to be introduced to it as a way to learn them.

More will follow as I write it.


THE STORY OF GOD
An Introduction


You know, it’s hard to find someone, anyone, who doesn’t love a good story. I think we’re wired that way…across the board. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to think of one single culture or people group that does not in some form or fashion communicate to one another with stories.

Think about it.

In casual conversation: “Man you’re not going to believe what happened to me last night…”

In the way we learn: “The single most efficient and terrifying armed force the world had ever seen descended upon the small band of rebels. War was upon the American Colonies and things would never again be as they were…”

And that’s not even mentioning the way we entertain ourselves. Imagine a world void of the elements of story. Imagine a world with nothing but unrelated facts and figures given in linear sequence with no thought of detail, no time given to color and purpose.

This sounds like math. I never liked math. And you can’t tell me the story of Bob and Paul traveling on two separate trains that left at differing times moving at equal speeds towards two separate points in space counts as a good story either.

But that itself brings up another good point:

Elements of story help us learn by making us more interested in what we are learning.

Take Bob and Paul; characters added to a numerical problem in which all that is really needed is correct data and calculation to find the solution. Bob and Paul are just there to motivate us. Who’s going to get to the station first? I want to know! Something that was in reality, lifeless and rigid, just put on some human skin, entered my conception of reality, and thus became more meaningful to me. I am no longer trying simply to discover what “x” is, but rather if Bob will beat Paul to the station, steal his girlfriend and live happily ever after.

A test, if you will.

1. On December 7th, 1941, the US fleet at Pearl Harbor was attacked by six Japanese carriers and close to 500 aircraft.

The attack removed the United States Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion.

With over 2400 Americans killed, the attack ended all public debate on U.S. involvement in the Second World War.

OR


2. At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dad was a 19-year-old seaman first class and Coxswain in charge of a forty-foot liberty motor launch of the USS Raleigh. According to some of his shipmates, he had just returned from taking a load of "whitehats" to the liberty dock in the Navy Yard and had brought back some others off shore leave.

His breakfast was probably just a bowl of cereal, some milk and coffee. I like to think that he was thinking about his high school sweetheart and the recently purchased engagement ring he had stashed in his locker below deck. I'm sure he was full of anticipation of when he would be back home and be able to pop the question.

Then about 7:55 a.m., on December 7, 1941, the first torpedo in the assault on Pearl Harbor hit the USS Raleigh. The blast threw him down a stairway to another deck. (http://marriage.about.com/cs/rings/l/aa052301a.htm)


Of the two inserts listed above, which interested you more? Which would you rather continue reading?

“But,” you say to yourself, “which is more testable?” A good point. And one we will get to.


That is what I have so far. What say you?

jr