1.  Have you heard lectures, sermons, or lessons which were constructed after the haphazard plan?  Were they easy to follow and to remember?  Did they develop a line of thought in a successful way?  Do you think that the haphazard type of organization indicates either lack of preparation or lack of ability?

2.  Do you definitely try to organize your daily lesson material on a psychological plan?  How can you tell whether you have succeeded?  Are you close enough to the minds and hearts of your pupils so that you are able to judge quite accurately the best mode of approach in planning a lesson?

3.  Do you study the lesson helps provided with your lesson material?  Do you find them helpful?  If you find that they are not well adapted to your particular class, have you the ability to make the suggestions over to fit your class?

4.  Do you make a reasonably complete and wholly definite lesson plan for each lesson?  Do you keep a plan book, so that you may be able to look back at any time and see just what devices you have used?  If you have not done this, will you not start the practice now?

5.  What type of lesson material do you use, uniform, graded, or textbook?  Are you acquainted with other series or material for the same grades?  Would it not be worth your while to secure supplemental material of such kinds?

6.  Do you read a journal of Sunday school method dealing with problems of your grade of teaching?  If day-school teachers find it worth while to read professional journals, do not church-school teachers need their help as much?  If you do not know what journals to secure, your pastor can advise you.

FOR FURTHER READING

Strayer, A Brief Course in the Teaching Process, chapter XVI.

Betts, Class Room Method and Management, chapter VIII.

Earhart, Types of Teaching.

CHAPTER IX

THE TECHNIQUE OF TEACHING

Our teaching must be made to stick.  None but lasting impressions possess permanent value.  The sermons, the lectures, the lessons that we remember and later dwell upon are the ones that finally are built into our lives and that shape our thinking and acting.  Impressions that touch only the outer surfaces of the mind are no more lasting than writing traced on the sand.  Truths that are but dimly felt or but partially grasped soon fade away, leaving little more effect than the shadows which are thrown on the picture screen.

Especially do these facts hold for the teacher in the church-school class.  For the impressions made in the church-school lesson hour bear a larger proportion to the entire result than in the public school.  This is because of the nature of the subject we teach, and also because of the fact that most of our pupils come to the class with little or no previous study on the lesson material.  This leaves them almost completely dependent on the recitation itself for the actual results of their church-school attendance.  The responsibility thus placed upon the teacher is correspondingly great, and requires unusual devotion and skill.