Learning: Your Peers Can Help

August 14, 2011

Learning: Your Peers Can Help

As the great Southern Baptist educator LeRoy Ford, used to say, “When you quit learning, you will quit teaching.” Many Bible study group leaders continue the motions of teaching, but they have ceased because they have quit learning. We must never quit learning. One area that Bible study leaders cannot quit learning about is teaching skills. An effective teacher is constantly updating and improving his or her teaching abilities because his or her audience and teaching environment is constantly changing. One often over-looked resource for improving teaching skills is to learn from one’s peers.

Just recently I had the privilege (and honor) to sit down with a former head football coach from a major NCAA college program. I have often wondered about the similarities of coaching a sport and discipling a believer. I got to ask all sorts of questions about his philosophy and practice of coaching. And, my hunch is right: coaching is very similar to discipling. I could not write notes fast enough. I came away from that interview a much better teacher. I have already redesigned some aspects of one of my college courses based on that new insight.

Who is an effective teacher in your life? Look around you at teachers in your church or your sister congregations nearby. Look at effective school and college instructors. Many of the same principles used for success in school teaching have application in your Bible study group. Take an effective teacher you know out for lunch and quiz him or her about  personal study, delivery approaches, evaluating learning, favorite internet sites for teaching support, a list of key resources he or she uses, how he or she learns and ministers to learners. These only scratch the surface of what growing teachers and Bible study leaders can learn from one another. There is a good chance that the effective teacher you know will learn something from you as well.

Scripture:

“For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.” Ezra 7:10 (ESV)

Prayer:
Ask God for opportunities to pick the brain of an effective teacher you know.

Dig Deeper:
Read Chapter 2: “The Teacher as Mature Person” in William R. Yount’s book, Called to Teach, (ISBN: 080541199-2).