More on Secondary Bible Curriculum
The emails and comments about Bible courses in Christian school keep on coming. It has become the subject about which we have received the most response. Let me share a little bit about what we have been hearing, and open the discussion up to some possible solutions.
What I hear from teachers is that the curriculum lines that are available for Bible courses, from grade six upward, do not meet the perceived needs of the students in the classes, do not help to produce the desired outcomes, and do not adequately prepare students for the challenges they will face as they move on to college. The assumption of most publishers appears to be that most students in Christian school have some background in Bible from their church experience, or from elementary school. What the teachers are saying is that they have far less than is assumed.
There are also teachers who tell me they listen to a litany of parent gripes and complaints about the Bible curriculum for a variety of reasons, none of them good ones. There are those who say it shouldn’t be a “hard” or an “academic” subject. Some gripe because students in most Christian schools are required to take it, and it takes the place of an elective class which would be more “fun” because it falls in the “interest field” of the students. Most parents have an opinion as to how Bible should be taught, in terms of it being fun and entertaining, but don’t realize that approach actually undermines the seriousness and truth of the content when it is put up against secular humanism in an academic environment.
Some schools deal with pressure from parents to allow their kids to opt out of Bible courses, or make them elective rather than requirements. Most of this pressure comes from families who are not necessarily active in church themselves, but have their kids in a Christian school for the academics and the environment. Schools that are giving consideration to that idea should take Christian out of their name. Bible is the most important subject you teach and it should be required, and taught well. It is the place where you help prepare your students for the challenges to their faith that will come when they go off to college. It’s not the place to build your coaching staff with P.E. majors who can’t teach in other departments.
And what should you be teaching?
Bible Survey and Content
Many schools today offer “survey” courses in Bible. I’ve seen them on both the middle school and high school level. I’m not sure a “survey” course, with a semester of Old Testament and New Testament is the best scope and sequence to study the Bible. What might be a better approach is to lead middle school kids to become more familiar with the Bible and what it teaches, including how to apply it to their own life situations, and then, in high school, go deeper into the foundational doctrines and content of the scripture. Instead of a semester of Old and a semester of New Testament, study the life and teachings of Jesus over the course of a whole year, and then move from that foundation into a study of the theme of God’s plan for redemption of humans, beginning with creation. That way, you aren’t just “surveying” the scripture book by book, but you are looking at it from the perspective of its Christian theme, going back into the Old Testament to connect the theme of redemption there with the coming of Jesus as Messiah, with an emphasis on personal application. Spend a couple of years teaching Christian students what the Bible is about, how that relates to them personally, and what that looks like when it is lived out by believers.
Apologetics
The ability of a Christian to defend the faith is critical. The fact is that most high school students, even in a Christian school, are not prepared to take the defense of what they believe to an intellectual level, and understand that the Bible is the basis for objective truth. Students should be prepared for this in a Christian school Bible department. Once they are at the point where they have an understanding of how the Bible’s themes relate to their own life, and the faith they’ve learned from their parents begins to become one that they accept on their own, they can add to that by understanding how to defend the Bible as the objective basis of God’s revealed truth.
Worldview Applications
Christianity is more than just a subject, it is a lifestyle. As such, when a person lives their life by its basic principles, when they have entered into a relationship with God by grace through faith in Christ, and they understand the basics of the Bible’s theme of redemption, they see the world through “redeemed” eyes. Students need to see what that looks like as a “big picture.” That is part of apologetics. This helps students see that Biblical truth has not only a practical application to every aspect of life, but that applying God’s truth to everything in life actually works. It is confirmation of the fact that God is indeed our creator, and the principles he revealed for us to follow in his word lead to the abundant life with which he desires to bless us. It shows students that the Bible isn’t some ancient relic pushed by outdated nerds, but is, in fact, the source of the truth of human origins and existence.
Curriculum Resources
There are a couple of curriculum series which do a pretty good job in this area. Lifeway, a Christian publisher in Nashville that produces discipleship and Bible study curriculum lines for churches and houses the Broadman-Holman Bible Publishers, has a Christian school division that produces an excellent line of curriculum resources for secondary Bible called the Quest series. (http://www.lifeway.com/lwc/article_main_page/0%2C1703%2CA%25253D151249%252526M%25253D200844%2C00.html?) This series actually begins in the fifth grade, with a study of 34 of the “favorite” passages of the Bible. It’s weakness is that it’s suggested learning activities are sometimes weak in terms of grade level ability, and on the 11th and 12th grade level, it probably needs some supplemental material from outside sources.
For 12th grade, worldview studies, I would recommend David Noebel’s Understanding the Times, which is published by Summit Ministries. Some of their other materials are also great for use in high school.
For elementary school, one of the soundest Bible curriculum series I have seen is the one produced by ACSI. It does a good job of laying a strong scriptural foundation. It’s weakness, like most others, is that some of the learning activities don’t seem to match the grade level, and give Bible class the appearance of being “easy,” and lacking challenge or serious application. A good teacher can make the difference.
Excellent blog on an important topic. There is no reason why Bible can’t develop tough-minded, tender-hearted teens. I’ve taught middle school Bible for 13 yrs and most of the material that is out there is either Sunday school rehash or scholarly work that lacks application. Our middle school students were woefully unprepared for challenges to their faith in High School That’s why I developed my own apologetics material specifically geared for middle school students(grades 5-9) It is meant to be challenging yet fun. At the same time I introduced the Spiritual Disciplines and the idea of pursuing Christ through prayer, meditation, solitude, submission, simplicity, service, and fasting. It is about training, not trying. We also have weekly Bible Memory verses. However, we start by looking at the context and meaning before application. I developed a middle school hermeneutics program that looks at how to read, study and apply the Bible. We will often apply the spiritual disciplines to the weekly verses. Check it out at Biblelessons4youth.com
I am still looking for excellent curriculum that focuses on the Spiritual formation of students. Any ideas?
John,
I developed an apologetics curriculum for high school students using portions of Josh McDowell’s material from his book “A Ready Defense”, and tried to supplement our other material to teach hermeneutics. What you describe is essentially the direction I wanted to see our Bible program go. Finding curriculum materials to support that was impossible. The fact of the matter is that there is not a publishing company that produces Christian school curriculum that puts out anything like that. Lifeway is the closest I have seen, but even their material is not particularly academically challenging. And at the moment, their offerings are limited. I think a consortium of Christian school Bible teachers will have to get together and do the writing. We have limited financial resources, and I’m sure that travel is limited by the salary of most Bible teachers, but I think an organizational meeting might just do the trick, and electronic communication could certainly help with a lot of it. Let’s see how many Bible teachers we can get together and see if we can get it done.
I used to give out a Bible passage interpretation assignment dealing with the passage we were studying during the week, and containing the memory passage, with three questions, 1. Restate this passage in your own words. 2. What does this passage mean? 3. How would you personally apply the truths you have discovered in this passage? It was subjective enough that I could pretty much give a completion grade for it, and make notes on it for the benefit of the students. I was told by some parents that it was too hard and too demanding.
Look up curriculum for any core subject in high school and you will find an abundance of options that simply make the Quest series (which my school uses) look like a sub-par (at best) attempt at the meeting the need. Since it is my life’s goal to work in this exact area, I have some additional developed thought to the type of material and sequence that could be offered (and let me simply post here that I think a survey can be done incredibly dynamically in other ways). Perhaps a conference of some sort would be the right place to start… ACSI would be a great place to centralize such an event. Please notify me of anything like this.