Christians As Teachers

Written by veteran teacher Dalene Parker, this is an inspirational and encouraging book designed to prepare and equip teachers in the rough and tumble field of public education.

How does teaching Christianly differ from other forms of teaching? How might a Christian teach, in a biblical way, some commonplace set of facts from a mandated secular curriculum? This book considers what a biblical approach to teaching may involve as it emerges from a biblically grounded life and what that might look like in the classroom. Rather than speaking of integration of faith and learning, it starts from a foundation of Christ, the Truth and Lord of all, and moves to the development of a framework for classroom practice that includes a need to try to see things from God's perspective. All truly Christian education is seen, therefore, as a profoundly biblical pursuit leading to the revelation of God. To do this, the book explores the underlying theology and principles out of which our education should flow. These principles then allow us to examine such areas as the consideration of a Christian way to teach subjects such as geography and mathematics, or even what might be distinctive about the way a Christian teacher may do something as mundane as picking up a pencil.

How does teaching Christianly differ from other forms of teaching? How might a Christian teach, a 'commonplace set of facts', from a mandated secular curriculum, in a biblical way? This book considers what may be involved in a biblical approach to teaching as it emerges from a biblically grounded life, and what this might look like in the classroom. Rather than speaking of 'integration of faith and learning', it begins with a foundation of Christ, the Truth and Lord of all, including all curriculum subjects, and moves to the development of a framework for classroom practice that includes a need to try to see things from God's perspective.All truly Christian education is seen, therefore, as a profoundly biblical pursuit leading to the revelation of God. In order to demonstrate this, the book explores the underlying principles out of which our education should flow. These principles then allow us to consider such areas as a Christian way to teach any subject, or even what might be distinctive about the way a Christian teacher may do something as mundane as picking up a pencil!

Christian teachers have long been thinking about what content to teach, but little scholarship has been devoted to how faith forms the actual process of teaching. Is there a way to go beyond Christian perspectives on the subject matter and think about the teaching itself as Christian? In this book David I. Smith shows how faith can and should play a critical role in shaping pedagogy and the learning experience.

As a teacher, you long to help others do more than understand the Bible. You want them to experience its relevance and power for their lives. Teaching like Jesus is the answer! This commonsense guide offers examples of Jesus' teaching style from the Gospels, then shows how you can make these principles work for you -- regardless of what age group or ethnic background you're dealing with. Using a proven, four-step plan, Teaching Like Jesus gives you action steps, summaries, and other practical resources that will make your classroom a lively place to learn and apply the lessons so vitally important for transforming lives and nurturing disciples. You'll learn to think in terms of "see, hear, and do" in your lesson plans. And you'll find sample plans for age groups and cultures ranging from African-American preschoolers to Chinese married couples.

This book provides pastors, professional teachers, students of religious education or Christian education, theological students and Sunday school teachers with methods of teaching the faith today and opportunities to reflect critically on the methods and approaches they use in the classroom in the changed cultural context of our postmodern world. The book is the result of years of practical experience in the field of Christian education as a Director of Religious Education and head of a team involved in providing religious education training and producing teaching materials and textbooks for Sunday school and professional teachers of Christian education. This book proposes the Herald model of church and model of Christian education as a very helpful model for postmodern culture.