Teaching children the Bible

When I was an elementary school principal at a Christian school parents would often ask about the reason for why we required the children to memorize Bible verses (by fourth grade they were memorizing whole chapters as well as a repertoire of classical poetry). Actually, they weren’t really asking for an educational rationale as much as mildly expressing their frustration at having to spend time at home helping their children memorize the verses (and triangulating me in on their anxious relationship with the kid’s teacher). This may seem strange coming from parents who chose intentionally to send their children to a Christian school but for two things. First, adults tend to develop amnesia about children’s cognition and their experience of the world. When that cognitive shift in the brain happens sometime during adolescent, most adults lose the capacity to “think like a child” (thank goodness), but also to lose the capacity to appreciate how a child thinks and learns. Second, tragically, schools and churches often are delegated responsibilities for educating children in both culture and faith from parents too lazy, too busy, too reluctant, or too irresponsible for taking the responsibility that rightly belongs to them as parents.

My response to those parents usually included comments about the facility children have to memorize, and the necessity for insisting that they do. Nancy Ammerman has a great article in the current issue of The Christian Century titled “Memory Verses: Teaching Children the Bible.” She provides a good corrective to liberal and moderate-minded Christian educators who tend to shy away from pedagogy they regrettably have allowed more conservative Christian educators to co-opt for all the wrong reasons. Well worth the read, and well worth “taking to heart.”