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Hello all,
I would like if anyone has had success in getting their Earliteen kids to study their lessons and memorize their verses. I don't want to treat them like Juniors with contests or bribe them with prizes. I want them to see the value in what the lesson is teaching and the wisdom of learning verses from the Bible. Any help would be appreciated even if it is using contests and prizes.
Thanks!!!
Are you using RealTime Faith? There is a completely interactive website for this program that provides fun and learning for the weekly study after Sabbath, you may want to get familiar with this.
God Bless,
Chris Fishell ACMA
Chris,
Thanks for the help. We are using Real Time Faith but the website is not at all helpful. In fact it has been reformatted and is no longer interactive(despite what they continue to publish in both the teachers and student quarterlies). When I inquired about this I was told to use the Guide/Insight website which my kids found a bit boring.
I found out that the adult Sabbath School was having the same problem, so I compromised and we have had a contest with the adults for the highest precentage of members who study their lesson and memorize the memory verse. So far it is successful but it is a short term fix. My class consists of kids whose parents don't encourage religious study or care if their kids come to church (with the exception of two). But we do our best to mentor them.
Thanks again for your help!
Jen Andres
Brooklyn Seventh-day Adventist Church, Baltimore, MD
The bible says that "without faith it is impossible to please Him." A lack of faithful models in the home environment can be devastating, but not necessarily a show stopper when it comes to an earliteen's salvation. Make your classroom the place to be. Try furniture instead of metal chairs. Even bean-bags, an old couch, or something besides the standard "rows of chairs with the teacher at the chalkboard". Try bagels, cream cheese, fruit and juice once or twice a month. Try things that make the classroom environment more conducive to participation and less formal/intimidating.
Make sure to fully use the Teacher's Resources and Lesson Plan, which provides a wealth of Ice-breakers and ideas that can compel earliteen's to embrace the lesson and your class. Start the day discussing Current Events and how they relate to the lessons being studied. For instance, if the lesson is on "Character", find some current event the can relate to like "Britney Spears" problems to demonstrate how important it is to have a firm foundation. Make sure that whatever conclusion they come to, they are able to support from the Word, or texts found in the lesson plan. Make sure they understand that the real "War" is being fought over their hearts, and not overseas.
One excellent way to get them involved is to groom them to teach! Start out by making one student responsible for telling the story for next week's lesson, and providing a brief spiritual application. Give your other student the responsibility of guiding the class thru the study for one of the other days (perhaps one of Monday's questions or Tuesday's quotes. Again, with a focus on how they were affected by that section of the lesson. Grooming them to think in spiritual terms, feel great about coming to Sabbath School, and empowered within the classroom will go a long way toward making them more productive citizens of the Kingdom.
Just a few suggestions that I pray can assist you.
Gunther,
Thank you for your advice! I appreciate your answers and hopefully we can put them into practice in the near future.
I should have been more informative on our situation. I have 5 kids in my class. The size of our church is 30 members attending. Because we have 10 kids in Primary through Earliteen we meet together for the opening and if we are lucky everyone is there by 9:30. I can't do more about the classroom situation as we are assigned the far corner of the fellowship room which I was lucky to get. (however they are closing the church's food store so hopefully we can get that room!) We decorated our corner with posters, bright colors and things that we do with the lesson. I do use current events in the lessons to connect the Bible to their lives. I would love to have them do some of the teaching too if I could count on them being there from one week to the next. They don't even know. My husband and I do interact with them outside of classtime and take a vested interest in their lives. I didn't think it was doing much until they got after me for not being there when I go visit family!
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