CATECHISM WITHOUT LEARNING

Dear Sir:

This evening I read the article in the Outlook, June 1982 issue entitled “Catechism without Learning” by Jelle Tuininga.

I would just like to express my views on Rev. Tuininga’s remarks concerning the Bible Way Curriculum. Before my retirement I had taught 7th and 8th grade classes using Bible Crossroads for five years and was very pleased with the program. I was one of the old–timers who memorized the catechism questions in my childhood and am very thankful for it. And I am thankful, too, to parents who spent time with me, asking me the questions over and over again, but today . . . let’s analyze home life (and I’m not saying it’s good, but true, I’m afraid) many parents seem too busy to take time to help with memory work. Where are their priorities???

I was enthused in knowing the boys and girls were presented a new and different lesson each class period—not a paper they had received the previous week and may or may not have studied. For memorization we used that assigned or many times used the catechism question and answer given. As a teacher I felt it my duty to stress the catechism and always saved time for the discussion of the given catechism for the week and correlated with the lesson.

As the article said “Often it’s not the children who are to blame, but the parents” and I feel this is the problem—not the Bible Way Curriculum itself. And I’d like to add that teachers in their presentation of the lessons may be to blame also. The catechism is there but the teacher must put the proper emphasis on the catechism. We have those in our church family who dislike teaching this method and still they may be the ones who absent themselves when the very able trainees in the Bible Way are invited to have a workshop in teaching.

I am proud to say Reformed Churches in our area are using the Bible Way and are happy with it. They think we have an educational tool their denomination doesn’t have.

Rev. Tuininga, you have expressed your opinion, but I don’t think you have dealt justly with the Bible Curriculum as a whole. I am thankful for having had the opportunity to use it in my classroom. I would advise others to use it as I already have on many occasions. I felt my students were more responsive, shared their ideas, and showed a real interest, and never lacked the catechism teaching with it. I would never have called my class a “bull-session” as the article referred to a class.

My husband was superintendent of our Church School in the First Christian Reformed Church in Fulton, Illinois when the Bible Way came into being. He wholeheartedly endorses the program in its entirety. We were both very much disturbed that a minister who is shepherding a flock would fail to see the great good in an excellent Bible study guide.

Thank you for hearing my views.

In the interest of Sunday School

Mrs. Robert G. Vogel 1111 4th Ave., R.1, Box 41 Fulton, Illinois 61252

Reply to Mrs. Vogel

Three brief points:

1. What Mrs. Vogel is saying is that a lot depends on the teacher. Agreed. A good teacher can do a lot, even with poor material, and a poor teacher will fail even with good material. But we should have both good teachers and good material. And I’m afraid that too much (not all) of the Bible Way material does not lend itself to a good understanding of the Church’s confessions. Where teachers simply follow the procedures outlined, the hour will be gone with very little learning having taken place. 2. The fact that I received several responses from both teachers (who had used the material) and parents, who agreed with my analysis, suggests that I am not the only one to smell a rat. There is a more widespread dissatisfaction with the material. 3. There is a variety of Bible Way material, and even a variety of papers in one course. One is better than the other. So I’m not knocking the whole curriculum, but saying that after the sixth grade students need more thorough instruction in the Heidelberg Catechism itself than is offered by way of the new curriculum. I am still an advocate of thorough memorization, and parents and teachers who dismiss that as “old fashioned” don’t know what they’re talking about.

J. Tuininga