RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21940, 29 April 1933, Page 17

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

By Amplius.

AT THE CLASSROOM DOOB. v Lord, at Thy word opens Your door, hr

viting Teacher and taught to feast this hour with Thee; Opens a book where God in human writ-

ing Thinks His deep thoughts, and dead tongues live for me. Too dread the task, too great the duty calling, Too heavy far the weight is laid on me; Oh, if mine own thought should on Thy words falling Mar the great message, and men hear

not Thee! Give me Thy voice to speak, Thine car to listen: Give me Thy mind to grasp Thy mys-

tery ; So shall my heart throb and my glad eyes glisten, Rapt with the wonders Thou dost show to me.

THE JUNIOR ROOM. “We need surroundings which encourage us to worship God," says Evelyn Unde.rhilli Rarely does the Junior Department have sole possession of one room. During the week'it may be used for sewing meeting teas, Guide meetings, lectures, clubs, and other things. It has to he • transformed by the efforts of the staff into a place which will encourage juniors to worship in the Sunday. First, it must be thoroughly cleaned and aired. Not only is it irreverent ,to arrange for worship in unnecessarily dirty surroundings, but it is not justifiable to hold a service for growing children in bad air. The responsibility for these belongs to the higher powers, who will, of course, arrange for this to take place in every rpom where a service is to be held on the Sunday. Secondly, beautify the room, beginning with tidying it and covering oyer any unavoidable, ugly patches. Unsightly, cupboards, chair-piles, or gymnasium apparatus should be curtained or screened off. Then begin on the important wall which is the. one all will face. It should be the plainest and lightest of the four, the windows being in the side or the back. Anything that is less sightly than the rest should be behind the children as they sit, though one will aim at keeping the room entirely clear of whatever is out of keeping with its function as a place of worship. It is beet for this wall to be entirely bare except for such furnishings as are needed for each week’s service. A small table in the centre should be covered with a cloth suitable to both the occasion and the junior’s colour sense; usually a soft, plain shade of blue or green proves the best. There should also be a leader’s chair, a blackboard for pictures, unless the wall itself can be used, a hymn stand to one side, a piano on the other side, well-arranged flowers on the table and iu any other appropriate places. The pictures should be pinned high enough for the back row to see easily when sitting, •yet not so high that the small front-row people get stiff necks looking up to them. Especially see that the blackboard, pictures, hymn stand, and flower vases are fool-proof, in order to avoid crashes at wrong moments.

The chairs radiate from this wall, classes in half circles, and rows in half circles, three to five classes in a row with the first row set about, five paces from the table, so that a leader does not tower immediately above them, nor yet are they far enough off to feel a barrier of space between them and the speaker. It is better for the teachers’ chairs to be of junior size like the rest, as there is already enough difference between their size and the children’s to need no increase. But it is good for the teacher to sit on the end chair, as he has greater command of his class through Only need-, ing to look one way. All expression work materials and Bibles can be kept in a bag or box, the box to stand under the teacher’s chair, or the bag to hang on a low peg on the back of it. Either of these should be attractive in colour and design and kept fresh-looking. Every week the teachers should leave the expression bags in readiness for the next Sunday. One large, lock-up cupboard holds all the department material,, and is kept by a special steward. There may be also special departmental possessions about, dear to the juniors' hearts, one or two good pictures on the side walls, jolly-looking offertory bowls or baskets, a museum case in one corner. In the assembly room outside, well lined with sturdy pegs, there may be a new* board, weekly supplied with cuttings and photographs from children’s papers and missionary magazines. The secretary’s table will stand either in the assembly room or just inside the service room.

Everything will be prepared well before time so that when the Children enter there is already a “ feel ” to the room; it is pervaded by somthing which is powerful and inexplicable, which the junior staff have not created, but which could not have come without their careful preparation. —Doris M. Gill.

POISE. Poise has been described as “ power derived from the mastery of self.” Selfcommand is essential to the Sunday school teacher. One must become master of one’s self before one can command the attention and respect of others. The teacher who becomes nervous and excited in the midst of distractions and annoyances communicates this spirit of unrest to his class, for in this, as ,in all things, “ like teacher, like pupils.” The school teacher may speak with authority to his pupils and command obedience. The Sunday school teacher, however, bears a different relation to his class. True, he must possess the ability to govern, for no teaching can be successfully accomplished eo long as disorder is permitted in the class, but more important than the ability to govern is what we might term psychological control. The task of the Sunday school teacher is to awaken and arouse Jiis pbpils, to inspire, to teach, to guide them into a knowledge of the truth, to cbeate in them a desire to seek it for themselves. Some teachers possess this quality naturallv: others must acquire it, and it may be acquired by persistent effort. All successful teachers make large use of it.