Jesus was an excellent teacher for many reasons. As Christians, we regard Him
almost always most especially for his ability to teach as a model, as His actions
as described in the Bible are what we have become to know Him, know God, and
know His doctrines for us with. In James, Martinez, & Herbers (2015), Jesus is
noted for His excellent teaching practice of teaching using narratives and
analogies. They illustrate this teaching practice of Jesus in Matthew 20. An
example I have found of Jesus using this type of teaching strategy is in Matthew
18, verses 12 through 14. Here, Jesus gives an analogy to His listeners using
sheep to represent God's people and the owner/caretaker of these sheep as God.
He describes that in the event where one of 100 sheep wanders off the owner will
seek this sheep and be happier about the one sheep than the rest who did not
wander (ESV, 2001). Such a reaction is God's with His people for whom He cares.
It doesn't matter who we are or how insignificant we are; God loves us all and
wants us to stay on the right path with Him. He pursues us, cares for us, and
loves us all. It is even more remarkable for one who returns to or comes to God
after adversity in this analogy. In using this analogy/story to convey His message
Jesus increased His listeners attention and understanding because of its
relatability and understandability. The setting and characters He chose in His
analogy where commonplace to His listeners, rather than foreign and non-
relatable.
a a a a a a On this note, Jesus used a notably effective teaching strategy. James,
Martinez, & Herbers (2015) cite a few writers who explain why they believe
storytelling is effectual in teaching, as summarized as being an interesting,
attention-grabbing process that "touches the human psyche" (p. 147). Aside from
teaching analogously through the format of storytelling, Jesus' analogous
teaching can be understood as a teaching strategy rooted in information-
processing theories that fosters memory transfer. Transfer is a basic process of
human functioning as it tells people how to behave, and/or shapes the way they
think in every situation so that people don't have to "start from scratch" in every
new experience. It refers to something learned at one time facilitating
learning/performance in a subsequent occasion (Ormrod, 2020). For example,
when we use multiplication that we learned in the third grade to figure out how to
double our dinner recipe, or simply when remember that hard work paid off "last
time" and it's likely to pay off "this time". This cognitive theoretical skill is similar
to the behaviorist phenomenon of generalization. Of course, one can only transfer
information if he or she can recall it. One of the ways to facilitate the recall of
information is through meaningful learning (Ormrod, 2020). This refers, naturally,
to the idea of making learning meaningful. One way to do that is to make learning
relatable, interesting, and notable. The use of analogies with relatable and familiar
features is a great way to do this, as Jesus did.
a a a a a a As Jesus set excellent examples of meaningful teaching through narratives
and analogies, I could also do so in my hypothetical college course entitled
"Foundations of Learning and Cognition". The bases of learning according to the
different major learning theories are heavy laden with different phenomena,
processes, and terminology. One of the best ways to teach, as the focus of this
post, is through meaningful learning, particularly through narratives and analogies.
I would explain concepts using everyday and common experiences to better
illustrate complex learning concepts. For example, when I teach the concepts of
operant conditioning I can use examples of dog training.
a a a a a a To continue, many people have dogs or have at least seen dogs display
certain behaviors. For example, I can explain that positive reinforcement is any
stimulus presented after a response that increases the frequency of the response,
and positive punishment is any stimulus presented after a response that
decreases the frequency of the response. Without context, the terms are often
misused and misunderstood. I can provide a narrative that includes the illustration
of the terms in action. Many people use positive reinformcent with food such as a
dog treat when training their dogs. I can illustrate that when I am teaching my
dog to respond to the command "sit", that when I say, "sit," then my dog sits and I
then provide a little dog treat I am intending to use positive reinforcement on this
behavior. If my dog's sitting behavior increases in response to my added stimulus,
then I have successfully reinforced this behavior. On the other hand, if I am trying
to reduce a behavior's frequency, such as my dog jumping on people, I can add a
stimulus in response to my dog's jumping behavior. For example, if I said, "no,"
while removing my dog off of the person he jumped on and after time the jumping
behavior was decreased as a result, I have successfully punished the behavior.
a a a a a a Now that I have explained how Jesus made His teachings clearer using
narratives and analogies, as well explained why they are so effective, I'd like to
pose a question to the class. To the readers, have you folks ever had trouble
learning difficult course content that suddenly became clear with narratives
and/or analogies? If so, please explain what the situation was and how they
helped you understand the content.
References
English Standard Version Bible. (2001). ESV Online. https://esv.literalword.com/
James, G., Martinez, E., & Herbers, S. (2015). What Can Jesus Teach Us About
Student Engagement?. Journal of Catholic Education, 19 (1).
http://dx.doi.org/10.15365/joce.1901062015
Ormrod, J. E. (2020). Human learning (8th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.
