Reinventing Bible Knowledge classes

Referring to “Thirty-four receive certificates for SPM BK Teachers’ Course (HERALD Dec. 11).”

Jan 15, 2015

Dear Editor,

Referring to “Thirty-four receive certificates for SPM BK Teachers’ Course (HERALD Dec. 11),” and with Archbishop Julian Leow asking questions like: “Do we just study to score an “A” or study to know our faith?”

I would like to add that to know our faith is one thing. Studying Luke and Acts is to leapfrog from knowing to experiencing the Lord’s life. Of course Archbishop Leow did justice by giving examples of how Bible Study can impact our lives especially the young.

Now allow me to survey how our Bible Knowledge classes are usually conducted. The teacher will refer to the 59 pages of Luke or 79 pages of Acts. The teacher goes through the pages week after week.

Howard Gardner’s learning theories need to be a praxis for our BK classes to attract our youth. Then what about giving our 59 page Luke and 79 page Acts a “Gestalt?”

Gestalt is to take things in as a whole. It will be a great help if each chapter can be formatted to a page . So for Luke, the student will have to face Luke’s 24 Chapters as 24 pages, and the 28 chapters of Acts as 29 pages. Gestalt helps the student remember which is an important element in the process of studying for an exam.

Classes can be organised with more audio visual aids. Google for dvd or cd, and Amazon or Cahayasuara can deliver.

Lastly if we can persuade the Chinese Apostolate and the Tamil Apostolate to send their Form 1 Catechism children to spend 15 minutes of their Sunday school time for Bible Knowledge, then there is no need to campaign for children to take SPM Bible Knowledge as a subject. They will want to do it.

Benildus Tan
Cheras

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