Conference yukon::christian_v7

    I was pondering this topic and decided I'll try to put into words my
    thoughts/feelings about this.
    
    I don't like the idea of setting up a measurement for Sunday School for
    the reason that God doesn't measure us by what we know but what is in
    our hearts.
    
    The only way to truly measure would be to test... and I believe testing
    to be legalistic for a spiritual study and if one didn't memorize all
    the Bible verses they were supposed to could be discouraged.  They
    could feel as though they don't measure up to a standard.
    
    I think I understand... but I believe the best one can do is to
    identify what you want the children to learn and produce the teaching
    materials to support this.  That's why my church does.
    
    We as teachers are taught the lesson the week before we teach it, but
    have the spiritual freedom to change the lesson to apply it to our age
    groups/audience.
    
    This way the church can measure what is going in... :-) but we don't
    test to measure what is coming out. :-)  
    
    I'm not sure I said this clearly.  hmmph
    
    Nancy :-)

    Nancy:
    
    You said it quite adequately for me.  This raised a question in my mind
    though.  A lot of churches promote clubs that propogate competitiveness
    in scripture memory, etc.  Awana comes to mind right now.  I know some
    people think it's too competitive but I believe the idea is to memorize
    and reach certain goals of learning.  How does your church feel about
    this?
    
    -Jack 

    .2
    
    There is a difference between a "club" that one joins and a sunday
    school class.
    
    

   re:  Nancy,
   
   Yes, you did state your point clearly... at least clear enough for
   me...
   
>    I think I understand... but I believe the best one can do is to
>    identify what you want the children to learn and produce the teaching
>    materials to support this.  That's why my church does.
    
   ...
    
>    This way the church can measure what is going in... :-) but we don't
>    test to measure what is coming out. :-)  
    
   This all makes sense... 
   
   That does, however, leave me with an unanswered question... mostly
   this is my original question, with the scope narrowed down a little...

   How does one objectively identify what children can/should learn at
   the various ages/grades, and how does one objectively measure the
   quality/content of teaching materials?
   
   Thanks,

   - Tom

My church does "quizzing" and has quizzing metes.

The quizzing gets the children and teens into Bible learning.
It also provides a social function on the district level.

When taken to an extreme, out of balance, competition can become
the overriding desire.  However, taken in proper perspective,
the competition spurs the kids onto greater depth of learning
and they have fun.

I see great benefits to a quizzing program, and acknowledge potential
problems to be aware of.

MM

    Are you dealing with children only, adults only or children and adults?
    
    If children only then I would agree with the previous replies. I would 
    not measure the children per se but I would measure the curriculum. 
    Your education board (or whatever your church calls it) should
    establish a set of goals for teaching, not learning, which are
    progressive and measurable.  We divide the education committee into two
    divisions, children and adult.  Each one produces an annual plan.  The
    two committees then meet once a year to produce a master plan.  For the
    children the classes are broken down by age as most Sunday School
    programs but the adult classes are offered much like you would a
    college.  What we found was that not all "Young Adults" are interested 
    in, or need, the same things.  Likewise for "Seniors" or "Couples" or
    etc....  The demographic class split limits your attendees growth
    potential.  Generally courses are offered in Christian Living, or Bible 
    and Doctrine, plus a Foundations class and a Leadership Training class
    that runs perpetually.
    
    Kent
    

   While our Sunday School program does include both adults and children,
   this part of the research/conversation was strictly for the children's
   section.
   
   Is there some set of independant guidelines that people have used in
   setting up their measurements, or is this a case of each church
   setting up their own program?  
   
   [ Or are we looking at the publisher who provides the material also
   providing a test to measure how well the kids learned their particular
   material?   This is, btw, something we are hoping to avoid - it sounds
   too much like fixing your research data to match the results you
   wanted when you started the experiment ....]

   We could develop our own measurements, but since none of us has a
   degree in education, we thought perhaps there were others better
   qualified who may already have done this.  I guess what we really
   wanted to do was to add some professionalism to the effort, including
   data from folks who understand educational development and applying
   it specifically to Sunday School materials.
   
   Thanks,
   
   - Tom

    .7
    
    Tom
    
    Christian bookstores already have curriculums defined by educators for
    spiritual education available.
    
    

   Nancy,
   
   re: bookstores... 
   
   Thanks, I'll check it out.   For some reason, I didn't think to check
   there... I was guessing that local Christian bookstores wouldn't have
   anything independant, and all they would have would have been from
   publishers who would not necessarily have been unbiased.
   
   peace,
   
   - Tom