Nearly every Sunday School teacher has faced that dreaded silence when you ask a question of the group and everyone sits there and stares at you like you just ask them to jump off the Golden Gate bridge. Nobody wants to say anything.
The most common reason a teacher will get that type of response is that people don’t want to look stupid in front of the group. If the person speaks up and answers incorrectly he looks stupid. If he speaks up and answers correctly then he looks like he is trying to show off and be a know-it-all. So the safest thing to do is to keep his mouth shut and don’t say anything.
Another common problem a teacher faces is that person who does think he is Albert Einstein and that he does know everything. He will dominate the conversation and answer every question, never allowing the others in the class to say a word.
How does one solve these problems? Over the next few weeks I will use this blog site to share some practical ways to overcome these problems and get people to open up and talk in class.
One practical way is to ask those in the class to get in groups of two, three, or four people and then give them a question to discuss or a project to complete. Remember to keep the groups small. You can give the same question to every group or you can assign different questions to different groups. The smaller group is less threatening and allows everyone the chance to give some input. Then call for a report from each group. The person who is reporting from each group is reporting for the group and does not feel the pressure to “give the right answer”.
Watch the Flight 4031 blog site to get additional ideas on how to improve your Sunday School class.
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