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The Elements of Great Teaching

Teaching the Bible in General Education—2 of 2

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Many educators bemoan the fact that students seek the more secure career paths of sciences and professions, click often at the expense of the Humanities. Research shows, cialis however, that many students are interested in Religious Studies, especially for the sake of making personal meaning. As a result, students often take courses in Religious Studies as part of their General Education program, and of these courses, Biblical Studies are the most popular.  So how do we approach teaching the Bible in order to meet the needs of the discipline, General Education, and student meaning-making?

What do they know?

We can no longer assume, nor should we, that our students are religiously committed and therefore want to study the Bible in order to enhance their faith. Neither may we assume that they are familiar in any way with the Biblical narrative and motifs.  At the same time, some students in our classes are both committed and familiar with the Bible.  So how do we balance the literacy goals of one group with the challenge goals of the other?

What should they know?

We must clearly answer this question first: Why should we know anything about the Bible at all? How is it relevant to all of the students in the class?  This answer will help us to direct our courses toward an “enduring understanding.” Here are a few possibilities:

  • Because our country claims to be based on its principles, we should know what the Bible does and does not say.
  • Biblical images and motifs have power both to persuade and to manipulate; we need to be critical consumers.
  • The books of the Bible were written to make sense of different sociocultural and historical forces.

Consider different ways to communicate this understanding in the syllabus and classroom: keep it front and center.

What content should we teach them?

Teachers of the Bible disagree with the best approach to content.  Some select a few books or passages for concentrated study, such as Exodus, Ruth, Proverbs, Luke and/or Romans.  Others select shorter readings from a broader range, aiming to identify such things as the biblical metanarrative, key figures and motifs, or genres.  Some focus on the impact of biblical motifs in popular culture, exploring film, literature, art, music, media, politics, etc.  Some use a combination of these. (I do.)

More importantly, perhaps, we have to think carefully about what we do not teach. We might let go, for example, of some of the more esoteric arguments of the discipline, such as source theories, Sitz im Leben, and textual criticism. We might gloss over some contradictions in order to focus on one specifically relevant example. We might pull back from offering theological explanations, but make connections with the Bible and contemporary debates.  Students will often raise these questions themselves in any case.

Textbooks are also hotly debated.  After trying several options, I now use just a Study Bible; I want my students to read the actual Bible (and not a textbook about it), to develop facility in finding their way through it, and to identify resources that will help them to understand.

What skills do we teach them?

Many institutions require their General Education courses to teach particular skills such as writing or oral communication or critical thinking.  Teachers might design a final project that demonstrates this skill using the content from the course and then, working backwards, map various opportunities throughout the course for students to develop these skills.  I have learned that the more explicit I am about teaching and working with these skills, the more students engage them; they are adding a really useful tool to their belt, and along the way, learning something about the Bible.  If I go the next step and show how the skill is relevant to their chosen career path—nursing students learn to write a short argument, so know how to write a care plan; business majors learn to prepare a year-end review; and science majors learn to write lab reports—they take it even more seriously.

What do students want to learn?

If our intention is to develop biblical literacy and life skills, students often bring their own agenda. Barbara Walvoord demonstrates that many students take introductory Religion and Biblical Studies courses because they are attempting to make personal meaning (Teaching and Learning in College Introductory Religion Courses, Blackwell, 2008).

Sharon Daloz Parks’ Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Emerging Adults in Their Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Faith (John Wiley and Sons, 2000, 2011) explores the types of questions and challenges that young adults work through—such as violence in our culture, mixed religious identities, social media, the economic crisis, changing racial identity—and provides concrete ways of creating and working within mentoring communities.  As teachers in the classroom, whether we acknowledge it or not, students try to figure out who they are and where they stand. How might we make space for students to do this more explicitly?

After several failed experiments, I have learned that students prefer to work through personal meaning privately, although they might volunteer their meaning-making with the class, depending on trust levels.  I usually assign some sort of written assignments that ask students to explain their personal response to the course work, giving them incentive by assigning a grade, but keeping it low-stakes to allow for honesty in self-reflection. I have also used a question on an ungraded pre-test, such as “How do you understand the role of the Bible in your life?” When I return the pre-test, students (often with surprise) describe how they might have changed their minds.

Teaching the Bible as a General Education course challenges us to make careful selections of relevant content, to attune to skill development, and to create space for students to make personal meaning.  Success comes when we are explicit about these goals and invite students to engage them.

For the library:

Webster, Jane S. and James J. Buckley, Tim Jensen; Stacey Floyd-Thomas “Responses to the AAR-Teagle White Paper: ‘The Religious Studies Major in a Post-9/11 World.’ Teaching Theology & Religion 14.1 (Jan 2011): 34-71.  http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/detail?accno=EJ927759

Walvoord, Barbara. Teaching and Learning in College Introductory Religion Courses ( Blackwell, 2008).  

Parks, Sharon Daloz. Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Emerging Adults in Their Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Faith (John Wiley and Sons, 2000, 2011)

Webster, Jane S. and Glenn S. Holland (eds.) Teaching the Bible in the Liberal Arts Classroom (Sheffield Phoenix, 2012).

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Jane S. Webster (PhD McMaster University, Canada) is Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Barton College, North Carolina. She conducts research in the Gospel of John, feminist biblical hermeneutics, religious healing, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. In addition to her many publications, she has authored Ingesting Jesus: Eating and Drinking in the Gospel of John (2003) and co-edited, Lady Parts: Biblical Women and The Vagina Monologues (2012). Prior to her academic career, Webster was a critical care nurse and missionary in South America.