A second needful step in the teaching process is _approach_: not the
approach of teacher to pupil simply, _but of the teacher to the lesson_
in the act of teaching. This can therefore be no part of the teacher’s
preparation. For this step there is no uniform law. Each teacher’s
approach must be his own. What is successful with one will not be
with another. An exact copying of methods will be of no avail unless
circumstances are exactly alike.
Approach may occupy a large or small portion of the time allotted for
teaching. A teacher may be twenty-nine minutes of his half hour making
his approach, and in the remaining one minute flash the lesson straight
into the center of the pupil’s soul. A teacher may reach his lesson in
one minute and spend the whole remaining time in pressing it home to his
pupil’s hearts.
Imagine a Sunday-school hour. Picture: A new teacher for the first time
with a class. Boys—six; age, fourteen years; unconverted; one dull, one
stubborn, one restless, the rest mischievous. Opening exercises finished;
lesson read; superintendent announces “Thirty minutes for the lesson.”
The teacher alone with the class; four things press on that teacher with
a mighty force:
1. _Self I._ Untaught in teaching, and the center for a circumference of
eyes.
2. _Need._ The power of the word _must_ was never felt before so fully.
Here is a lesson to be taught, and the thoughts in the teacher’s mind can
only shape themselves into these two words: “_I must_.”
3. _Immediateness._ _Now._ Minutes become small eternities, while the
cordon of eyes draws closer. “_I must now, at once, teach_ this lesson,”
but
4. _How?_ After all it becomes a mere question of knowledge. There are
three elements which enter in to make the answer—
1. How to prepare for the lesson work, making necessary a study of the
(_a_) necessity, (_b_) nature, and (_c_) methods of preparation.
2. How to plan the conduct of the lesson, a step which costs (_a_)
earnest thought, (_b_) fixed purpose, (_c_) persistent effort, and (_d_)
patient prayer.
3. How to perform. This makes necessary a fertile brain and a ready tact.
The actual step-taking on the line of a well-prepared plan consists
in (_a_) using good illustrations; (_b_) in attracting attention to
noticeable things in the text; (_c_) in exciting curiosity to find things
not on the surface; (_d_) in asking right questions; (_e_) in using
elliptical readings; (_f_) in working out topical outlines; (_g_) in
concert responses, and (_h_) in map drawing.
All these are steps toward the real lesson which the teacher would bring
to his class.