A few weeks ago I wrapped up the adult education class I had been leading at my church. It was a whirlwind tour of “how we got the Bible,” including overviews of each testament, and the issues of canon, transmission, and translation. Overall it was a very fun and rewarding experience for me. This was my first opportunity to lead a class like this, and I’d like to do it again.
As a matter of course, I learned a thing or two as well, so here are some of my reflections on the experience:
I like to talk too much. I believe the class participants were genuinely interested in what I had to say (even though the late hour led to some droopy eyelids). Still, I basically filled almost every minute of the class with me talking. I was able to answer a fair number of questions during each class, so that was good. My weekly plan was to leave some time for generally discussion at the end of each class, but unfortunately that never happened. I need to learn to trim up my material to make room for discussion.
“I don’t know” is a good thing. I was impressed by the breadth and quality of the questions the participants asked. In some cases, I was simply not qualified to answer, since the topic was outside of my grasp. But in this context (church adult education) I am not really a pedagogue, so not having the answer is not bad. Also, in some cases my ignorance fostered discussion within the group, because someone else did have knowledge of a particular topic. A great example of this came when biblical archaeology and geography came up, and some people in our class had actually visited Ephesus.
I’m not solely responsible for content. In a number of instances, my fellow participants were able to supply books, articles, charts, maps, and even comics to enlighten our class. I enjoyed this very much.
If I have another opportunity to lead such a class, I’ll definitely utilize what I’ve learned so far to make for a better experience for everyone.
