By Professor David Sellnow

Mr. Scribner stood in front of his sixth-grade classroom. He had prepared a SMART Board presentation titled, “Major Moments of World War II.” At a touch, he brought up descriptions of what happened at various places on the map.

• Munich . . . an agreement allowed Hitler to keep parts of Czechoslovakia that he wanted for Germany.
• Poland . . . German blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) marked the beginning of World War II in Europe.
• Dunkirk . . . British and French troops escaped when they were losing the battle in France.

A student interrupted with a question:  “Why did the Hitler guy want pieces of Checkerslavka?”

Another asked, “Why did they call it lightning war? What did that mean?”

And another wondered, “Why was it a ‘major moment’ if people were losing and running away?”

Mr. Scribner brushed off their questions, wanting to get through his prepared presentation.  “Let’s not worry about that,” he told the class. “Just follow along and take notes on what happened at each place on the map. Tomorrow we’ll have a quiz—a matching exercise where you line up the events with where they happened.”

Quite likely, you cringe at Mr. Scribner’s approach.  Teaching isn’t just pushing out facts to be noted and then repeated on a quiz. Teaching intends to inspire questions – and seeks to answer them. “All learning is a process of discovery,” said Mortimer Adler. According to Adler, “Passive absorption or rote memorization does not deserve to be called learning” (Adler 1976, 1987).

Even in a subject like mathematics, where there’s less room for interpretation and opinion than in history, we don’t count learning merely as asserting accurate answers.  Imagine a student brought her algebra homework to Mr. Scribner, saying, “I got the right answer according to what’s in the back of the textbook, but I’m not sure how I got there or if I was doing it properly” . . . and Mr. Scribner responded, “It doesn’t matter whether you understand what you’re doing; all that matters is that you have the right answers.”

Again, we’d be disappointed in such a teacher’s misplaced objectives. Philosopher of education Thomas F. Green said, “In mathematics . . . a concern simply to lead students to the right answer . . . is a fundamentally defective kind of instruction. To focus simply on securing a right solution without understanding the nature of mathematical operations is the mathematical equivalent of indoctrination” (Green, 1971).

Green used the term “indoctrination” in a pejorative sense. In English usage today, “indoctrinate” does come with unwelcome connotations. To indoctrinate is “to teach (someone) to fully accept the ideas, opinions, and beliefs of a particular group and not to consider other ideas, opinions and beliefs” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, emphasis added).

As religious people, we tend to think of religious indoctrination as a good thing – imparting good doctrine to our children and our children’s children. But as a method, is indoctrination the way to pass along the truths of Christian faith?

When Christians don’t want to discuss difficulties and tackle objections, the world we seek to reach with the gospel remains unimpressed. David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, has commented: “A faith that does not effectively address convoluted and thorny issues seems out of tune with a generation asking big questions and expressing candid doubts. Spirituality that is merely focused on ‘dos and don’ts’ rings hollow” (Kinnaman and Lyons, 2008).

When teaching the faith, we want believers to consider all sorts of problems and ideas and opinions – in the interests of strengthening their confidence in Christ and his Word. Disciples do more than rehearse what answers are supposed to go in what blanks on their worksheets; they grapple with spiritual questions and see how those questions are answered in Jesus.

In Scripture, Jesus frequently is referred to as “Teacher” (cf. Mark 13:1, John 13:13, etc). The term is used nearly 50 times in the Bible to characterize Jesus’ work (Graves, 1919). In the language of the New Testament, the word “to teach” literally means “to cause to learn” (BibleHub, 2004-2015).

Watching Jesus in action as a teacher of spiritual truths, we see him spurring learning with lots of conversation and interaction. Jesus engaged learners by means of stories and illustrations – parables, we call them. And if the disciples didn’t quite grasp his intended meaning, he took the time later to explain (cf. Luke 8:4-15). His “tests” were embedded in real-life issues and situations. Jesus taught much doctrine, yes. However, it would be inaccurate to say he indoctrinated people.

But what shall we say about a teacher like the apostle Paul? Didn’t he do much that could be called “indoctrination”? Isn’t Romans essentially a doctrine lecture?

Look again. Even in that thorough detailing of doctrines, Paul anticipated questions and responded to them. More than half a dozen times in the course of his instruction, Paul paused to ask, “What shall we say?” and expanded on the thought or dealt with possible challenges to his points. (Cf. Romans 3:5, 4:1, 6:1, 7:7, 8:31, 9:14, 9:30.) (Maybe you caught on that I was trying to do something similar in this paragraph, responding to a potential counterargument.)

When I surveyed students about religious teaching they had experienced in their Lutheran education (elementary, high school, college), a fourth of them characterized the mode of teaching as “indoctrination” – with a negative connotation. I won’t go into further details here. (There’s a webinar for that.)

I hope, though, that each of us, at all levels of spiritual instruction, will seek to engage the hearts and minds of those who are learning of Christ. Becoming well-versed in doctrine is good, but we want to lead learners there by instructing, interacting, relating, connecting . . . not so much by what would be termed “indoctrinating.”

David Sellnow (NWC 1982, WLS 1986) teaches theology, history, and philosophy at Martin Luther College, where he also currently serves as chairman of the General Education Committee and of the History-Social Science Division. He has presented on the topic of “Teaching the Faith” at the Lutheran College Conference (2014) and the Western Wisconsin Lutheran Teachers’ Conference (2015).

To pursue this topic further, consider enrolling in a webinar titled, “Teaching the Faith: Will We Instruct or Indoctrinate?”  The webinar, led by Prof. Sellnow, will spur discussion of the issues raised in this article.

WEB0801 is slated to run July 27 – August 3.  Enroll in the webinar ($20 enrollment fee) at the MLC Continuing Education site.

References

Adler, M. (1976, 1987).  Teaching, learning and their counterfeits.  Reforming education: The Opening of the American Mind. Retrieved April 4, 2015 from http://www.learningmethods.com/downloads/pdf/adler–reforming.education–letter.size.pdf

Didasko. (n.b.).  In BibleHub: Online Bible study suite. Retrieved April 4, 2015 from http://biblehub.com/greek/1321.htm

Green, T.F.  (1971). The activities of teaching. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Graves, F.P. (1919). What did Jesus teach? An examination of the educational material and method of the Master. New York, NY: Macmillan.

Kinnaman, D. & Lyons, G. (2007). Unchristian: What a new generation really thinks about Christianity  . . . and why it matters. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.