Last night I sat in on the teaching time at one of our club programs. I was acutely reminded of just how concrete kids are in their thinking.
The teacher was using a road trip as an analogy for one's spiritual life. He talked about maps, GPS systems, clues a la AMAZING RACE and road signs.
At one point he asked, "What are the road signs in our spiritual lives?"
SILENCE!
He went on to suggest to the answerless kids, "Maybe if you find that you aren't lying as much anymore, that could be a road sign that you are going in the right direction."
A little girl said, "What? Why would there be a road sign about lying?"
He clarified, "We're talking about the road of LIFE."
A lightbulb went on and she said excitedly, "Oh, LIFE! I love that game!"
Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist and learning theorist, suggested that kids aged seven through eleven are in the "concrete operational" stage of development. Kids in this stage need to have experience with the concrete before they can make sense of new concepts. And those concrete experiences need to tie more closely to a kid's reality than to that of an adult.
This was a great reminder to me. When it comes to communicating with the 7-11 set, I want to speak plainly, use concrete terms and examples, and evaluate my presentation by listening to their responses.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
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4 comments:
hehehe...true true true.
WOW, great reminder. I'd not heard the psychology behind that. Thanks for the info.
I think of preschool as concrete. Didn't think of middle elementary as concrete. Great reminder.
Do you think that making a spiritual roadmap with signs would make the abstract more concrete or do you think it would still be abstract? Maybe depends on the signs ...
Yes! I remember studying Piaget in Children's Phyc. in university. I agree with the idea of giving children concrete examples of abstract spiritual concepts. I am presently working on a "throne room" as a prayer room to help the kids with the idea of "entering the throne room of Jesus". (a small room with a throne on a bit of a platform) It will be a place where kids will go into separately to be alone with Jesus. They can kneel, sit at Jesus' feet or even in His lap. They have had teaching on the tabernacle and know what the Holy of Holies is. One of the ladies doing this with me had the idea putting a torn curtain in the entrance. My hope is that it will help them "get" the idea of being with Jesus, and that they can talk to Him anywhere, enter the throne room no matter where they are. Of course there will be teaching on that.
Thanks for reminding me of Piaget, I had forgotten about him.
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