Yesterday’s quote was important to me as a teacher.
I chose the titles of yesterday’s and today’s posts because they combine to form one of the most important things I learned as a teacher:
Talking isn’t teaching, and listening isn’t learning.
I didn’t understand it for a long time. I spent lots of years talking to students, insisting they listen carefully, and believing I was teaching, and the students were learning.
I wasn’t, and they weren’t.
We all know the process of “learning” stuff long enough to do well on a test without truly internalizing the material.
I finally realized that students must be actively involved before they truly learn.
That’s why God gave us more than words to understand who he is. In John’s Gospel, Jesus is described as the Word.
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”
And he invites us into a community centered on his person. We can study and memorize the red letters, but knowing the words isn’t enough.
We need to know the Word.
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Next time – Matthew 25, where can we find the Word?