Sometimes we seem to forget that Bible classes for kids and teens aren’t about keeping them busy so adults can be undisturbed. Or about entertaining them. They were created to be learning environments to support or enhance what is being taught in the home about God. As such, it’s important that we learn what we can from the science of education or the closely related “brain” science.
So what are the major educational goals of Bible classes? We could probably debate it to a point, but learning the content of the Bible (sometimes thought of as facts), learning the meaning behind scripture or what God wants us to learn from scriptures and learning and practicing how to apply God’s commands and principles found in scripture to real life.
Did you notice how many things were on my list? Three. How many points did a classic sermon used to have? Three. Why three? Is it a mystical, biblical number? While there actually are quite a lot of threes in scripture, this three is a little different. Our short term memories can only easily retain small blocks of information. These blocks are then either stored in long term memory or discarded. While the number varies depending on whom you ask, three falls well within every estimate.
Now you can store a bit more in the memories of your students by chunking bits together. Think phone numbers or social security numbers. They are both three chucks of three to four bits of information. The point? Be realistic about how much of the information you teach in one lesson can be retained by your Bible students. If the Bible story of scripture is new to them, they can perhaps retain the gist of it. If it is a familiar Bible story, you can focus on helping them remember two or three application principles.
The trick to helping them remember more from your lessons is to help them begin moving things from their short term to their long term memory. You can either do that by encouraging them to memorize scriptures or “Bible trivia” freeing up more room for teaching application principles in their short term memories and/or by spaced rehearsal. Spaced rehearsal is nothing more than periodically reviewing things they have already learned. There are lots of fun activities you can use for these little spaced rehearsals.
So what happens if you have ten really important things you want them to remember from your lesson? You can encourage them to take notes (which will feel too much like school to most), make the facts into some sort of song lyrics that will be easy to practice and remember or be realistic that they may only remember a few of those ten things. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t teach them, only that if you want them all to be remembered, you will have to revisit them multiple times in other lessons.