A Christian attorney was appointed to chair the adult education program. He was perfectly willing to oversee the program. He was willing to teach. He was a good teacher. But he was completely unwilling to take a course offered in that church. I asked him why.
“I learned everything I need to know about the Christian faith when I was a kid in Sunday school,” he replied. “Now I’m an adult, and the challenge is to live what I already know.”
To him, adult education was remedial, for adults who somehow missed getting a Christian education when they were younger.
This not-uncommon view arises, in part, from a common attitude toward education in our culture: schooling is for the young. At a certain point you graduate, and you are all done with education.
Often our Sunday schools, confirmation classes, and youth programs send the subliminal message: Education is for children. The sooner you’re through with it, the better.
But that attitude can be turned around. When I came to one church, fewer than 5 percent of the congregation was involved in adult education. Eventually we found ways to increase involvement to about 25 percent–still not phenomenal, but better. A number of adults changed their view of adult education.
What does it take to genuinely interest adults in learning about their faith? A few insights have guided me.
WHAT ARE ADULT LEARNERS LIKE?
Adults learn differently than do children. Adult learners have unique characteristics. Malcolm Knowles, in “The Practice of Modern Adult Education,” has given me a lot of insight here.
- Self-directed. Adults like to see themselves as in charge of their lives. But sometimes we inadvertently make them feel almost like children. For example, when you put people in rows in a classroom, many adults feel (even if subconsciously) that they are in a childlike setting. Furthermore, when the teacher is the “expert” and the learner is “talked at,” the adult hardly feels in charge of the learning environment. Some adults, of course, have no problem with such a model of learning, but most adults vote with their feet: they find another class–or even another church–in which they don’t feel they’ve stumbled back into Miss Grimble’s sixth-grade class.
- Experienced. The adult learner has accumulated a large reservoir of experiences. As adults grow, they learn to trust their own judgment and experience more and more, and they test what they hear from others against their own sampling of reality. If what the teacher says is not validated by their experience, they will not take the teacher’s message seriously. Once I wanted to develop a course for blended families. At first, I thought of inviting a psychologist to teach the course. But I decided to draw on the experience of the people who might attend such a class. I invited some blended families to meet with me, and I asked them questions: What are five areas of concern for parents and children in blended families? What are your needs? Where does it hurt? What has been most helpful for your situation? What is one thing about the blended family experience that no one ever talks about and that you need to talk about? How has Christian faith helped you? By drawing on their experience, we were able to craft a course that had the Bible as its foundation and human experience as its structure.
- Oriented to their roles and identity. An adult’s identity–as parent, spouse, worker, professional, or hobbyist–profoundly affects what the person is willing to learn. Good adult education is intimately linked to people’s image of themselves and what they see as their role and function in the world. For example, in our culture women are vitally concerned about their role and function. The woman who has made the decision to be a traditional wife and mother spends a lot of time and energy concerned about those roles, especially if many of her female friends have careers. Then, when she completes the bulk of her child-rearing by her middle forties, she’s got to figure out what to do for the next thirty-five years. What are the resources of faith for her? An effective adult education program will integrate such concerns with biblical curriculum.
- Interested in immediate application. Probably no more than 10 percent of adults genuinely want to learn for learning’s sake, to know the Bible simply in order to know the Bible, to know theology or church history or Christian philosophy simply because they enjoy learning. Unlike many children and youth, adults are unwilling to store knowledge that may or may not be of use to them. Most adults want information they can use now. They want connections to everyday life. So it’s harder to interest adults in, say, a course on the doctrinal themes in Hebrews than in a course on parenting teenagers. This doesn’t mean you avoid Hebrews; it means you must connect Hebrews’ rich material to questions they’re asking. I look for teachable moments in adult lives. For example, I frequently conduct a class called “Teaching Values to Children.” Parents are most open to this course within the first few months after a baby is born. Two years later, they feel they know how to parent, and they’ve settled into patterns. But later, when their children move into more challenging phases, new teachable moments will occur. One of our jobs is to catch people at transition points in their lives, when they are trying new roles, exploring new situations, facing new challenges. That’s not to say that adult needs should rule the classroom. Most of my teaching is essentially Bible-centered. But I try to find those crucial links between the Bible and real-world living.
WHAT WORKS WITH ADULTS?
To connect with adults, it’s important that our teaching develop several qualities.
- Treat adults as adults. One teacher came to me in a panic. “I need you to come observe my class,” she said. “I have only a few people left. Please tell me what I’m doing wrong before my class disappears completely!” I visited her class. “Now, class,” she said like a schoolmarm addressing second-graders, “let’s open our Bibles and turn to John, chapter 3. That’s the Gospel of John, not the epistles. If you have one of the pew Bibles I set out on the back table, you’ll find it on page 927. Just run your finger down the margin and find verse 16. Does everyone have the verse now?” Without her knowing it, for adult learners her manner was like a fingernail on a chalkboard. The room itself must respect adult sensibilities. Many church classrooms smell old and stale. Some churches consign adult classes to a dungeon-like basement with cracked linoleum floors; cold, hard folding chairs; and children’s Sunday school posters from the sixties. Churches that feel inviting to adults give adult classes windows, sunlight, fresh air, clean bathrooms, fresh paint, attractive visuals, comfortable chairs–in short, the signs of a place that is alive and open. Another consideration: Do we put visitors on the spot? People and church cultures vary, but the older I get, the less I’m willing to enter a new situation and stand up and talk about myself. If I’m made to feel uncomfortable in a given social climate, I tend to avoid it thereafter.
- Diagnose needs. I constantly examine where people are. Surveys can be helpful, but one-on-one or two-on-one interviews reap wonderful results. Interview people from various categories: young married couples, longtime members, widowed, never-married, single parents, parents of adolescents, business people, working women, housewives, the divorced. (The exact categories depend on the congregation.) For each group, the pastor or adult education committee might ask: In the last two years, have you undergone a transition, change, or crisis? How might the church have helped you to cope and grow during that time? Where are you in your spiritual pilgrimage? Beginning? Stumbling? Maturing? How do you feel about where you are? How can the church help you grow as a Christian? What needs do your acquaintances have that the church could address? How could we equip you to meet them? The answers shed light on how best to teach adults. A second way to diagnose needs is with a pretest. The first Sunday of a new series, I often give a little test–brief and easy to complete–that lets me know the general level of biblical understanding in the group. For example, I might give the class a five-minute quiz, asking them to define four key words from Romans. This tells me how well they understand concepts like grace and salvation and whether I need to do factual teaching or can move to application. Sometimes I’ve passed out three-by-five cards and asked, “What’s the most important thing you’ve learned so far?” or “What’s the biggest question you still have about Romans?” That keeps my finger on the learner’s pulse so I can make mid-course corrections. Finally, I can gain a number of insights into people by simply watching them. I notice, for instance, how people enter the classroom. If two people sit on the third row on the right, and then two on the fifth row on the left, and then one on the inside aisle up front, and then a few on the back row–I’m probably dealing with people who don’t know each other or don’t feel comfortable with one another. If people come in and sit in groups, one group to the left, another to the right, it may indicate a certain cliquishness. If people come in and speak quietly but politely to one another, it may indicate they don’t know each other well. If people come in boisterous, gently ribbing one another, it may indicate I’m teaching people who know each other well. Often we look at the size of the class only after it’s full. At that point, it looks like a community because every chair is full. But when I notice how those chairs are filled, I learn a lot about my class.
- Involve learners in planning. Several years ago, I was preparing to teach a course on women in transition. Although I had taught this subject a number of times, I decided to involve the learners in planning the course. I’m glad I did. When I gathered a group of women, I asked them questions like: What transitions do you think women are experiencing? What do you think are some of the hardest issues faced by women in transition? They were reeling off answers I had heard before, but then one woman surprised me. “If the class meets on Sunday nights,” she said, “I need to get my husband’s permission to come.” It had never occurred to me that these women would feel they needed permission to participate in a church activity. We began exploring this issue of husband/wife decision making, and we designed a class that would address it. I had planned the class for 20 women, but word got around, and 110 women signed up. Planning ensures that the class will address their concerns.
- Make adults responsible for their learning. I make people responsible for the learning they want to do. Sometimes I ask them to make a learning commitment or contract. I might begin a class in the Book of John by saying, “There are three levels at which you can take this class. “Level One: You can come and receive whatever is presented. Just be willing to enter into the discussion. “Level Two: As you take this class, you will read William Barclay’s commentary on John. “Level Three: Bring a notebook and plan to do your daily devotions and meditations in John. You may even want to do your family devotions in this book.” Then I hand out a simple questionnaire and ask people to make a commitment. This way I get a sense of the overall character of the class. Sometimes I find I have a class full of people who just want to sit and absorb, so I structure the curriculum to meet their needs. Other times I may have seven people who want to work with the commentary, four who are linking the class to their daily devotions, and one who actually wants to put out a graduate-level effort. It’s extremely helpful to know your audience. I once taught a class on Romans in which the highest commitment level group was called the “The Royal Fork Club.” It was named after The Royal Fork, an inexpensive buffet restaurant. I told the class I would pick up the tab for a buffet dinner for those in The Royal Fork Club who completed all the exercises week by week. I figured that at most five or six people would sign the contract. Instead, we had over a hundred sign up! Since this idea proved too successful for my own financial well-being, we had to find a donor to sponsor The Royal Fork Club.
- Encourage ongoing learning. A person should not be able to say at the conclusion of a course on Exodus, “Well, now I have that subject behind me.” I want to ignite the flame of curiosity. One way to inspire a continuing interest in the subject is to provide the right kind of closure at the end of the course. It should suggest there is more to learn. For example, at the end of a class, I might ask: What’s the most important thing you’ve learned in this course? What is one thing you’ve learned that you intend to put into practice in your everyday life? What is one issue arising from this course that you want to study further or still need to apply? People might respond verbally in small groups or write answers. In the process, I’ve communicated, “We haven’t learned everything about the subject. The learning process has just been launched.” I recently received a letter from a former student saying, “I’m re-listening to tapes of your courses in Romans and Exodus. In fact, this is my fourth time in over five years that I’ve listened to them. Each time, I’m at a different level of understanding and a different place in my walk with the Lord. I’ve learned something new at each level.” This, to me, is what adult Christian education is about. Teacher and learners journey together, and we come away not just better informed but truly changed.
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Roberta Hestenes is president of Eastern College in St. Davids, Pennsylvania.
1996 Christianity Today/LEADERSHIP Journal
