Article April 19, 1952 Issue

Our Sunday Schools

Repetition

Reference to previous discussions is often a substantial aid in teaching the Sunday School lessons. It might even be said that a certain amount of such review or repetition is essential to good teaching. Although the mere repetition of words may become dull and uninteresting, when words are associated with spiritual ideas, repetition tends to make them more meaningful and impressive.

The value of repetition may be illustrated in the study of a language. When one is studying a language he acquires in his first lesson a beginning vocabulary. In the next lesson he learns a few more words which he is able to use in connection with the vocabulary already acquired. So it is with the third and succeeding lessons. Words once learned are not dropped for new ones, but are carried along and used with the new ones to enable the student to express himself more fully in that language. So in teaching a Sunday School class, a Biblical episode or a passage from the Bible or "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy which the teacher wishes especially to impress upon the thought of the pupils may be emphasized by repeating it in successive lessons in new and varied applications. Thus the earlier lessons are not forgotten through lack of use, but are enhanced by association with later ones; and the pupils learn to value them as beacon lights along their own pathway.

Usually the Sunday School teacher expects that his pupils, those who have not already done so, will memorize the first lessons verbatim; that is, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer with its spiritual interpretation, given by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health, and the Beatitudes. It has been found that this is not difficult for the pupils to accomplish when the lessons are repeatedly applied to different phases of their experience; in other words, when they are repeated with understanding.

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April 19, 1952
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