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From Concrete to Abstract

Personal experiences in teaching children about Christ

by Laurel Parmley

(Posted with permission)

“Every father I’ve known feels inadequate and feels like they were a failure, even if your children are angels. There is still this nagging thought in us I could of done it better. Somehow or another I was inadequate. And maybe that’s true. Maybe the fact of the matter is we all are dysfunctional as fathers. Which is what makes it extremely important that we take the hand of our children out of our hands and put it in the hands of the One who is truly their Father”
Gayle Irwin Carbondale A/G June 18, 2006 (Father’s Day)

Thangwa likes to hold our hands everywhere we go. It makes her feel more secure. We can guide her where she needs to go. We can help keep her from falling. This is good and normal for her age. However, something would definitely be wrong if Jack wanted to hold our hand everywhere he went and cried if we went without him. But Jack still needs to feel secure. He still needs someone to guide him. He still needs someone to keep him from falling. We all do. That is why we must teach the children how to let go of our hands and take hold of the hand of God.

I am so thankful that this is what my parents did for me. They helped me through every stage of my life and taught me how to walk with God in a way that I could understand from the time I was a little baby. They taught me what was right and what was wrong and expected me to always do my best and to do what I knew was right. When I didn’t they disciplined me in love, but they always held me to a very high standard. I could always talk to them about any problem or fear that I had. They listened and taught me how to take those things to God. I know I would not be who I am today without their love and guidance as they taught me to walk with God. I learned so much from them. I think that I have the best parents in the world (I know I’m biased). But my parents feel like that didn’t do many things right and wished they had done a better job. Sometimes when I call home frustrated about a problem I am having with a child, they will tell me how they felt frustrated when they were trying to teach me. I think all good parents want the same things. They want their children to know they love them. They want the very best for their children. They want them to do well in school. To have good jobs, good families, good opportunities. They want their children to be respectful, polite and other people to think well of them. Christian parents want their kids to serve God with all their hearts. We aren’t going to always do everything right no matter how much we want to. We are going to feel like we failed them sometimes. This is why it is so important to teach them to walk with God, because He will never fail them. God loves the kids more than we do. He has even great plans for their lives than we can imagine. God wants us to teach our children. We are the ones He has chosen to care for them. If God has given us this responsibility, He will give us the strength and wisdom we need to do it.

When I was in high school I knew that God wanted me to teach children about Jesus. There are many important things to teach children, but the most important thing you can ever teach a child is to teach them to walk with God. Since teaching children about Jesus is so important, I felt that it was important for me to learn how to teach. That is why I majored in education at a Christian University in that was well known for its education department. I learned so much about children and teaching in those four years. Then I had the opportunity to put into practice what I learned for the next 5 years by teaching in 3 different schools in every grade level. I have also taught children for many years at my church. I started helping my mom teach the 2 year old Sunday School class at my church when I was 12 years old. Since that time I have taught many different Sunday School classes, helped in Children’s Choir, been a counselor at kids’ camp, taught in VBS and special Saturday outreaches in the community. I helped in the youth Bible Quiz program and taught the youth drama class. Before I came here (Ban Romyen Orphanage – Chiangkham), I was the assistant Children’s church director, started an after school tutoring program and taught English to Spanish speakers. In the last 17 years I have had the privilege of working with some excellent teachers and learning how to teach from them. All these experiences have helped to prepare me to come and teach here. For the past year and a half I have learned so much from all of you. Though I have taught in many ways, I have never lived with the children 24 hours a day before. I also have a lot to learn about Thai language and culture. Thank you so much for being patient teachers. I know that I don’t understand things most of the time and I don’t always do things the correct way, but you are all so kind and helpful. I couldn’t do what God has called me to do here, without you teaching me how to do it the Thai way. Please keep helping me learn.

Today, I am very honored to have the opportunity to share something I have learned with you. One of the most important classes I studied in the university was a class on child growth and development. It helped me learn how children grow physically, emotionally, socially and mentally. Studying how children learn and what they can do at different ages, helped me become a better teacher. There is so much to learn about this topic that you could study it for years, but we are only going to look at the main stages of growth and some basic characteristic of each stage.

Jean Piaget was a psychologist from Switzerland. He worked for over fifty years observing and studying children and their behaviors. Piaget realized that a child's mind was not a miniature version of the adult. The human brain is not fully developed until late adolescence or in the case of males sometimes early adulthood (girls generally mature faster than boys). Research shows that 75% of brain development occurs after birth. Until they reach the age of about 15 they are not capable of reasoning as an adult. We often expect children to think like adults when they are not yet capable of doing so. It is important that parents and teachers know what to expect from their child as they develop and to be sure that the expectations they may have for their child at a given age are realistic. According to Piaget’s research children go through four basic stages of cognitive (brain/thought) development. I will also talk about things we can do to help strengthen brain development in our children. Many of these things are things you already know and do naturally. But when you know why you do them, it helps you to think about it and do it more effectively.

SENSORIMOTOR STAGE
(Birth - 2 years old)

1. The child relies on seeing, touching, sucking, feeling, and using their senses to learn things about themselves and the environment.

2. The child is totally dependant. To thrive and learn, an infant must establish an intimate, responsive, and trusting relationship with at least one other person.

3. The child, well - handled, nurtured, and loved, develops trust and security and a basic optimism. Badly handled, he becomes insecure and mistrustful.

PREOPERATIONAL STAGE
(2-7 years)

1. The child is not yet able to conceptualize abstractly and needs concrete physical situations.

2. Child can only focus on one aspect of a situation (difficult to follow more than one direction at a time).

3. Usually think only from their own point of view (That’s where teaching is important. We don’t expect them to already know how to do it; we teach them to do it.)

4. The child is able to believe in something without knowing why she or he believes it. (This is what makes godly parenting so important. How do you teach a child who can only learn by seeing and touching about a God they cannot see or touch?)

Preoperational Phase (2-4 years)

1. Increased use of verbal representation but speech is egocentric.

2. Can think about something without the object being present by use of language.

3. They think about everything only in how it relates to them.

Age 2

1. Learns about the world by touching, looking, manipulating and listening.

2. If we were to single out the major intellectual limitation at this age, it would be your child's feeling that everything that happens in his world is the result of something he has done. With a belief like this, it becomes very difficult for him to understand correctly such concepts as death, divorce or illness without feeling that he played some role in it. So if parents separate or a family member gets sick, children often feel responsible.

3. Reasoning with your 2-year-old is often difficult. After all, he views everything in extremely simple terms. He still often confuses fantasy with reality unless he's actively playing make-believe. Comments that you think are funny or playful, such as "If you eat more ice cream, you'll explode," may actually panic him because he won't know you're joking.

4. Very Self-centered, just beginning a sense of personal identity and belongings, possessive, often negative, often frustrated, no ability to choose between alternatives, enjoys physical affection, resistive to change, becoming independent, beginning to develop a sense of humor (likes to play tricks).

5. May respond to simple direction.

6. Short attention span

7. Fear of separation

8. Copies parents' actions. Dependent, clinging, possessive about toys, enjoys playing alongside another child. Negativism (2 ½ yrs). Resists parental demands. Gives orders. Rigid insistence on sameness of routine. Inability to make decisions.

Age 3

1. Your 3-year-old will spend most of her waking hours questioning everything that happens around her. She loves to ask, "Why do I have to...?" and she'll pay close attention to your answers as long as they're simple and to the point. Don't feel that you have to explain your rules fully; she can't yet understand such reasoning and isn't interested in it anyway. Instead, telling her to do something "because it's good for you" or "so you don't get hurt" will make more sense to her than a detailed explanation. Be sure to take these questions seriously. As you do, you help broaden your child's knowledge, feed her curiosity, and teach her to think more clearly.

2. Can't yet see an issue from two angles, nor can she solve problems that require her to look at more than one factor at the same time (At around age 7, children finally understand that they have to look at multiple aspects of a problem before arriving at an answer).

3. At about 3 years of age, your child's sense of time will become much clearer. She'll now know her own daily routine and will try hard to figure out the routines of others.

4. Less resistive to change, more secure

5. Beginning to be adventuresome

6. Likes to "help" in small ways

7. Wants to understand environment

Brain Growth at 3

1. Give consistent warm, physical contact - hugging, skin-to-skin, body-to-body contact to establish a sense of security and well-being.

2. Be encouraging and supportive, with firm discipline as appropriate.

3. Provide consistent guidelines.

4. Talk or sing to your child during dressing, bathing, feeding, playing, walking and driving, using adult talk. Speak slowly and give your child time to respond. Try not to reply with "uh-huh" because your child will recognize when you're not listening; instead, expand upon your child's phrases.

5. Be predictable; establish a pattern for mealtimes, naps and bedtime.

6. Read to your child every day. Choose books that encourage touching and pointing to objects, and read rhymes, jingles and nursery stories.

7. If you speak a foreign language, use it at home.

8. Listen to and answer your child's questions. Also, ask questions to stimulate decision-making processes.

9. Begin to explain "safety" in simple terms. For example, feeling the heat from the stove teaches the meaning and danger of hot objects.

10. Make sure other people who provide care and supervision for your baby understand the importance of forming a loving and comforting relationship with your child.

11. Help your child use words to describe emotions and to express feelings, such as happiness, joy, anger and fear.

12. Spend time on the floor playing with your child every day.

Age 4

1. Beginning to explore many basic concepts that will be taught in greater detail in school. There's no advantage to her learning them this early, and if she feels pressured to perform now, she may actually resist learning when she gets to school.

2. Will ask many "universal" questions about subjects; such as the origin of the world, death and dying, and the composition of the sun and the sky. Now, for example, is when you'll hear the classic question "Why is the sky blue?" Like so many other parents, you may have trouble answering these questions, particularly in simple Language your child will understand.

3. Whatever her interests, you can use books to help answer her questions and open her horizons even further. At this age, then, your child should be discovering the joy of learning so that she will be self-motivated when her formal education begins.

4. Seems sure of himself, out-of bounds behavior, often negative, may be defiant, seems to be testing himself out, needs controlled freedom.

5. Cooperative play, enjoys other children's company, highly social, talkative,
asks endless questions, learning to generalize.

6. Home-centered, likes to associate with mother,

7. Capable of some self-criticism

8. Likes to follow the rules (when they clearly understand them).

9. Feels pride in accomplishments.

10. Eager to carry out some responsibility.

11. Learn by doing rather than being told.

12. Provide an environment that provides challenges and predictability.

13. Allow them to learn at their own speed, so they can do things themselves.

14. Literal Minded “What you say is what they believe.

Intuitive Phase (4-7 years)

1. Speech becomes more social, less egocentric.

2. The child has an intuitive grasp of logical concepts in some areas. However, there is still a tendency to focus attention on one aspect of an object while ignoring others (Difficult to follow more than one direction at a time).

3. Reality not firm.

4. In moral-ethical realm, the child is not able to show principles underlying best behavior. Rules of a game not develop, only uses simple do's and don'ts imposed by authority.

5. The child’s thoughts about God are related to the people that tell him about God.

6. They will imitate what they hear, and see. Show them a good example. The child will learn more by watching you than by what you say.

7. Provide structured choices.

8. Never give the children a choice unless you are willing to do what they tell you.

9. Asks many questions, have patience.

10. A 4 and 5 year old can begin to understand another person’s point of view.

11. They are very sensitive, be careful to teach rather than criticize.

12. Don’t compare a child with another child.

13. Praise for effort not results.

14. Make the time to sit down – get on their level and listen.

CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE
(7-11 Years)

1. During this stage, the child begins to reason logically, and organize thoughts coherently. However, they can only think about actual physical objects, they cannot handle abstract reasoning.

2. This stage is also characterized by a loss of egocentric thinking.

3. The child is able to take into account multiple aspects of a problem to solve it.

4. The child develops the ability to view things from another's perspective (even if they think incorrectly).

5. Evidence for organized, logical thought. There is the ability to perform multiple classification tasks, order objects in a logical sequence.

6. The child is capable of concrete problem-solving.

7. They do not understand complicated explanations so give clear simple instructions (can give multiple instructions at one time).

8. As physical experience accumulates, the child starts to conceptualize, creating logical structures that explain his or her physical experiences. For example, arithmetic equations can be solved with numbers, not just with objects.

9. During these years, a child has a strong desire to belong. Home should be first on that list for belonging. They need to feel accepted. Children will misbehave when they are rejected.

10. They want to feel accepted in the group.

11. Forms close friendships, has peer group pressures, struggles with favoritism, desires independence.

12. Provide guidance for choosing friends.

13. From about 8 on, the child develops a strong feeling of what is right and wrong. Therefore these children need clear direction on moral issues that will set him up for life.

14. Desires a role in problem solving.

15. Has questions about life, death and belief is personalizing the principle of justice.

THE FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE
(Beginning at ages 11-15)

1. It begins at approximately 11 to 12 years of age, and continues throughout adulthood; although Piaget does point out that some people may never reach this stage of cognitive development.

2. The formal operational stage is characterized by the ability to formulate hypotheses and systematically test them to arrive at an answer to a problem.

3. The individual in the formal stage is also able to think abstractly and to understand the form or structure of a mathematical problem.

4. It is characterized by acquisition of the ability to think abstractly and draw conclusions from the information available.

5. Thought becomes more abstract, incorporating the principles of formal logic. The ability to generate abstract propositions, multiple hypotheses and their possible outcomes is evident. Thinking becomes less tied to concrete reality.

6. Prepositional logic, as-if and if-then steps.

7. By this point, the child's cognitive structures are like those of an adult and include conceptual reasoning.

8. Early in the period there is a return to egocentric thought.

9. A child in this age wants to make his own decisions, be his own person.

10. He will start questioning everything around him. He may start to doubt his faith. But he has to be able to make his own decisions and choices.

11. This age is the time when children will be starting to move out from the control of their parents or caregivers.

12. Children of this age are making friends and friends are very important to them.

13. Loyalty is also very important.

14. The need to fit in and be accepted is a major concern for them.

15. They need to know you like them and enjoy them. They might feel you have a responsibility to like them, but it’s important to let them know you genuinely enjoy being around them.

16. Young people have a strong need for community.

17. Other central needs include having a sense of meaning in life, physical and emotional security, and basic structure in relationships and living.

18. Give the children lots of opportunities to serve God, within the church and outside of it. Help them see what their purpose is with God.

GENERAL INFORMATION REGARDING THESE STAGES
These four stages have been found to have the following characteristics:

1. Although the timing may vary, the sequence of the stages does not. Each child is an individual and each child will be different. However, a child's growth is a continuous process, a gradual sequencing from one stage of physical and mental development to another-"Each child sits before he stands; he babbles before he talks"

2. Universal (not culturally specific)

3. Hierarchical nature of stage sequences (Each successive stage incorporates elements of previous stages. This is why it is so important to help children learn all they can at each stage.)

FACTORS THAT EFFECT STAGE MOVEMENT:

1. Maturation is the physical and psychological growth that occurs in the child at a specific stage.

2. Experience is when the child thinks and interacts with real or concrete objects in the external environment.

3. Social interaction involves the child socializing with others, especially children.

4. Equilibration, this occurs when the child brings together maturation, experience, and social interaction in order to build mental schema.

Applying Cognitive Development Stages to Teaching

The environment that the child is brought up in will effect his growth and development. How each child will develop his particular gifts will depend largely upon the opportunities and training that he has. So the more that we know about the stage of development, the more we will understand the children we are teaching and the more effective we will be in teaching them God’s truth.

How do we help a child who learns by touching, seeing and hearing about a God that they cannot touch with their hands or see with their eyes or hear with their ears? How do we teach them to let God touch their hearts? How do we teach them to see through the eyes of faith? How do we teach them to listen to God? Let’s look at some verses in Deuteronomy that teach us how to teach our children.

“Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the Lord your God: His majesty, His mighty hand, His outstretched arm.” Deuteronomy 11:2

“It was not your children who saw what He did for you in the desert until you arrived at this place.” Deuteronomy 11:5

“But it was your eyes that saw all these great things the Lord has done.” Deuteronomy 11:7

All of these verses talk about how our children have not seen or experienced God’s power the same way we have. How do we teach them what we already know?

“Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your fore heads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the Lord swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.” Deuteronomy 11:18-21

It must be part of everything we do. We have to make an effort to find ways to show them how God is working in their lives and in the lives of those around them. We have to find ways to show them concrete examples that they can experience so they can understand.
“And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, “in the future when your descendants ask their fathers, ‘What do these stones mean?’ Tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’” Joshua 4:20-22

Joshua told the people do this because God had already told Him to do it. God knew that when the children saw the alter they would ask why and there would be an opportunity to teach. Children like to ask questions and want to know why. It is important for us to find ways to show them things that will make them ask those questions. We have to give concrete examples as much as possible or they will not understand the words we are using.

Jesus used concrete examples to explain abstract things. All of the parables were stories of something the people knew and understood that helped them understand about heaven and the kingdom of God. Many times when he was teaching He used a concrete object that they could see.

God created the family to be the tangible model that shows us what His Kingdom is like. God is our Heavenly Father and our fellow Christians are our brothers and sisters in Christ.
It is especially important for children to have a tangible model (something they can see, hear, touch) to help them understand what God is like.

For children who are learning about God, the first concept they have of what God is like is based on what their parents (or those adults teaching them) are like.

This is why it is so important for our words, attitudes and actions to reflect God’s character to the children we minister to. We are the only picture of God that they can see.

Before I came to Thailand, I was a reading specialist for a year at an elementary school. My job was to work with children who were below their grade level in reading and help bring them up to the reading level that was right for their age. In order to do this I had to know what was the appropriate level to teach them and then find books that were written on that level. There are three levels:

Easy Level – Instructional Level – Frustration Level

If I used a book in the child’s easy reading level, it was something they could already do without help and they didn’t really learn anything new. It was good practice for them and easy for me, because I didn’t have to do anything; but it wasn’t teaching them.

If I used a book in the child’s frustration reading level, it was too hard for them and they could not understand. It was only frustrating to them and to me because it didn’t work very well.

If I used a book in the child’s instructional level, it was something they could not do without my help. It was not easy. I had to prepare things and spend time to really teach them. They also had to try to learn. However, when we did this it was so much fun to see them start to understand something they could not do before. They would get excited about being able to do it and it began to become easy for them.

This is the goal of teaching. To find the student’s Instructional level and help them master it so that it becomes their Easy Level and then they can move on to learn and do more things.

This should be our goal in all the things we want to teach the children (teaching the Bible, teaching them to do homework, clean the house, wash clothes, do the dishes, work in the garden, take care of the animals, work in the kitchen, cut the grass, get along with each other, be polite and respectful, etc.)

If they can already do it without our help, it is in their easy level. We should expect them to do it well. We can hold them to a high standard because they can do it and we want them to learn to do their best in everything. We need to encourage them while they are doing it. We also need to thank them when we see that they are really trying to do their best and let them know they have done a good job. When they aren’t doing it well we need to train/discipline them to do it better (we will talk more about this tomorrow). We need to make sure they understand that we know they can do it and we want them to do their best because we want to see the best things happen in their lives.

If the job is something they don’t fully understand or need help while they are doing it, it is in their instructional level. It is important to remember that they can’t do it on their own yet and we need to patiently teach them until they can. We show them and tell them how we want it done. Then we have them do it with us. Then we watch them do it on their own and explain how they are doing. If they are doing it correctly let them know. If not, explain or show them again how you expect them to do it. Some children learn faster than others. We have to keep teaching and working with them until it becomes easy. Then they can do it on their own.

If the job we want them to do is too hard for them, then it is on their frustration level. They may be able to do part of the job, but they will not be able to do it the right way and they will become frustrated. Some kids will be discouraged, some will be angry some will just leave the job only partly finished, some will laugh and joke and not try. This doesn’t work very well because we will get frustrated, too. They won’t really learn and everyone involved will be upset. When this happens we need to stop and think again about what we want to be done (sometimes we need to step a way and think and pray for a while or ask someone else for help). Sometimes we can explain it in a different way that will help them understand it on an instructional level. Sometimes we may need to change part of the job. Sometimes we may realize that the whole job is too hard at this time and think of a different job we can teach them now that will help them learn the skills they will need to be able to do the difficult job.

Child development experts recommended that parents and teachers challenge the child's abilities, but NOT present material or information that is too far beyond the child's level.

They also recommended that teachers use a wide variety of concrete experiences to help the child learn. They have to see it, touch it and experience it in order to really understand it. Once a child has reached the ability to think abstractly (Formal Oporational Stage) we don’t always have to show them. Many times they can learn when we just tell them what we want them to do and they will now how to figure things out for themselves. Just remember, there are times things are, too hard for us and someone has to show us how to do it even though we are already adults and our brains are fully developed. There will be times we think they should already know, that we will have to go back and teach again.