Lesson 2

The Beginners Age, Three to Six

#5. General Characteristics#

(1) _Absorption._ The Beginners period, together with the Primary, Junior, and Intermediate periods, is pre-eminently the absorptive time of life. As the possibilities of the soul begin to awaken, curiosity, imitation, imagination, feeling and all the manifold expressions of its power, they require food and exercise just as the body requires them to develop strength. Hence these years of most rapid development are the years of greatest hunger, physical and mental, of greatest capacity to receive and a.s.similate, and of greatest activity.

(2) _Rounded development._ These periods are also the years of rounded development. Every part of the body is growing and every power of the soul. While development is not perfectly symmetrical and balanced, as for example, feeling developing strength before reason, imagination before self-control, it is nevertheless all-sided and requires in consequence nourishment and activity in every part.

Conditions change as maturity approaches and development becomes more and more narrowed to a special line. The muscles of the blacksmith's arm increase in strength, the fingers of the violinist grow more flexible, the imagination of the poet more beautiful, the a.n.a.lytic power of the lawyer more keen, until physical and mental power begin to break; but, outside of the specialty, growth and development practically cease because of the cessation of nourishment and activity on other sides.

#6. Special Characteristics#

(1) _Restlessness_. This is the most restless period of all the Sunday-school life. A surplus of activity is generated in the body, and it must be expended if the child is to be in a healthy condition, as well as in a normal, happy mental state.

But the outgo of this activity should do more than merely reduce pressure, as the escape of steam from a safety valve. It is a law of life that we both understand and retain most thoroughly the thing we do. This abounding activity is G.o.d's great provision for enabling the child to make his own that which he is receiving through his senses.

It is handling and eating the apple that makes him understand what it is. It is playing that he is the father or the Sunday-school teacher, performing the act of helpfulness and love that enables him to enter into the meaning of these relations and duties of life.

The problem of the Sunday-school teacher then is not "How can I keep the child still," but "How can I make this activity teach the child;"

for, re-emphasizing the thought, "The child understands and remembers the action far better than the admonition."

(2) _Imitation._ The activity of this period is distinctly imitative.

Just as the child must learn to form letters by copying them before he can develop an individual style of writing, so he must learn right action by imitating it before he can be independent and original.

Every time a child imitates an action he understands its meaning better, he fixes it more securely in memory and he also makes its repet.i.tion so much the easier.

It is important, therefore, to note what he naturally imitates. In this period it is some definite act, not the spirit nor life of the actor. He does not aspire to resemble the character of the teacher, but he does try to speak and move and look as she does. As the action is performed, the life unconsciously but surely becomes like the one who is imitated.

(3) _Curiosity._ Because the child has everything to learn G.o.d has made him want to learn everything. As physical hunger arouses an effort to supply the need for physical food, so mental hunger or curiosity arouses an effort to supply mental food. It is most active in the period of greatest absorption, when the life must store for future use. There are two points in relation to curiosity which it is important for the Sunday-school teacher to remember.

(a) Its field of operation, or that toward which it is directed. Curiosity is selective, going out only toward those things in which the life is interested. In this period the child's interests are in activities in Nature and everyday life and in the things about him; but he desires to know only the simplest facts concerning them. What the object is, where it came from, and what it will do, usually satisfy his curiosity regarding it. The teacher, therefore, is guided in the selection of what shall be given the child in a lesson.

(b) Its channels of operation or that through which it acts.

The channels through which curiosity reaches out for knowledge and brings back the results of its search are the senses. Every waking moment finds them taking in sensations which are carried to the brain through the nervous system.

The more perfect the senses in their working the more correct the message they bring. Failure to learn and inattention are usually caused by some defect in the senses or other part of the body.

While an adult can arrive at new ideas through other ideas, the child must receive practically all his ideas through his senses. This guides the teacher as to the method of presenting the lesson.

(4) _Fancy._ This is the early form of imagination, unleashed and untrammeled, which transforms objects, gives soul to inanimate things and creates for the child his own beautiful play world.

(5) _Self-interest._ The beginner himself is the center of his little world. His thinking and his feeling revolve around his own personality, and his own advantage is the thing he constantly seeks.

This is G.o.d's order of development. The consideration for others will follow later, but even now the child may be led into loving, unselfish acts through imitation and personal influence.

(6) _Faith._ Perhaps the better term in the beginning would be credulity, for faith is confidence which has a basis in knowledge, and knowledge does not necessarily enter into a child's belief. Anything an older person tells him is accepted unquestioningly, no matter of what sort it may be.

This means a great responsibility and an unequaled opportunity in the matter of religious instruction. The stories of G.o.d's power and the love of Jesus Christ are absorbed into the life, neither proof nor explanation being necessary nor indeed comprehensible. As the stories multiply in the home and the Sunday-school that which was credulity at first becomes genuine faith. The child does not reason that G.o.d will do because he has done, but a feeling of the Divine strength and love grips him and out of this feeling grows loving confidence in the One who first loved him. If a child pa.s.ses through the Beginners department without this response, his teacher has been out of touch with her Lord.

Test Questions

1. What are the age limits of the Beginners period?

2. What are the general characteristics of the Beginners Age?

3. What are some of the characteristics of these years of absorption?

4. What is meant by rounded development?

5. Name six special characteristics of the Beginners Age.

6. What is the purpose of a child's abounding activity?

7. What is gained by a child when he imitates an action?

8. What two points about a child's curiosity is it important for a teacher to know?

9. Who is the center of the little child's world?

10. By what means is true faith developed in a child?

Lesson 3

Beginners Age (Concluded)

#7. Opportunities of the Beginners Age.#--(1) _Shaping character through influence._ There are two ways of touching a life--the one through definite instruction, which must be understood to avail anything; the other through unconscious influence which is felt, not necessarily comprehended. The mind of the beginner is awake and active, but he can grasp little instruction beyond simplest facts about concrete things. Right and wrong, unselfishness, love, all the abstract standards and principles of life, he cannot comprehend intellectually, but he absorbs the influences that go out from them, and what is felt is always more powerful than that which lodges only in the head. During the first six years of life the child is peculiarly sensitive to every influence that comes to him out of his environment, and these,--not instruction,--determine what he shall be.

No amount of teaching upon the subject of flowers and birds and trees can arouse the joy and grat.i.tude which a drive through the country on a glorious spring morning awakens. No number of lessons upon self-control will make the impression upon the heart which the sight of it in another makes. The child cannot understand the nature and necessity of reverence, but he will feel it, if that be the influence of the Sunday-school hour.

(2) _Shaping character through imitation._ The actions in this period which result from instruction are few compared to those which come from the instinct of imitation; therefore what the teacher is unable to do through precept she can accomplish through the power of example and story.

(3) _Imparting simple spiritual truths._ These must be truths with whose earthly likenesses the child is familiar. This will make possible stories of G.o.d's power as Creator, his love and care as Heavenly Father, stories of Jesus as the loving Friend and Helper of little children, and the necessity of obedience to his commands.

#8. Needs of the Beginners Age.#--If the opportunities of this period are to be realized, four things are necessary:

(1) _A Christlike teacher._ While influences go out from everything,--people, circ.u.mstances, conditions, even inanimate, senseless things,--a human life radiates the strongest influence. It has a twofold effect upon a little child: he not only feels the influence, but it also moves him to imitate the person. He may forget the lesson, he may not have comprehended it at all, but he has absorbed the teacher during the hour and he will try to reproduce what she has said and done even to her very tone, expression, and manner.

If his model be a gentle voice or a loving word, the very act of imitating it makes him gentler and more tender, and what exhortation may not secure, influence and imitation will bring. Therefore a teacher will do her strongest work with a beginner by being like Jesus Christ.

(2) _A suggestive atmosphere._ Atmosphere represents the sum total of all the influences at a given time. The soft music of the organ, the dim light, the stillness, the att.i.tude of prayer, all create an atmosphere to which reverence and worship are the natural response. In confusion and bustle, with loud voice and impatient movement on the part of the teacher, there could be only restlessness and irreverence and inattention on the part of the child. The atmosphere must suggest to the pupil that which the teacher desires from him, be he beginner or adult, for feeling and action are more influenced by atmosphere than admonition. The greatest work for the hour will have been accomplished if the child shall feel that the Lord was in that place, though he knew it not, intellectually.

(3) _Right direction of activity._ The activity of the child may prevent his receiving any benefit from the instruction, or it may be the most effective means for fastening impressions. It is such a constant and prominent factor in the problem of the hour's work that the teacher must plan beforehand just how it shall be directed. In addition to opportunities for general movement, such as rising for songs, or marching, every thought given to the child should have some action immediately connected with it as far as possible, both to help him remember it and make it easier for succeeding actions to follow.

For example if the lesson is upon helpfulness, each child should be led into doing something for his neighbor before he leaves. A prayer att.i.tude should accompany prayer. As this is the rhythmic period, motions which the children themselves suggest may accompany the songs.