Teaching to Change Lives: Seven Proven Ways to Make Your Teaching Come Alive ebook

If you have ever found yourself teaching a group of people and realized you were not very good at it, this book is for you. This was my condition recently, and I began a journey to grow in the art of teaching. “Teaching to Change Lives: Seven Proven Ways to Make Your Teaching Come Alive,” is just the book to begin the journey to becoming a better teacher. However, you may be a seasoned teacher who can glean from decades of experience as well. Written by Dr. Howard G. Hendricks (1924-2013), who taught for more than sixty years at Dallas Theological Seminary. He impacted millions worldwide and directly taught over 10,000 Seminary students. Bruce Wilkinson, founder of Walk Thru the Bible, said this of Dr. Hendricks’s teaching ability: “The fact is, he was not so much teaching a course as he was ministering to his students.” By way of disclaimer, the book is written from a distinctly Christian perspective.

Teaching to Change Lives is broken down to seven laws to learn from and adapt to improve your teaching style and form. I will give a summary of the seven laws and summarize my review in the end.

1. The Law of the Teacher

“The Law of the Teacher, simply stated, is this: If you stop growing today, you stop teaching tomorrow.” Dr. Hendricks makes it clear that to be a good teacher you must always be looking to improve. The reasonable question that arises is how do I improve? The Christian teacher is encouraged by the words in Luke 6:40b “Everyone who is well trained will be like his teacher.” Although the books focus in in teaching, this chapter encourages us to be well rounded in our growth. Every area of our lives influences how we teach.

2. The Law of Education

“The way people learn determines how you teach. This is the Law of Education.” Joan Milton Gregory explains, “True teaching is not that which gives knowledge, but that which stimulates pupils to gain it.” Dr. Hendricks unveils the heart of the teacher by saying that “teachers can’t be focused on what they do, but on what their students are doing.” Our selfish nature tends to focus on our results and how we are being perceived. On a personal note, I was encouraged to get excited when someone I teach learns a new truth instead of reminding them I had learned that lesson years ago.

3. The Law of Activity

“The Law of Activity tells us that maximum learning is always the result of maximum involvement.” The author gives us three ways to learn while doing:

• Well-guided practice makes perfect
• Properly evaluated experience is the best teacher
• We learn by doing the right things

We do not want those we teach to just know the right information but to act on the information in transformational ways.
4. The Law of Communication

“The Law of Communication compels that the very process: To truly impart information requires the building of bridges.” Our communication involves three components: thought, feeling, and action. Hendricks sums up an excellent communicator as someone who “know something thoroughly, feels it deeply, and are doing it consistently.” The reader is encouraged to enjoy life and allow that enjoyment to rub off on those around us.

5. The Law of the Heart

“Teaching that impacts is not head to head, but heart to heart. That is the Law of the Heart.” As teachers, our character is going to give students confidence that what we have to say has value. It can be said that the greatest communicators have the biggest heart. It is not just information transfer but a head and heart transfer that enables students to want to learn from us. This can be summed up as "credibility precedes communication."

6. The Law of Encouragement

“The Law of Encouragement is this: Teaching tends to be most effective when the learner is properly motivated.” Dr. Hendricks points out two levels of motivation that push students: extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is what motivates us from the outside. Intrinsic motivation comes from the inside. He concludes that “Your task in all extrinsic motivation is to trigger intrinsic motivation.” In as much as we are able, our goal as teachers should be” exposing students to real-life experiences” that force the tension between knowing and doing.

7. The Law of Readiness

“The Law of Readiness is this: The teaching-learning process will be most effective when both student and teacher are adequately prepared.” This places responsibility on both parties in the educational environment. If a teacher is not preparing, then the students will either recognize this and “check out” mentally from the class. Likewise, if the students are not prepared to learn, it limits the teacher's ability to transfer knowledge and application. Finally, we must not fall into a rut when teaching others. As Hendricks points out “The higher your predictability, the lower your impact.”

Summary

In Teaching to Change Lives you will find a great foundation to build on a teaching ministry. However, it is not to be the end all for those in the teaching ministry. It is a wonderful place to start the journey. This book should often be used to turn our gaze inward and evaluate where we are at varying times in the teaching cycle. It is my desire to look over these sections as a devotion to God as well as an honest evaluation of where I stand as I attempt to take these laws to heart. I would highly recommend this to anyone who teaches; from the Sunday School teacher to the pulpit of a Senior Pastor.

I love this book! Here are a few excerpts copies from the Kindle version:

The Law of the Teacher, simply stated, is this: If you stop growing today, you stop teaching tomorrow. Neither personality nor methodology can substitute for this principle. You cannot communicate out of a vacuum. You cannot impart what you do not possess. If you don't know it--truly know it--you can't give it.

As an effective teacher, you must not only know that which you would teach--that is, your content--but you must also know those whom you wish to teach. You are not interested simply in inculcating principles; you want to infect people. Therefore, the way people learn determines how you teach. This is the Law of Education.

Your task as a communicator is not to impress people, but to impact them; not just to convince them, but to change them.

Christian education today is entirely too passive. And that's incongruous, because Christianity is the most revolutionary force on the planet. It changes people. Yet frequently we've taken this most revolutionary force on earth and set it in concrete. The average Christian's attitude is well expressed when he sings, "As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be." Churches and Christianity often resist the very changes they are meant to bring about.

Malcolm Muggeridge noted a surprising feature held in common by almost all books on communication--"a singular incapacity to communicate."

Teaching that impacts is not head to head, but heart to heart. That's the Law of the Heart, and it's true as long as you understand the biblical meaning of heart.

The Law of Encouragement is this: Teaching tends to be most effective when the learner is properly motivated

Before the race, runners stretch their muscles. Before the concert, the orchestra tunes up. And there's a necessary preparation for both the learner and teacher as well. The Law of Readiness is this: The teaching-learning process will be most effective when both student and teacher are adequately prepared. It highlights one of the great problems for teachers: Their students come to class cold.

Josh Hunt
Author, Disciplemaking Teachers

In this book you can really feel the author’s passion for what he is writing about. Just having a former student write the Foreword really showed this man’s effect on people’s lives through the principles that he implements and lays out for us in this book. Hendricks going through the seven laws of teaching and shows us practical ways to use these in all types of classrooms. He isn’t writing this just for the nursery Sunday school class or just for the high school youth group or just for the college classroom, this is for every teacher in every setting. He teaches us not just how to communicate but how to communicate effectively and passionately and in a way that your students will actually learn. In fact he says that we are not teaching if there is no one learning. I would recommend this book to everyone who ever wants to work with people. I think just about every profession, you will need to teach someone something at sometimes. And if not, then in life you will eventually need to teach someone something. And Hendricks hits the nail on the head in showing how to do that. Now only does he shows us but he uses his own principles to teach us, using visuals, illustrations, stories, creative assignments, and challenging questions, to force us to dig deeper than just skimming over a book. Probably one of the most impacting parts of the whole book was his use of personal illustrations. Hendricks was willing to show his flaws and times he has messed up along with times he has been challenged or dumbfounded by a student. But he uses those moments to learn, not be discouraged and give up. How encouraging to hear a well-respected, intelligent teacher let us in on what he has learned by experience and through other good teachers.