A Wavering Line Drawn on Shifting Sands

"No attempt is made to indoctrinate students as to the truth or falsity of the biblical documents."


That's from my course description.  It's not easy to carry out.  I once received a call from a local college student who was writing an expose' of public school Bible teachers in Chattanooga.  He asked me if I told students that the virgin birth of Jesus is an irrational notion.  I answered, "Is that something I should have to say?"

Here is what the columnist James Kilpatrick wrote in the early '80s, after a federal district court invalidated a Bible program in the Bristol, Va., public schools, because of its "strong religious overlay."

The line that divides propaganda from instruction is a wavering line drawn on shifting sands.   If a teacher breathes one word suggesting that Genesis is "true," that teacher is in trouble with the Civil Liberties Union; if a teacher implies that Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were apocryphal or symbolic figures, the local fundamentalists will be after the teacher's scalp.  

Whatever else the Bible may be, the Bible is in fact literature.  The trick is to teach it that way.

Click here for the course description: http://teacherweb.com/TN/BITS/BibleHistory/h2.aspx

Three Workbooks, 180 Days

This has proved to be a successful program for independent study, homeschoolers, homebound students, credit recovery, and the classroom.  The work is challenging for all students, yet accessible to those reading below grade level.  The standardized format makes the work easy to grade.  (Try using a ten-point scale.)

All citations are from the Good News Translation, but students may use the translation of their choice.

Please feel free to download, modify, and print.



Click here for the workbooks:  http://teacherweb.com/TN/BITS/BibleHistory/photo1.aspx

No Lectures, No Games, No Group Work

"Students will closely engage a text and answer a series of questions about that text."  This is the only teaching strategy you will find in my daily lesson plans.  Unimaginative?  Yes.  Juvenile?  Not in the least.

Click here for a day-by-day look at the curriculum:

http://teacherweb.com/TN/BITS/BibleHistory/photo3.aspx

Extras

Here are all my tests and quizzes.

My students were able to access these online, beforehand.  (Cut and paste to sort the questions differently.)

Click for the questions:  http://teacherweb.com/TN/BITS/BibleHistory/photo5.aspx

My Students

 "I like how you let us teach ourselves; that's what I like most."

"What I like most is the way we get to teach ourselves."

"I like Bible History because of the space you give us.  You don't just stay in our face all day."

"What I like most about Bible History is that the teacher is nice, and he knows what he's teaching, and the students get along with each other.  We also get to work together as partners if we like, and the work is very easy to do, and the teacher doesn't stand up in class all day and talk to the whole class."

"I like a lot of things about Bible History, but to name just one it would have to be because Mr. Lewis is the teacher.  He doesn't make the work too hard or too easy.  Mr. Lewis is a very funny guy to be around.  He treats everyone the same, unlike some teachers.  He doesn't preach, but he teaches us what we need to know about the Bible."

"I learn more stuff about the Bible in Bible History than I do in church.  There is a lot of stuff in our lessons that even my father hasn't heard of or known about, and he's a preacher."

"I hate to say this, but if I didn't have this class, I wouldn't ever think about reading the Bible on my own."

"Before I started taking this class, I knew absolutely nothing about the Bible.  Now I think I am quite educated when it comes to the Bible."

"I have learned so much in one class all year than what I have learned in church all of my life."

"Bible History is interesting.  I had never picked up a Bible a day in my life.  I just used to hear people  talking about it.  It's a really good book in fact.  Maybe the best."

Introduction

I wrote this curriculum because teacher talk never worked for me.

There's enough work here for two semesters.

My students used this curriculum over a period of 26 years. Their work and their comments led me to correct many errors of fact and to revise innumerable questions that were poorly phrased.

Here's the link to all of the work: http://teacherweb.com/TN/BITS/BibleHistory/index.html