The Dirt On Learning

The other day i finally finished The Dirt on Learning by Thom & Joanie Schultz, and it was really good. If you're a big fan of Bible Bowl or Bible quizzing, beware - they have some strong cautions. But they seem to be well founded - along with most of the rest of the statements in the book. The Schultz' disect the parable of the sower, but instead of seeing it as a fatalistic tale of inevitable ministry ineffectiveness due to poor soil, they place all the blame for bad soil solely on the shoulders of the sower. It may be a bit harsh, but they do have a lot of convincing support for what they say. Each of the maladies of the soil is commonly caused by something we do at church in our sowing efforts, whether bribing kids for good behavior, focusing on detail retention only, or using boring, confusing, and/or irrelevant worksheets as teaching tools. They might stretch the metaphor a little too far, but it's a good read and important material for any teacher to understand.