A “Radical” New Teaching Method Discovered?

Wired magazine has posted an article that examines how Sergio Juárez Correa in Mexico has been experimenting with a “radical new teaching method” that is having an amazing impact on his students.  As the western church continues to cling to many of the same ideas about education and discipleship found in modern academia, I think that we, the Church, would do well to rethink our ideas about learning as Sergio.  In fact, I think that the ideas about learning he “discovered” are really not new at all, but very much a return to the methods that Jesus used to make disciples in the New Testament.  The author summarizes Sergio’s ideas about learning this way:

Knowledge isn’t a commodity that’s delivered from teacher to student but something that emerges from the students’ own curiosity-fueled exploration. Teachers provide prompts, not answers, and then they step aside so students can teach themselves and one another. They are creating ways for children to discover their passion—and uncovering a generation of geniuses in the process.

Sergio is quoted as saying:

The bottom line is, if you’re not the one controlling your learning, you’re not going to learn as well.

This idea I believe was central to Jesus’s approach to discipleship and likewise should be the approach of His Church.  It was a “teach a man how to fish” approach.  Similarly, it is this same approach that drives a lot of what we do–or rather do NOT do–in simple church because we believe that believers have direct access to Holy Spirit who can in turn “lead us into all understanding.”

Read the entire article here and share your thoughts!

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