Heart-Deep Teaching

Book excerpt: When teaching the Bible, what is the best theory, and what are the best practices to stimulate deeper student learning? Heart-Deep Teaching was written for parents, teachers, and students of the Word who desire to apply its principles in life transforming ways. The concept of “heart-deep teaching and learning” is based on a Hebrew understanding of the “heart” as the innermost essence of a person that involves the mind, emotions, and will. When the heart is engaged by the power of the Holy Spirit within the context of God’s Word, both character and behavioral changes occur. To actively engage students’ emotions, mind, will, and body in learning, a heart-deep teacher uses strategies involving interaction, drama, reflection, story-telling, wonder, movement, creativity, acting-out, problem-solving, and wrestling with the principles discovered in the biblical text. By integrating accurate methods of analyzing the biblical text and current research in teaching and learning, the book attempts to help teachers understand the theoretical and practical skills to create their own lessons, adapt lessons from published curriculums, and improve their own strategies of studying and teaching the Word.