Methodology can either hinder or enhance the learning process. The instructors at Cambridge Study Center are committed to using Parabolic Method in the classroom. It is a discipling method–the primary method Jesus used when teaching his disciples (Mark 4:33-34). An exhaustive treatment of Parabolic Method cannot be offered here. However, the following is a summary of the method, along with a list of some of its many benefits:
Summary of Parabolic Method:
- Teaching always begins and ends with the concrete rather than the abstract or theoretical
- The first “concrete” is a story, work of art, or complex statement, a statement that needs interpretation
- The second “concrete” is always contextualization or application, an integration of faith and practice
- Between these two “concretes” the student acquires an abstract and theoretical understanding of the topic
- Materials with text and subtext, story and worldview, are always used
- A proper understanding of literary device is taught as a means of understanding the subtext
- Questions and answers are the means used to understand the literary device used to communicate subtext
- The teacher delivers a mini-lecture to help students better understand what they have discovered
- The student is required to identify worldviews and compare them to Christian worldview
- The student is required to cross reference other disciplines
- The integration of knowledge, faith and practice is the first priority of this method
Benefits for the student:
- Students love learning and become life-long self educators
- Students develop the ability to understand and apply complex texts
- No boredom or discipline problems
- Students become active learners instead of passive
- Pride of ownership when ideas are discovered rather than dictated
- Positive peer pressure and group dynamics
- Lifelong learning becomes a priority
- Develops critical thinking skills & vocabulary
- Standardized test taking skills are significantly improved
- The facts are “digestible,” so the student retains them
- Classes are relevant: faith are practice are defined & integrated
Parabolic Method presupposes that the student is a living, free, reasonable, creative image bearer of God, not a tabula rasa, or blank slate to be written upon. A computer stores information for retrieval at a later time. Human minds and souls are more than that and are consequently mentored and discipled to produce good deeds that the Father has prepared in advance for them to do.
We have adopted a false method of education. Slavery is not the best training for liberty. It is only by exercise that powers grow. To do things for people does not train them to do them for themselves. We are learning more and more in things educational that the first duty of the teacher is not to solve all difficulties for the pupil, and to present him with the ready-made answer, but to awaken a spirit, to teach the pupil to realize his own powers, by setting before him difficulties, and showing him how to approach and overcome them. ~ Roland Allen