Vol. 36, No. 4 _ April 2005
by Charles W. Martin

In his Teaching for Spiritual Growth (Zondervan, 1994), upon which much of this issue is based, Perry Downs observes most Christian parents, whether they attend church on a regular basis or not, usually affirm, "We want our children to know the Bible." Teaching children of various age groups the Bible is also a high concern of pastors and Sunday School teachers. This is because knowledge of the Scripture is central to Christian growth and maturity. However, there is a problem with a child’s capacity to know and understand the Bible because it is distinctly an adult book. More specifically, the problem is that children "know" and "think" about things quite differently from adults. This is why a reoccurring topic of discussion in most every teacher-training program in the local church is how do we help those who teach children to understand the ways children think and know (learn)?

It was in the early 1960s that Ronald Goldman, a British religious educator who wrote from a theologically liberal perspective, pointed out the problems associated with how children understand Scripture. He said because children do not think in the same ways as adults, they will often re-form biblical concepts and terms into meanings that make sense to them. Most of us have read or heard quoted the "cute things" young children tell their parents they learned in Sunday School. For example, "Hallowed be thy name" was remembered and quoted at home as "Harold be thy name." Because "hallowed" was incomprehensible to the child, he changed it, intentionally or unintentionally, into something that made sense to him. Goldman concluded "that the Bible is not a children’s book, that the teaching of large areas of it may do more damage than good to a child’s religious understanding, and that too much biblical material is used too soon and too frequently" (Ronald Goldman, Readiness for Religion, Seabury, 1965; see also Goldman, Religious Thinking From Childhood to Adolescence, Seabury, 1964). Not surprisingly, Goldman’s research and conclusions grabbed the attention of Christian educators around the world.

Of course, the Bible demands that we teach our children its content. Indeed, much of the Old Testament was recorded so that the stories could be passed on to the children of future generations so that they might know of God’s faithfulness on their behalf. Strategies were esta-blished to prompt children to ask questions (Why is this day different from all other days?) so their parents could tell them the stories of God’s faithful care. Clearly it is God’s intention in both the Old and New Testaments that children be taught biblical truth.

Thus, from a theological point of view it is important to teach the Bible to children, but from a psychological point of view it is important to observe that children understand differently from adults. The dilemma is how we can bring these two concepts together so that we can teach the Bible responsibly to children?

Goldman’s writings were based on the work of Jean Piaget (1896-1980), the Swiss "genetic epistemologist" who first described the cognitive developmental process in children. While his name is readily recognized and his ideas still taught and studied by college students, especially those preparing to be teachers, the average children’s Sunday School teacher is often unfamiliar with Piaget’s writings and ideas. In fact, many public school teachers may be unfamiliar with or have forgotten Piaget’s background and basic teachings, so perhaps it is best we take a moment to review.

During his adolescent, the Swiss-born Piaget began to read in the area of the philosophy of creative evolution. He was later trained in biology and earned his Ph.D. with an emphasis on malacology, the branch of zoology that deals with mollusks. This background sparked the young scientist’s interest in the world of ideas and the broader questions of epistemology (the study of the nature and grounds of knowledge). As a result, he began to read widely in the areas of philosophy, religion, and logic, asking not only, "What is knowledge?" but also, "How is knowledge achieved?"

Not surprisingly, Piaget’s dual concerns of biology and philosophy led him to try to find a biological explanation of knowledge. He used the term "genetic epistemology" to describe the interplay between body and mind that was to be the focus of his thought. He was convinced that intellectual development and how we come to know are "firmly rooted in the biological development of the individual, as expressed by the term ‘genetic’" (Mary Ann Spencer Pulaski, Understanding Piaget, Harper and Row, 1971, 1980, 3).

While doing postgraduate studies at the Sorbonne, Piaget worked with Theophile Simon, who with Alfred Binet developed the first intelligence text. As he attempted to standardize certain aspects of the test, Piaget discovered that children of similar ages systematically missed the same questions in the same way. He began to wonder why this was the case and became increasingly interested in how children think about issues. His intention was to discover how children reason. As a result of his early publications on his findings, he was offered a position as director of research at the Institut Jean Jacques Rousseau in Geneva. Piaget was only twenty-five years old at the time.

His career and renown progressed at amazing speed as his many writings and remarkable theories advanced. Through detailed observation, first of his own children, and then of children from all over the world, he developed and refined his theories on logic, moral reasoning, and the cognitive stages in children. In 1950 he published his three-volume theory of knowledge, which was a summary of his life’s work to that point. At the time of his death in 1980 he had published forty books and hundreds of journal articles.