Educators tell us that the best way to learn is to involve all the senses…hearing, sight and tactile. And so, good teachers create lesson plans that involve students so that they hear, see, touch, taste and smell what they are learning.
In my college freshman physics classes, once a week we had what we students called ‘the magic show’. In a large auditorium filled with multiple hundred students, the physics professor demonstrates various physics principles in dramatic ways.
One in particular that I remember was about a bowling ball, which was hanging inches from the floor. It was connected to a rope, which was clamped to the ceiling rafters, about 20-30 feet off the auditorium stage floor. My professor grabbed the ball and walked halfway across the stage then he climbed up onto a table. He then turned and faced the direction in which he came, with the bowling ball to his chin, rope taught. The ball and his chin were, say, 8-10 feet above the floor. Standing perfectly still he released the bowling ball, which began to swing away from him in a beautiful arc. I can still see the ball come to a momentary stop after swinging across the stage. Then it began to fly back toward my professor, who stood ramrod still. It looked as if it would knock his head off. Yet, as it neared him, it slowed and again it reached that place of momentary pause less than an inch from his chin before it began its journey back in the other direction, like a pendulum. With this, he explained the effect of friction slowing the swinging bowling ball with each pass. He left the ball swinging on the rope until it eventually stopped a few minutes later.
Later that week we did other experiments in our physics lab that reinforced our understanding of the laws of friction.
Moses, the great teacher, creates a learning environment for the Israelites, which includes making altars, inscribing laws and congregational antiphonal affirmations of blessings and curses for breaking God’s laws.
Communion, baptism, anointing with oil, washing feet, in addition to being sacraments and/or sacred actions, involve the senses so that learning is enhanced. Congregational singing, unison prayers, standing, sitting, kneeling, in addition to being part of most worship settings, involve the senses of sight, sound and kinesthetic action each aiding memory.
Question is…do I involve myself in these actions or just go through the motions???
Learning requires active participation by the learner…
Lord, teach me Your ways so that I will follow Your ways and live for You!!!! Amen.
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