EMQ » July–September 2021 » Volume 57 Issue 3
By Muriel I. Elmer and Duane H. Elmer
InterVarsity Press, 2020
223 pages
US$22.00
Reviewed by Nathaniel (Than) Veltman who currently serves as Mission Scholar in missiology and community development with United World Mission’s Theological Education Initiative at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
How our brains learn matters, especially when it comes to teaching the Bible. This book begins with the story of Moses, one of Duane Elmer’s students, concluding that “Being told what to think did not help him know how to think nor how to solve problems” (2). This insight is not particularly new; indeed, the impetus for this book is Duane Elmer’s doctoral research conducted many years ago. What is new, however, is the recent mounting support from neuroscience and social sciences for The Learning Cycle first developed in those fields. Drawing on fifty years of diverse experiences in education, Muriel and Duane Elmer’s The Learning Cycle presents a model of learning, rooted in neuroscience and social sciences, that integrates “the cognitive (thought, reason, logic), affective (emotion and feeling), and psychomotor (behavior) aspects of learning” (6–7). This integration provides important insights and implications for faithful teaching.
The book is divided into seven sections, five of which focus on components of The Learning Cycle. These five sections link recall, the first component and the basis of learning, with additional key ingredients: appreciation, speculation, practice, and habit. The discussion of appreciation, for example, draws on neuroscientific insights on emotion to show that “positive emotions draw us in and open the mind to learn; situations that surface negative emotions we will tend to avoid and close the door to processing information” (71). The uncomfortable experience of cognitive dissonance, and the way our brains respond to it, is also given its own chapter. The authors note barriers to learning and offer tools and resources to overcome them. Taken altogether, the model leads to learning that develops Christlikeness in character, integrity, and wisdom. The authors consistently draw on Scripture, including how Jesus himself would intentionally create cognitive dissonance in those whom he taught. The book is made deeply personal and relatable through stories and teaching experiences that show the impact of The Learning Cycle in both formal and informal educational contexts.
While the authors do a good job of engaging with the neurosciences, one concern is the recent challenge leveled at neuroscience research and the field of psychology more generally: that the vast majority of this research focuses on students who come from western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) contexts, a nonrepresentative group of the world’s population. This poses a potentially severe limitation on neuroscience research for cross-cultural application. The challenge is particularly notable for the chapter on emotion, which draws on somewhat dated research. This is not so much a critique as much as a caution in direct application to non-western contexts.
This book is aimed at Christian theological educators in higher education, including administrators. However, reflective of the authors’ commitment to the local church and Christian education, anyone involved in teaching, guiding, or educating of any kind, including pastors and Sunday School teachers, will benefit from the insights into learning and the various tools presented in this book.
For Further Reading
Plueddemann, Jim. Teaching Across Cultures: Contextualizing Education for Global Mission. InterVarsity Press, 2018.
Smith, David. On Christian Teaching: Practicing Faith in the Classroom. William B. Eerdmans, 2018.
