The order and method of studying prayers. Part I

Methodical Instructions and Lesson Notes on the Law of God

Preface to the Third Edition

Part I The question of the order of studying prayers in the junior department of primary school can be called controversial. It served as a subject of disagreement at many legislative congresses, was repeatedly discussed in the press, but did not yet receive a fully definite decision. Some of the teachers of the law advise to adhere exactly to the order indicated in the program, others recommend following the order of time in which prayers are used in life, i.e. to study first the morning prayer, then the prayer before dinner, and finally the evening prayer; still others advise to be guided by the degree of development of children and to begin the study of prayers with more accessible in content and less extensive; still others find the so-called ecclesiastical order best, i.e., the sequence in which prayers are placed in the liturgical books; the fifth adhere to the historical order, i.e. they try to place the study of each prayer in connection with some story from Holy History. Various considerations and arguments are expressed in favor of one or another way of studying prayers, but these proofs usually suffer from one-sidedness and are mutually refuted. The order of studying prayers according to the instructions of the program has so little meaning that it does not need any refutation, and it can only be recommended through misunderstanding. The use of the order of the study of prayers according to the seasons of the day leads to the study of prayers that are more complex in content and more extensive in volume, previously simpler and less extensive, and therefore is in complete contradiction with the basic didactic rule - to pass gradually from the easy to the more difficult. The church order of the study of prayers suffers from the same drawback, if it is consistently carried out in school from the first lessons. The historical order of the study of prayers would, of course, be very good if each prayer followed naturally from the sacred-historical story, and at the same time the short prayers preceded the longer ones. But, firstly, not all the prayers indicated in the curriculum for elementary schools can be deduced from the stories of Holy History, and secondly, it is impossible to distribute the prayers in such a way that the short prayers are studied before the more extensive ones. From an educational point of view, the question of the order in which prayers are studied is of absolutely no importance, since the purpose of this study is to accustom children to prayer and to develop in them a living need for prayer that is more or less conscious. Of course, it is impossible to demand full consciousness when reading prayers by 7-8-year-old children, and therefore the teacher of the law should only strive to ensure that, after a brief explanation of this or that prayer, the children memorize it not as a simple set of words, but as an external expression of a religious feeling, even if it is not fully conscious of the mind. But the order in which prayers are studied is of no small importance for didactic purposes. Therefore, we consider it possible to say that the study of prayers must necessarily alternate with the stories of the teacher of the law from Holy History and conversations from the field of church practice. If this condition is violated, the continuous memorization of prayers becomes boring for children, and instead of a natural means of moral education for them, it becomes the bitter root of the teaching, the removal of which from school is concerned with the modern science of education. The guarantee of the success of classes lies in the fact that each subject of the school course has an effect on students not in a repulsive, but in an exciting way, and the Law of God in this respect should be ahead of all other subjects. It is clear that in this case the order of studying prayers must necessarily be combined with the degree of ease of them and the preparedness of children for their study. Guided by the main goal of studying prayers in school, the teacher of the law, as he goes through them, must also indicate the order in which they are read during the day and used in church services. Learning this order after memorizing the prayers is not difficult and is facilitated by the daily performance of prayers at school. But since children live more than one school life and at the end of the course break off their direct connection with school, the teacher of religion has a moral obligation to instill in them the habit of prayer for the rest of their lives. It is good if all students are accustomed by the teacher of the law to the daily unfailing performance of morning and evening prayer at home within the limits of those prayers that are studied in elementary school. This does not eliminate the possibility of instilling in students the habit of performing more extensive prayers at home, but accustoming them to at least a short attentive prayer is more attainable and more necessary.

The order and method of studying prayers. Part II

Methodical Instructions and Lesson Notes on the Law of God

Preface to the Third Edition

Part II Methodologists recommend a lot of ways to study prayers, and in a small article it is not possible not only to analyze, but also to describe them[1]. Therefore, we find it necessary to point out only two extremes in this respect and the method of studying prayers recommended by the exemplary programs for schools of the Ministry of Public Education. At one extreme, the teaching of prayers is limited to students memorizing only one Slavonic text of prayers without any explanation from the teacher of the law. Study of the text by some from the words of the teacher of the law, and by others through the presence of students during school prayers. The last method is called prayer. Its main advantage is the fact that when it is used, younger children learn to pray not through lessons, but through joint participation in prayer with older students. The other extreme in the method of studying prayers consists in the excessively fragmented division of the latter into separate sentences and words. This method is a chip from the method of solving complex arithmetic problems. In arithmetic it is applied with obvious benefit for the cause, but in the study of prayers it not only does not contribute to the achievement of the main goal of this study, but, on the contrary, pushes this goal into the background. When conducting lessons according to this method, it is not possible to teach children to pray, but to gymnastics of their mental abilities. This method was fully developed and applied in the methods of N. Strakhov, priest Platonov, V. Tikhomirov and A. Sokolov. The latter formulated this method of studying prayers with the greatest certainty, and therefore we will give a lesson plan according to his methodology. According to it, the course of the lesson is as follows: 1) a biblical story or a repetition of historical facts studied earlier in several stories; 2) a conversation about the content of the prayer; 3) generalization of what was said in the conversation - the Russian translation of the prayer; 4) translation of some words and expressions into Church Slavonic; 5) writing down Slavic words with translation in notebooks[2]; 6) a coherent translation of the prayer into Church Slavonic, and 7) the final memorization of the explained prayer from memory[3]. As a basis for this method of studying prayers, a general didactic rule is given: "The student should memorize only what is accessible to his understanding by itself or as a result of a preliminary explanation from the teacher." The method recommended by the programs for schools of the Ministry of Public Education comes close to the method indicated by Mr. A. Sokolov, and differs from it only in the rearrangement of the parts of the lesson. According to the instructions of the program, after the story and conversation, the teacher of religion reads the prayer itself in the Slavonic language, then the translation of individual Slavonic expressions into Russian, the translation or paraphrase of the prayer by them, the re-questioning of the students, with a gradual generalization of the questions, and finally, the memorization of the prayer. The use of certain methods in teaching prayers depends entirely on the personal views of the teacher of the law, which is not rejected by the program, but at the same time we consider it useful to cite the following considerations. The sequential use of any one method in the study of all prayers can hardly be called expedient. Each prayer in its external structure has its own distinctive features and therefore must be studied and explained by means of a special method peculiar only to it. The prayer "O Virgin Mother of God..." clearly follows from the story of the Annunciation and the Virgin Mary's visit to the righteous Elizabeth, the publican's prayer is from the parable of the publican and the Pharisee, but the prayers "Most Holy Trinity...", "Glory to Thee, O God...", "Glory to the Father..." and others cannot be deduced from any sacred-historical narratives, and therefore their addition to the latter will always be arbitrary. In particular, the study of prayers without any explanation does not in the least contribute to instilling in children the need for conscious, rational prayer, and an excessively detailed explanation of them reduces the lesson of the Law of God to the level of explanatory Slavonic reading. The initial reading of the prayer in Russian contradicts the general didactic rule about the transition from the known to the unknown. Pupils, who are present at school during the morning prayer and in church during divine services, become acquainted, even if half-consciously, with the Slavonic text of the prayers, and the Russian translation is a complete novelty for the children. The translation of each Slavonic word only complicates students and is never remembered by students, not only first-year students, but also students in the middle and senior departments. The very basis for a detailed explanation of prayers - memorizing only what is understandable - is false. Most prayers contain such lofty Christian truths that are assimilated only by faith and are inaccessible to the understanding of the human mind, not only by young students, but also by adults. Therefore, when explaining and memorizing prayers in the first section of elementary school, the teacher of religion should not be guided by any general rules, but should be guided by the content of each individual prayer and the degree of development of the students.

The complete denial of rationality and consciousness in poetic works is decadence, and to bring them under the standard of cold rational analysis is the negation of all poetry. The teacher of the law must strive to direct the students to the path of truth, and therefore, in the partial implementation of this aspiration, when teaching children to pray, he must without fail explain in the latter everything that is accessible to the child's understanding, and not try to explain what is inaccessible to the child's mind. What is not clarified in the first part of the school can be clarified in the second and third, which is quite possible and even necessary when using the concentric method of teaching. On the basis of the latter consideration, the narratives about the Transfiguration of the Lord and the Dormition of the Mother of God, which are prescribed by the program of church schools, do not fit here. These two stories can only take place in the sequential course of Sacred History and are not included in the course of the first part. It seems that their transfer to the second year of study is fully within the competence of the teacher of the law, and this transfer does not constitute any offense. It is necessary to distinguish the method of study from the method. Only three methods of teaching the Law of God have been developed up to the present time, and there can be very many methods. The same method can be used differently by different teachers.^ During the first half of the school year, of course, this is completely unthinkable, and in the second half it is difficult.^ See: A. F. Sokolov, Metodika Zakona Bozhya dlya pravonouchitelya narodnykh shkol: 6th ed., ispr. Moscow, 1897. P. 98.^

Lesson 1. The Unity of God in Essence and His Spirituality

Methodical Instructions and Lesson Notes on the Law of God

Plan. The initial rules of discipline are: a) one person must answer; b) raising the arms; c) simultaneously standing up and sitting down; d) the purpose of learning at school. Definition of the Law of God. Prayer in front of icons; the number of the latter. Prayer to God; His unity in essence; the icon is visible, God is invisible; His incorporeality or spirituality. Teacher of the Law[1]. Hello, children! You are all here to study. You will all study together, in the same way, and you will now do everything in the same way. Sit up straight, put your hands on the table. So good. Now stand all together, just without noise... Now sit in the same way. The exercise with standing up and sitting down is done until the children get used to standing up and sitting down at the same time and without noise. Now you are sitting well, and I will talk to you. I will ask you, and you will answer. What will I do? Student[2]. Ask. H. And what are you going to do? U. Answer. H. Now you all answer together, and you can't tell who is right and who is wrong. Not everyone should answer, but only the one whom I ask. Who should be responsible? U. Who do you ask? H. If I ask, "Who knows," then he who can answer must raise his hand. What should the one who will be able to answer do? U. Raise your hand. H. Where are we sitting now? U. In the school. H. And what do the children do in the school? U. Study. H. Do you know what the children learn at the school? U. Read, write. H. This will be taught to you by the teacher, and I will teach you how to live in God's way. What am I going to teach you? U. How to live in God's way. If possible, all students are involved in the answer to this question. H. Now stand up, all of you, and listen better. The teaching about how to live in God's way is called the Law of God. Let's repeat it all together. The disciples repeat the last definition in unison, and in order to maintain order and achieve uniformity, the teacher of the law makes the measure with his hand. After 3-4 times the answer in unison, the same thing is repeated by the students one by one. The disciples sit down, and only the one who answers stands up[3]. Now I will ask you a little differently: what is called the Law of God? If the disciples do not give a proper answer to this question, the teacher of the law formulates it himself, and the disciples only repeat the ready-made answer[4]. So, we are going to learn what? U. To the Law of God. H. We will learn the Law of God, or, in other words, how we should live in God's way. First of all, God told people to pray. Do you ever pray? U. We pray. H. You do well to pray, because God commanded you to pray. And when you pray, what do you look at? U. On the icon. H. Then we pray before what? U. In front of the icon. H. Do we all pray before only one icon? U. No, in front of different icons. H. Does this mean that there is one icon in the world or there are many of them? U. There are many icons. H. And to whom do we pray? U. God. H. We all pray to the same God. This means that God exists alone. These words can be put in short: in essence, God is one. Let's repeat it all together. The disciples stand up and memorize in unison: "In essence, God is one." We, children, pray to God in front of icons. We see icons, but do we see God? U. No, we don't. H. What do we see on the icon, what is painted on it? U. Face. H. Whose face does it look like? U. On the human. H. In man, besides the face, what do we see? U. Arms, legs, head... H. Do you not know what all this is called together? U. Body. H. So what do we see in people? U. Body. H. We see people because they have a body. We don't see God, so He doesn't have anything? U. Bodies. H. God does not have a body. He lives without what? U. Without a body. H. Whoever lives without a body is called a spirit. Students first memorize this statement in chorus, and then answer one by one. God lives without a body, so who is God? D. God is Spirit. H. Who is called the Spirit? U. Who lives without a body. H. Who lives without a body, can he be seen? U. It is impossible. H. What we see is called visible, and what we do not see, how should we be called? U. Invisible. H. Then God is what kind of Spirit? U. Invisible. We children have now learned that God is essentially one; He is the invisible Spirit. We look at the icon and pray to the only invisible God. The word "Teacher of the Law" is further abbreviated - Z.- Ed.^ The word "Student" is further abbreviated - U.- Ed.^ The whole class stands up when memorizing the main points and when answering in chorus, to arouse the attention of the students. For this purpose, at the beginning of classes, an exercise is made in the simultaneous straight standing up of the whole class. The use of standing up of the whole class will not be indicated during the lessons, since it depends entirely on the mood of the students, and the teacher of religion can see for himself when it is needed.^ In order to train the pupils in the ability to build their speech correctly, some teachers require them to give so-called complete answers, i.e., answers with the repetition of the proposed question. In the latter case, the words in the question should be arranged in the order in which they should follow in the answer.^

Lesson 2. The Omnipotence and Eternity of God

Methodical Instructions and Lesson Notes on the Law of God