Dumbing Down the Commandments

Those who teach young children often seek to "dumb down" what they are teaching the children. They know that children do not understand nuances, so they seek to simplify things for the children. Making something simple so that children can understand it is one thing, but dumbing it down is something entirely different.

It is a daunting task to simplify something for children. How can you describe something for children that they have never experienced? How can you tell them about something that they cannot intellectually comprehend? A teacher must put a lot of thought into explaining the stories just so in order to teach the children. It takes time. It takes practice. It takes a lot of work.

When a teacher does not make the effort to simplify the material for the children, one of two things happen. Either the teacher teaches at an adult level, and only a handful of the children pick up bits and pieces of the lesson. Or the teacher dumbs down the information, excludes certain important facts, and teaches the children a half-truth.

For example, consider the episode between David (before he was a king) and Nabal. David and his men had protected Nabal's flocks. When it was time for sheep-shearing, David sent a message to Nabal asking Nabal for some meat.

A teacher who was dumbing down the information would say that it wasn't fair for Nabal to have so much wealth and not help out those like David who had very little. There are some serious consequences with this way of portraying what happened. If Nabal was supposed to give his wealth away to the poor, then all rich people are supposed to give their wealth away to the poor. Recall what David did when Nabal refused to give David some food: David and his men mounted an assault upon Nabal. Does that mean that poor people can take wealth by force? Obviously, dumbing down this story causes problem after problem after problem to creep up rather swiftly. We must be responsible for what we teach. We must make the effort as teachers to simplify things so that children understand us and so that we don't dumb down material which needs to be taught clearly.