“How do I teach confirmation class?” “How do I deal with confirmation students who don’t seem to be paying attention?” “Is it just me, or is it harder to engage students in learning today than it used to be?” These are the types of questions that I’ve received over the years from many of my seminary classmates, who hoped that my DCE experience could help fill in some gaps for them. Ironically, these questions are also frequently asked by youth workers, teachers, and other education professionals. Creating meaningful dialogue in the confirmation setting is an almost universal challenge.
While there are no easy or one-size-fits-all answers to such complex questions, I deeply appreciate those who ask them. Asking these types of questions comes from a place of care, from caring disciples of Christ who desperately want the next generation to know Christ. We must always keep that at the forefront of our hearts and minds as we seek to teach.
What follows are five factors to consider or strategies to try when teaching confirmation. Consider these as conversation starters, as each could have entire chapters devoted to them.
1. Consider your learning environment.
Here your focus is on two things: limiting distractions and increasing engagement.
When I was teaching confirmation in 2020, I utilized Google Classroom for the lessons and each student had a Chromebook to take notes and submit their journals and other assignments. It worked well within the restrictions we had at the time, but over the years, I started to use the student Chromebooks less and less before finally getting rid of them altogether. Why the change? I noticed that even the most well-meaning of students were too easily distracted by all the other options at their fingertips on their computer. Moving back to printed packets results in a more engaging learning environment because there were fewer distractions.
Regarding engagement, sometimes it’s as simple as having the right-size room. If you have a group of eight in a room that holds fifty, it’s likely that discussion will be less engaging because it seems like the class is empty. But if you take that same group of eight and move them to a room that holds ten people comfortably, the weirdest thing happens: Students become more engaged! Now the room is full—it seems like this is the place to be. There’s a different energy level in the room, simply because it fits your group better. This is true with youth more than any other age group that I’ve taught over the years. I’ve found that the best room for youth to learn in is the smallest room that can comfortably fit your group.
2. Focus on connection before content.
I’ve continually found that if youth are not engaged in a discussion, one of the main factors is this: “Have I connected with each student yet today?” It could be as simple as giving a few minutes for them to talk about their weekend or what is happening at school. Sometimes it is taking a break in the middle of the lesson to ask an icebreaker question that reengages the group in the next discussion. Connect with your confirmands as people first, then move from that into the content you’re teaching.
This is especially important in the start of a new year or whenever you’re teaching new students. Oftentimes we want to jump into the topic, and then connect it to their lives. But perhaps it’s better to start by connecting with their lives, and then we can move to the topic at hand, looping that content back around to their lives in the end. When youth feel seen by, cared about, and connected to the leader and the group, they are much more likely to engage in meaningful group discussion.
3. Use the right type of question to launch discussion.
Maybe the reason youth aren’t talking is because we’re asking the wrong questions! Pete Jurchen’s wonderful little book Timeless Truth: An Essential Guide for Teaching the Faith has an excellent chapter on this that is well worth the read! He talks about how most questions we ask are “fishing questions,” looking for students to guess what the teacher is thinking. When asking these questions, we as the teacher have an answer in mind and the students need to guess what that answer is. Other answers could potentially be right, but since they’re not the one we’re looking for, they’ll likely get ignored. These types of questions disengage our brains rather than rewarding creativity.
The other type we often ask is just factual or “checking questions” where there is only one right answer, such as “How many of each animal did Noah take on the ark?” There is a time and place to use these questions, but if this is the only tool at our disposal, we shouldn’t be surprised that little discussion is happening. If there’s only one right answer, there’s really nothing to discuss.
Instead, try using reflection questions like “Why can it be difficult for us to forgive others, even when we know we should?” or self-reflection questions like “Out of the verses we looked at today, which one is the most meaningful for you?” These types of questions will open the discussions, so lean on these rather than just the checking “there is only one right answer” questions. Utilizing a short case study or real-life scenario and having students react to that rather than just an abstract question can also be very helpful in engaging youth as well.
4. Utilize appropriate wait time after asking a question.
This tip is very simple and yet so often overlooked, particularly by new teachers. When you’re teaching, if you ask a question and no one answers right away, it’s so easy to launch right into a comment on how quiet everyone’s being and just answer the question yourself. That doesn’t actually help their learning.
Instead, practice ten seconds of wait time after you ask a question. When teaching, if you don’t actually count it out, you’ll think ten seconds have elapsed and it’s actually been about three seconds. I’d recommend actually counting to ten (counting “1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi …”), not just rushing through it silently in your head after asking a question. Once you hit ten, if no one has jumped into the discussion, then simply rephrase the question and count to ten again. It’s amazing how many great answers or inputs are cut off simply because we’re not patient enough as discussion facilitators to create space for our youth to think (or to muster the courage to speak).
5. Help all of your youth reflect and engage with each question.
Most of the time when we navigate discussion in confirmation class, we just care that someone answers the question. We don’t really care who. This results in discussion that can be easily dominated by one or two people, which lets everyone else off the hook for answering (or even learning). It also lends toward extroverted students who think as they talk and can exclude those who process internally before speaking.
While the wait time tip above is helpful in this as well, consider using a learning strategy like “write, pair, share.” Ask the question and first have students quietly write down their answer. Then have them pair with someone next to them and discuss their answers together. Finally, have those pairs share with the larger group. Even if not everyone participates in the final group discussion, everyone will have engaged with the topic much more deeply than if you just asked the question and let the first person to answer have the only word.
Final Reflections
As you embark on your next confirmation or youth group Bible study, I hope that you can keep this goal in mind. It’s not about you teaching the material. The goal is for your students to engage and connect with the material, namely with the biblical truth and with the God revealed to us in that Word. Focus less on what you’re going to teach and more on what your learners are going to be doing. How are they engaging the material? Not “what am I doing?” (talking and asking questions), but “what are they doing?” (reading, looking up, pairing, sharing, writing, etc.).
The goal is for your confirmands to engage with the material (the Word), with you as the teacher, and with one another. Simply put, the more you as the teacher can get out of the center and put an encounter with God’s Word at the center of confirmation, the better. God’s blessings to you in that beautiful endeavor as you pass the faith from generation to generation!
Use these classroom tips alongside catechism, Bible, and apologetics teaching tools from Enduring Faith®.
