The other day I shared an old post I wrote a few years back called A Teacher, A Student and A Bible. I had been encouraged by someone to teach with less visuals / handwork / activities and more Bible and shared the result of taking that advice. The beauty of doing more with less is that it does not matter where you are you can teach someone about God. Most of us, though, teach our Bible classes in some sort of a classroom. Many of us are blessed to have comfortable classrooms. For these we are thankful.

One thing every classroom has in common is walls — usually 4 of them. These walls are an excellent opportunity to teach God’s word. While the teacher/student/Bible method is great, adding some visuals to the lesson can be helpful. The younger the student, the more helpful these visuals become. Although, as a 58-year-old, I still learn better with visuals than by just listening to someone talk.

Let us assume you have four walls in your classroom. You have a couple of students, maybe 10 or 20. There is bound to be some moments during your class that a student zones out and stops listening to what you are saying. No? Just my class? As the student’s mind wanders, he looks at the wall behind you. If there is an appealing looking bulletin board there with pictures or charts depicting something about the lesson you are presenting, those moments of zoning out have just turned into a few moments of teaching. No visual on the wall? Nothing to focus on. No teaching done.

Our walls, all 4 of them, are great teaching tools. Everywhere a student looks in the room should draw his eye and focus his mind on God’s word.

The walls in our classrooms teach something else as well. Anyone who enters the classroom can tell with just a glance whether this congregation puts emphasis on teaching their children. Are the walls appropriately and sufficiently designed to teach? Can a visitor tell with one glance what is being taught in the room? Are the visuals on the wall age appropriate? Do they align with scripture? If not, it is time to rethink how we use these valuable assets.

A student walking into our classroom should start learning immediately just by observing the fresh, orderly, age-appropriate, and relevant visuals on the wall. Notice those key words: fresh, orderly, age-appropriate, relevant.

Keep it fresh.  The only thing that should remain the same on the wall from quarter to quarter even year to year is a timeline.  A good timeline.  One that can be seen easily from the student’s chair.  Not one of those that are so detailed you must go right up to it to read the information.  Those are great for high school/adult classes but for the younger ones a simple, thorough timeline is perfect.  Like this one: The Illustrated Bible Timeline.  Everything else should be changed out regularly.  Yes, it takes work and time.  It is worth it.  Recruit help from folks in the congregation who do not feel comfortable teaching a class.

Keep it orderly.  This goes for the whole room, but we are talking specifically about the walls.   Too much on the walls can defeat the purpose.  It is hard to concentrate on a wall that is filled with too much information.   We can borrow a term from the publishing world here — white space.  If you tried to read this article and there were no divisions between thoughts, it would be awfully hard to stay focused.  Our brains need a break.  We need the space, the white space, between the information we are reading to keep us on track.  It is the same with a wall.  If the wall is covered from ceiling to floor and corner to corner with visuals, it is more than our brains can take in. It is much better to organize the information in a concise way that leads the student’s eye directly to the important message we are trying to teach them.

Keep it age appropriate.  Cute little animals in a pleasant scene representing the Garden of Eden may be appropriate for a pre-school class but not for older children.  The older the student the more realistic the visuals we use must be.  At the same time, it would not be age appropriate to have a bunch of writing on a bulletin board in a classroom of kids who are not reading yet.  Non and early readers need pictures to help them learn.  Written words are not helpful.  Save them for the older kids.

Keep it relevant.  It is tempting to search Pinterest for bulletin board ideas, find something that looks fun and duplicate it on my bulletin board.  There are a lot of creative people out there.  Their ideas may be beautiful or fun or even amazing but that does not mean it is appropriate for my classroom at that moment.  Everything on our walls need to relate to what we are teaching.  Are we teaching about the life of Christ?  It is not the best time to have a bulletin board that teaches about the crossing of the Red Sea.  Of course, it is better to have materials that teach a different Bible lesson on the walls than nothing at all, but we are not going to have nothing on the wall, right?

Keep it scriptural.  This could fit in the paragraph of keeping it relevant, but we need a little white space, so I will start a new section.  Please, please, please make sure that what you are putting on your walls is scriptural.  By that I mean that it teaches what the Bible teaches.  There are a lot of ready-made visuals available for us to purchase. They are designed to sell.  What sells? Visual appeal.  The way they represent scripture may not be accurate but they will look good.  This is really a problem when it comes to VBS packets.  Just be careful.  Teaching error is serious business.

I hope that the words I have written have motivated us all to be more aware of how we use the walls in our classrooms.  They are a great asset if used correctly.  They can brighten a student’s day encouraging him to engage in the lesson or they can send a signal that Bible class is not a pleasant place to be.

Yes, walls can talk. What they say to your students is up to you.

Looking for ideas for your wall?  Here are some of mine I have shared on this blog: Wall Decorations/Bulletin Boards