The I.R.A.D. Thing…
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. (Hosea 4:6
The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Isaiah 1:3
For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. Jeremiah 4:22
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (Colossians 3:16)
TODAY'S: "THE I.R.A.D. THING..." IS A CONTINUATION of yesterday’s “Review…” article.
So, how do we best learn the Word of God? When I began searching to nail down the practical principles of learning, I had no idea what I was looking for. The first clue I found was in an Air Force Manual written not long after World War 2. A school mate who had been in the Air Force gave it to me.
BURIED IN THE HALF-INCH PAPERBACK AIR FORCE MANUAL was a summary statement that said: “Learning relates strongly to 1. Impression 2. Repetition, and 3. Association.” At the time, I didn’t know I had found the essential principles of learning. Somebody in the Air Force was a sharp cookie! After thinking about it for forty years, I decided that we should add one more part: 4. Desire. More on this, later.
THE FIRST I.R.A.D. PRINCIPLE OF LEARNING is IMPRESSION. The stronger the impression, the less you have to repeat it and the longer it lasts, up to a lifetime. The second principle of learning is REPETITION. The weaker the impression, the more often the experience must be repeated. The third principle of learning is: ASSOCIATION. If you can associate or relate a new thing to an older, already learned experience, if will help you to recall the new thing learned.
THE FOURTH PRINCIPLE OF LEARNING (I am adding) is: DESIRE. You may want to repeat these four things, out loud, to set them in your mind. WARNING: If you have no interest in learning, this whole article will whiz by you and you will have gained nothing. So, stop right here and break down IRAD. Repeat each letter and its word several times. I-R-A-D. IMPRESSION – REPETITION – ASSOCIATION – DESIRE. One word to remember (IRAD). Repeat it throughout the day for 30 days.
THE PROPHETS, APOSTLES AND JESUS ALL TOLD STORIES to reinforce their message. So, I will give some eyewitness accounts to reinforce our theme for today.
MOST (IF NOT ALL) STATES IN AMERICA HAVE A LAW OF COMPULSORY SCHOOL ATTENDANCE. When 63 churches and their pastors, in the 1980’s were at war with the State of North Carolina over the laws that related us to the State, the then State Director of Non-public schools, Calvin Criner, shared with us that law can require school attendance but cannot require education. “You can spend all the money you want to, but you can’t make Johnny read if Johnny doesn’t want to read.” The N.C. Constitution said that all children of school age “…shall attend the public school unless educated by other means.”
THAT HAS BEEN IN THE N.C. CONSTITUTION from soon after the end of the Civil War (April 9, 1865). The assumption was that if a child attended school, he/she would “become educated.” TRUTH: Education may or may not take place. But, there’s no enforcement of a child to be educated. There IS enforcement on attending school.
THE MAIN REASON IS SIMPLE: you cannot educate a child against his/her will. Since parents are responsible by law for school attendance, that exercise can be measured, and the parent can be fined or imprisoned if it is not carried out. But a parent cannot be fined or imprisoned if the child is not educated. It is too hard to define and too hard to carry out.
SEVERAL YEARS AGO, RUDOLPH FLESCH WROTE A BOOK: “Why Johnny Can’t Read.” It created a storm of agreement and protest. In a few years, he wrote another book: “Why Johnny Still Can’t Read.” (I bought and read both books. He was on Johnny’s side.)
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=book+why+johnny+can%27t+read&ref=nb_sb_noss
THESE BOOKS CAN STILL BE PURCHASED AT AMAZON, and…..a whole string of books on Why Johnny can’t do this and that. Seems Johnny is having trouble all over the place and people are trying to fix Johnny. Check out the link above to see the available books. (Mr. Rudolph listed several things that hinder Johnny from learning.)
PUBLIC SCHOOLS, CHURCH SCHOOLS, AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS are not held accountable for education. But they are held accountable for feeding into the schools, certain educational efforts and for keeping school attendance records. I learned this in the court room and the N.C. Legislature where I spent many months, full-time, mixing with the powers-that-be.
THE ABOVE PARAGRAPHS HAVE PRACTICAL MEANING in this article in that God will not make us submit to Him against our will. God will not make us hear, read, study, memorize or meditate on the Word of God against our will even though God has commanded us to do these things. If we don’t want to obey God, He won’t make us. We have to want to. We have to be willing. This article today is an appeal to you (and a reminder to me) to obey God and embrace His Word. We don’t have to. We can wait and explain to Him why we didn’t obey Him.
THE AIR FORCE MANUAL NEEDED POINT 4 IN THEIR PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING. Who am I to be so forward in advising them? The Air Force is a bastion of precision. That’s the way the pilots successfully carry out missions and return home to sleep in their beds. But I do think that if the U.S. Air Force is still printing that book and teaching from it, they should add “desire” to the three elements of learning.
WOULD I HAVE READ THE AIR FORCE BOOK IF I HAD NOT PREVIOUSLY developed a keen interest in “how do we learn?” In observing people (and myself) it is clear that people learn what they are interested in. We learn what we desire to learn. Why does America read the comic-cartoon page in newspapers? Because we want to read it. Desire. I still remember Dagwood smacking his neighbor, Herb Woodley in the mouth with a wet paint brush because Herb was such a nuisance. Out of all the years of reading the comic page, I remember that one. One other: Blondie answered the phone and talked for an hour. Dagwood asked: “Who was that?” She: “I don’t know. It was a wrong number.”
I TAUGHT PIANO FOR 25 YEARS TO AN AVERAGE OF 20-25 STUDENTS and for a few years taught class music to a thousand students per week. I led class music by walking around in the room among them and taught them from what I had memorized. Some of them learned and performed well and some of them survived the best way they could until it was over, and learned little, if anything.
IN PRIVATE LESSONS, JOHNNY OR JANE WAS ON MY PIANO BENCH because they wanted to be there or because Mama wanted them to be there. If the student wanted to be there, learning was a breeze. If piano was Mama’s project, it was slow and difficult and nigh on to impossible.
IMPRESSION: PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. While I was enrolled in the Homestead High School at Crossville, TN, four of us decided that we needed a day in the pool hall at Crossville, 4 miles away. On the set day, we got off our bus and quietly made our way off campus and stood by the side of the road. Traffic was light. An old International pickup moseyed down the road at about 25 m.p.h. We thumbed him and he stopped. A 1939 International pickup DID NOT have a big plush cab. Two passengers and maybe a third. There were four of us plus the driver. The driver had a comfortable space between him and his door.
THE OTHERS SCOOTED INTO THE CAB AND I WAS THE LAST ONE IN. Fine. Now, all we had to do was to close the door, which was a heavy, clunky thing. I reached out for the door, braced my feet on the floor, and positioned my left hand inside the cab above the door opening. At the same time, I pulled the door with all my strength to slam it hard. The door slammed and closed tight. The farmer, an older man, revved up the engine and the truck began to move. I had felt the pain, but it hadn’t hit me yet. When I tried to bring my left hand down into my lap, my hand wouldn’t come down.
MY THUMB WAS CAUGHT OVERHEAD IN THE DOOR, UP TO THE FIRST KNUCKLE. I opened the door, removed my thumb, and slammed the door again. We were all excited! We were on our way! We were going to play hooky from school and shoot pool all day! But I had a secret. My mind was no longer on shooting pool. The feeling had come back into my flat thumb, and the feeling was 100% PAIN! I quickly decided to “man-up” and not complain about it. At Crossville, we asked to get out at the pool hall.
I KEPT MY HAND IN MY POCKET TO KEEP IT WARM. I played pool a little, but mostly I concentrated on my thumb, which was throbbing…bad! I discovered I should NOT put my hand in my pocket, but to hold it up at chest level. Time to hitch-hike back to school to catch our busses. One of the fellows suggested I go see the principal: Mrs. Looney. I did and showed her my purple thumb. She looked and winced. “I caught it in a door,” I told her. I told her the truth: sort of. It was a door. It just happened to be a truck door. In her mind, she thought it was one of the heavy wooden school doors.
MRS. LOONEY HAD A RAZOR BLADE IN HER DESK DRAWER. She wiped it clean, poured some alcohol on it, and I extended my thumb to her. She placed my hand on the corner of her desk, and with the skill of a surgeon, at an angle she sliced through my thumb nail at the cuticle, reversed the angle and made another cut to remove a V of nail. With the last cut, a spurt of purple blood shot up and oozed all over.
SHE WIPED IT OFF WITH A KLEENEX, took my thumb in her fingers and squeezed it until all the purple blood was out of it. Immediately! All the pain was GONE! “She has done this before,” I thought. I did not expect such immediate relief. I came close to hugging her, but she was a dignified lady and I didn’t dare. Somehow, the playing hooky thing just went away. Not a single teacher marked us “absent” that day. We got back in time to catch our busses home. I had trouble milking the cow that day and for a couple of weeks.
NOW THEN. DO YOU THINK I HAD TO LOOK IN A FILE DRAWER and find some notes to tell this story? I tell you; I did not need any notes! I can see the whole thing just like it happened 70 years ago. BECAUSE…the IMPRESSION of that experience was so intense, so vivid, so deeply recorded that I did not have to repeat it to remember it.
I ALSO REMEMBER A LATER TIME WHEN I WAS MILKING OLD RED. She did a lightening kick and brought her split hoof down onto the rim of the bucket of milk. I had my finger under the bucket bail so I could snatch the bucket away from a fast kick. NOT GOOD! Her split hoof was split over the rim of the bucket and she was leaning hard on the bucket to keep from falling. With all my might, I pushed back with my head and shoulder in her flank and got her weight off that bucket bail…and retrieved my finger. I know for sure which finger it was and I don’t need to watch a video to remember it. IMPRESSION! The stronger the impression, the less often it has to be repeated to remember it. This is how learning works. It also works that way in Bible study.
MANY (most?) HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES HAVE A HARD TIME their first year in college because they have not learned how to study. They have not learned how to extract the important points from the textbook, how to make notes, and how to store them into the brain for the upcoming test. The notes should summarize the textbook and the notes should be studied by repeating the notes OUT LOUD! I learned this from memorizing Scripture. It helped me a lot when I found the laws of learning.
WHEN WE HEAR, READ, STUDY, MEMORIZE AND MEDITATE on the Word of God, the first impression will be slight, and we will have to repeat the verses many times until they are etched into our brains. And as we etch the Word of God into our brains, we decide if we will take it to heart and submit to all we understand. Hiding the Word in our heads is not the same as hiding the Word in our hearts. I.R.A.D. is there for you to use, anytime you want to take advantage of it. Now then, can you look at I.R.A.D. and say the four words? And be careful about closing truck doors and milking the family cow.
Good Verses To Memorize:
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Deuteronomy 6:6-7
Read Through the Bible in a Year
FEBRUARY 25, 2020 - TUESDAY
A.M. Numbers 14-15 P.M. Mark 6:1-32
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Song for Today:
Victory in Jesus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_2dN5XM114&t=45s
1st-2nd Grades -Calvary Christian School – Southern Pines, NC
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