Choosing and Using Visual Aids
Visual aids can be a valuable tool in your lesson, but they can also just be a distraction or even teach false doctrine or misconceptions. It is important, regardless of the ages of your students, to be selective when you choose pictures to illustrate your lesson.
1. Try to use only pictures you find in the ward library. This insures the pictures are accurate and acceptable. It also follows the guidelines that tell us not to spend money on our callings. The library has a wide selection of attractive pictures and include more than just scripture illustrations. Pictures created for the youth and Primary lessons show everyday events, such as a family gathered around an infant, or a girl looking at a bird. Ask the librarian for permission to browse the pictures during a time she is not busy. As you become more familiar with what your library has, you will be able to recall pictures easily as you prepare your lesson.
2. When you must use outside pictures, study them carefully for appropriateness. Are all people shown dressed to church standard? An attractive girl with a shiny face will send the wrong message if she is wearing a sleeveless shirt and tight jeans or if she has too many earrings. Look carefully at the background details for appropriateness. Make sure the home in your picture doesn't have ash trays, inappropriate magazines or a wine glass. A cross on the wall will suggest this is not an LDS home. Does everything in the picture suggest a wholesome environment in which a Latter-day Saint might comfortably be found?
3. Avoid any signs of fantasy in your pictures. Children are easily confused and should know that what they hear and see at church is true. A fairy godmother or a talking chipmunk will make them wonder if the story of Moses parting the Red Sea is also make-believe. After all, that's about as common in today's world as is a talking chipmunk.
4. Avoid scripture pictures from non-LDS sources. It is simply too difficult to be sure they follow church guidelines. Most commonly used gospel stories are illustrated in official pictures, or church magazines .
5. Remind small children that we don't really know what the people in the scriptures look like. If they tell you this picture can't be of Noah, because they saw a movie about it and Noah had blond hair, tell them each artist imagines what Noah looks like, because we don't have any actual pictures of him. If you have the children draw the story later, you can invite them to imagine–-reverently–-what they think he may have looked like.
6. Don't use too many pictures. No teaching method is effective when it is overdone. Choose your pictures carefully and use them for a purpose.
7. Discuss the pictures with young children. Help them notice, if it is appropriate to the lesson, what people are wearing, what is in the room and what expressions the subjects have on their faces. Use the pictures to teach about life in the time you are discussing. This is also useful with adults, who may not clearly be able to picture the setting.
8. Place the pictures in the order you will be discussing them. I generally place one general picture on the wall to focus attention, but other pictures are only shown when they are being discussed. I don't want my students, regardless of age, to be distracted by my lesson.
9. Children like to hold pictures. Show them how to hold them still and in the proper direction. If a child cannot be reverent, don't let him continue to distract the class. Take the picture and gently return him to his seat.
10. Be sure you are familiar with the picture before you use it. Be prepared to answer questions about aspects of the picture. Adults may question the accuracy or ask what an unusual item is. Children want each person in the picture identified. If it isn't clear who is who, decide for yourself based on your study of the story and memorize your decision.
By Terrie Lynn Bittner
Need official pictures in your own home?