In eighth grade, my Sunday School teacher asked us to memorize eight pages of church doctrine. We studied. We sweated. We got headaches. But we finally managed to recite those eight pages.

Today I couldn’t tell you a word from that document, but I can tell you of what I remember: Church gave me stomachaches and headaches.

At another, I was asked to spend a night in our church basement where we had a homeless shelter. All I had to do was hang out and sleep on a rotation with the other volunteer so that someone would always be awake.

I still recall almost every minute of that ten-hour experience. I remember how cold that church basement was and how grateful the homeless were about how warm it was. I remember the homeless teenager who rolled up his sleeves to reveal fifteen scars where he had slashed his wrists. I remember Jonas, whose cough rattled me awake and his discounting my concern because he felt a lot better than he had in the past couple of weeks.

When he was an Ohio State University education professor, Edgar Dale created “The Ten Cones of Experience,” which ranked ten educational methods according to their effectiveness. Of the ten, the memorization I did in eighth grade ranked at the bottom of the list for being effective. My homeless shelter experience ranked number one in being a memorable education experience.

As educators, we need to look at other ways we can teach young people so that they enjoy what they’re learning and remember what they learn—long after the lesson is finished. Dale says these learning methods from best to worst are:

Direct personal experiences that have purpose—These include service projects, such as working in homeless shelters, food banks, or weeding gardens for the elderly.
Contrived experiences—Games, role-plays, simulations and other activities where you try to create an experience.
Presentations that include drama—Puppet shows, plays, clowning demonstrations, anything with drama.
Demonstrations—Anything that doesn’t include drama, such as a demonstration on how electricity works or watching how to dissect a frog.
Study trips—Trips that take you off site, such as looking for fossils on walls of a cave or going to an museum to study a particular artist.
Exhibits—Schools use these methods when they ask young people to exhibit their collections, such as bugs, stamps, and rocks.
Video—This includes movies, documentaries, and television.
Recordings—This includes radio, still photographs, and picture books.
Visuals—Maps, drawings, charts, and other visual aids fall into this category.
Words—The lectures, conversations, memorization, and other learning processes that include only words and symbols are the least effective teaching methods.

Whenever you want youth to learn something, stop and ask yourself: What is the central message I want them to walk away with? Then brainstorm various ways for them to learn that issue.

For example, maybe you have a group of youth you want to stop fighting so much. You could have them put on a drama of a fight between two best friends and explore what the fighting does to the friendship. Or you could hop on the teachable moment when you and your group witness two people squabbling.

Learning by experience takes more thought beforehand, but these experiences give youth a lot to think about long after you have ended your session. And that’s what we really want to do: Teach young people in ways they will remember.

From Intersection, Teaching Guide for Younger Youth: Year Two, Book Three.