Taken from notes on Piper’s message at the Children Desiring God conference.

1. Indoctrination

By indoctrination I mean putting thoughts into a child's head without a due concern that they should have good reasons for believing them. Whenever we teach children we must be concerned that we don't simply indoctrinate them.

To want to have truth go into a child's head is a very good thing. But you should also take care that while you are putting truth into their heads you should also try to give them a process they can test it with. Don't just give the what and the why behind it; also give the how.

2. Contextualization

Let's take a little people group called three-year-olds, for instance. If I only use words they don't know, they obviously won't learn anything. But if I only use words they do know, they won't learn anything either.

So contextualization isn't the most important thing with kids. The most important thing is concept creation. Children need to be given new categories of thought in order to learn.

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