Reflection on Education in the Christian Community 2

This is a further reflection on ideas and concepts covered in the ECC course.

I agree fully with Bro Casey that we often teach in the way we learn the best – it is something I have realised in my own experiences in small-group teaching in my pastoral ministry in the church. I had realised that I tended to teach by reasoning, as I myself is inclined toward understanding the reasons behind things. However, it did not take long for me to realise that sheer reasoning without narratives and illustrations tend to be dry and lose the attention of many people I shared to, and I realised many others are interested and captivated by different types of content. Also, as I usually enjoy listening to a teacher without much interaction, I tended to teaching through a teacher-centred method, with little interaction with the audience. Later I realised that I needed to add activities and other ways to engage the audience more. After I started working in RP, my style of instruction changed towards a more interactive and discussive approach, and now I have another problem – I do not feel comfortable when the audience does not respond! This is true for some types of audiences, perhaps especially those of the older generation. It is still a good learning experience for me, as I can learn to balance the two and improve the overall way which I teach.

The idea of multiple intelligences is not new to me, as I have learned it while I was studying in NIE. I can appreciate the emphasis that different people study differently and learn in different ways, and this contributed to my realisation that the way I learn may not necessarily be the way others learn, hence prompting me to be more aware to vary my method of teaching. More recently, I came across other studies which criticise Howard Gardner’s theory (Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences; Perry D. Klein, “Multiplying the Problems of Intelligence by Eight: A Critique of Gardner’s Theory”, Canadian Journal of Education 22 no. 4 (1997), 377-394). The qualm is that the theory has no definitive way of defining the various intelligences, and broadens the concept of intelligence and fuses it into the more general category of abilities and talents, thus making it hard to study and difficult to implement practically. I think I can also see the point the critics is making, since it is practically difficult to cover all the different intelligences in any educational programme. My personal thoughts about why multiple intelligence is still widely acknowledged is perhaps, on preliminary reflection, because it has generally inspired more varied methodologies and programming in educational programmes, which is a good development. Practically, the VAK model (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic) is an easy-to-use framework for actual teaching purposes. Personally, I am more conscious of including visual elements in my teaching, in addition to just verbally conveying instructions. To add the kinaesthetic element in teaching is still a challenge for me at this point, because it is less often practised and ideas for implementing this method are less easy to find.

Regarding the processes in learning that were being shared in class, the relational part was something new for me and  worth reflecting on in relation with how to plan the educational activities for my group in the church. The idea of looking at fraternal relationships and partnerships in our educational programmes might open up interesting ideas on how we can plan our activities. I believe we already have this in non-formal settings, like our life groups and mentoring structures. Perhaps we can be more deliberate in planning learning through these structures? My thoughts on how this can be done are still rather vague, and I hope to sit on it more and see what ideas will arise for me on this.

Reflection on Education in the Christian Community 1

Even though this is a block course and supposed to be more intensive, I’m not really feeling the stress, and am enjoying the sharing in the lessons. I find that the nature of the course itself is really practical, and applicable especially for my current ministry in the education of the adult congregation in my church. In addition, from my involvement in pastoral ministry, I tend to relate the ideas from the lesson back to my experience and reflections on how to help the people under my care grow.

Firstly, the idea that the purpose of Christian education is the spiritual formation of the believer instead of just teaching Christian knowledge and practical skills (for example, how to serve in a particular ministry) is worth deeper reflection. The idea of spiritual formation is not new to me, but linking it to the concept of Christian education gives me a more integrated perspective in how to help a believer in his spiritual growth. Both the lesson discussions and the text (Karen Tye, Basics of Christian Education) lends support to my personal reflections in ministry that spiritual growth cannot be just about attending Bible lessons and acquiring new Bible knowledge in a classroom context.  In the context of my church, the spiritual mentoring relationships, life group fellowship and the half-yearly Bible courses all work together to help the believers grow in God. The community of believers is the context for both learning (through experience) and practising spiritual lessons, and this helps to engaged the learner in a more holistic manner as compared with classroom teaching where the main focus is on acquiring of mental knowledge.

The concept of an integrated Christian education leadership team (Israel Galindo and Marty Canady, Planning for the Christian Education Formation) is quite illuminating regarding not just how to run a Christian education programme but also how to plan general church-wide programmes in general – though of course, since all church programmes are related to the spiritual formation of the congregation in some way, they are also part of Christian education. What struck me foremost while reading about the purpose of the CELT are the problems of both having individuals to head the Christian education programme and having isolated age-graded programme planning. The fragmentation and competition for resources is very real and can be seen sometimes in the actual day-to-day running of the church, and having just certain individuals heading the programme for particular age segments, without both the input and support of a team, is a gradual but sure way of extinguishing the person’s passion for Christian education.

The suggestion of asking the leadership for its idea of Christian education before implementing any Christian education programme is a fresh concept to me, but something which I believe is really relevant. The statement that “false assumptions lead to false practices” (Galindo, 9) is true, and without surfacing our assumptions to the foreground, we often believe that we know what Christian education is about and proceed to work based on those assumptions. The case in point is that I still tend to hold to the idea of formal lessons for Christian education before attending this module. In fact, while I was reading this part of the book, I had an inner dis-inclination of examining my own assumptions initially, subconsciously believing that I already know what Christian education is and it is correct. Only on realisation and questioning of my own assumptions do I see that they may not be balanced or even true, and that I have often being trying to help the people under my care grow while harbouring these assumptions.

As mentioned by Bro Casey, the term “Christian education” is an oxymoron. However, for convenience sake, this term is used here (somewhat loosely) to refer to educating the Christian community for spiritual formation. However, it is important not to see Christian education as a separate entity from secular education such that Christian education is seen as “religious education” while secular education refers to the daily living of life (Brian Hill, “The Modern Concept of Education”, The Greening of Christian Education). There is no such distinction in the Bible, which teaches us how we can live according to God’s Word in our daily lives and interaction with others. In fact, from my observations in church, workshop and seminar topics which relate to practical life like relationship with people, Christian living in the workplace, knowing the will of God, etc. are all pertinent to how we live our lives. Hence, when planning Christian educational programmes, one very important consideration needs to be how they are relevant to the practical lives of the audience.

From my own context, I consider mainly the implementing of Christian programmes in the local church, which can actually be quite challenging. The fact that church community plays a vital role in the spiritual formation of the congregation means that the pastoral leaders at all levels need to be involved. In order to do so, they must first buy in to the idea of an integrated approach (integration of community with programmes, possibly integration among age groups, etc) to spiritual formation. This can be difficult if the church has been implementing programmes based on a different set of assumptions, since it involves a paradigm shift of a large group of people. For me, I advcate the idea that we need to revisit our assumptions of Christian education, and that the community needs to be involved in spiritual formation of the congregation. How this can be done will require further thinking through of what best suits my church community, and the practical aspects of implementation.