What if (Christian) education was primarily concerned with shaping our hopes and passions—our visions of the “good life”? What if the primary work of (Christian) education was the transforming of our imagination rather than the saturation of our intellect? What if we began by appreciating how education not only gets into our head but also (and more fundamentally) grabs us by the gut—what the New Testament refers to as kardia, “the heart”?
What Story Are We In?
I remember the very day that I read the above “what if” statements for the first time in Jamie Smith’s book, Desiring the Kingdom (pp. 17-18). I was convicted—convicted to unlearn and relearn how to teach within this deep hope for learning in our Christian schools. Like most journeys that require the “letting go of the old” to make room “for the new,” the shift has been invigorating, inspiring, liberating . . . and exhausting. Taken altogether, it has been full of joy. As I grappled, I began to understand that I had received an invitation from Jamie Smith to a better, deeper story of Christian education.
As Donald Miller writes in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, “[O]nce you live a good story, you get a taste for that kind of meaning in life, and you can’t go back to being normal; you can’t go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time” (p. 155). You see, as a secondary science teacher, I had told—and sold—myself a lot of stories. Stories like, “Science is hard. Science in rigorous. Science is not for everyone.” And, “We have a lot of content to cover . . . and all of that content is equally essential.”
The day that I encountered Jamie Smith’s “what if” statements was the day I began to re-awaken myself to the better story. It was the day that I began to stop treating these image-bearers of God, my students, as if they were simply “thinking humans.” I began a journey to discover how to nurture desiring and passionate students within a curriculum that is “dripping with God.” As my posture and practices around curriculum began to change, I began to change. You see, practices are not just something we do—practices do something to us.
Telling a Better Story
Maybe you are like me. You are living in the tension of competing stories around the curriculum–the stuff of our courses and classes. You have classrooms of image-bearers—desiring, passionate, creative image-bearers of God, and at the same time, you have heaps and heaps of stuff to cover. You have told—and sold—yourself stories about curriculum and learning. You have become really good at wrong things. Maybe, like me, in the busyness of school and the need to cover the content, you have forgotten the story for which we, you, our students were created. You have forgotten the deep hopes we have for our students and our Christian schools.
This secondary science teacher has learned that all the data, the analysis, facts and diagrams, theories and laws, all the “stuff” of science class is meaningless without the context of the epic into which we are born. Our curriculum finds meaning and purpose within God’s unfolding story: a story of intimacy and things good and beautiful; of rebellion and brokenness; and of an invitation from the cross to participate, to co-create with our creator, in the restoration of a broken world and in the making of all things new.
When we talk about “deeper learning,” we mean going deeper into this story. Those nitrate and phosphate measurements in the stream study? They are part of this story of making all things new again. The study of conflict and war through history? Also part of this story. The writing of poetry and music, the study of the stars, and that classic PE game of dodgeball? It’s all part of the same story. Without this story, it is simply “stuff.” Deeper learning takes us and our students deeper into this story. Our students—these curious, passionate, desiring students—were created to participate in God’s unfolding story of redemption. Your classroom is part of this story.
Teaching for Transformation
So, what are we to do with these students? Teaching for Transformation (TfT) is a framework for designing learning stories that invite, nurture, and empower students to play their part in God’s story—not just upon graduation, but right now! TfT equips teachers to design learning for students to “see the Story, live the Story” through three core practices:
- Storyline: Connecting the curriculum and students to the Biblical Story.
- Through-Lines: Connecting the curriculum and students to practice a way of being—to form habits such as community building, justice seeking, servant working.
- Formational Learning Experiences: Connecting students and their schoolwork to “real work that meets real needs for real people” learning experiences.
When these three core practices interact with each other, they result in learning experiences of deep Kingdom-building hope for students and teachers.
Want To Go Deeper?
If you’d like to learn more about Teaching for Transformation and how to invite your students into the bigger story at the heart of Christian education, take one or more of these steps:
- Read more on Teaching for Transformation.
- Listen to four middle school students as they share their TfT learning experiences at the Christian School Deeper Learning Conference in Frisco, Texas in March 2019.
- Join Darryl’s workshops at the upcoming ACSI Professional Development Forums this fall in Sacramento and Anaheim.
References
Miller, D. 2011. A million miles in a thousand years: What I learned while editing my life. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.
Smith, J.K.A. 2009. Desiring the kingdom: Worship, worldview, and cultural formation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
