Reflection on Christian Teaching and Learning
Nicholas Wolterstorff in his Educating for Life delineates on the ultimate purpose of Christian education. He believes that human beings as the creatures of consciousness in their free action has to choose what to teach and learn. We don’t just learn and teach things but we inquire on the ultimate purpose of teaching and learning (pp. 18-19). In educating students, teachers have to focus on both the future life and the present life of the students (p.21), namely it has to be of significance meaningful for the students both the life of the child and the life of the adults (p. 22).
In order to formulate the curriculum, we have to bear in mind some principal features (pp. 22-31):
- The Christian life is the life of a person, a human being
- The Christian life is the life of faith,
- The Christian life is the life of someone who is a member of the Christian community
- The Christian life is the life that is to be lived in the midst of ordinary human society.
- The Christian life is a life engaged in helping to carry out the taks of cultural domination.
As the people of God, or in Peter’s term, a chosen race, a dedicated nation, a people claimed by God, Christians are God’s agents of renewal (p. 51).
There are three dimensions of the calling of the People of God: (p. 52)
- To proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom
- To act in loving service to all people everywhere
- To give evidence, in he own style of life, of the new life to be found in Jesus Christ
“To be human is to be the mirror of God’s goodness” (p. 78)
The Cartesian View:
Plularism is a sign of disease
The construction of the sign must gain rational consensus
Mathematics is the paradigm of science
Mathematics is the certitude conclusion
Abraham Kuyper’s View
The way of seeing the world cannot be grounded on certitude
Wolterstorff explicates that the Cartesian view is simply not possible,
“the Cartesian-Baconian picture of science has collapsed in the last quarter century. We live and work in the midst of the wreckage. No comprehensive picture has yet emerged to take its place. But I think one thing is clear at leas: As we struggle to for a new image of science as a consensus enterprise grounded in certitude. We shall have to give up the notion that one must limit oneself to saying what every rational person would agree on. We must instead begin to see science as the articulation of a person’s view of life, in interaction, of course, with the world and with one’s fellows” (p. 114).
What does it mean to be a Christian?
“To be a Christian is to be part of the company of God’s people - the church. There is in the world a peole, the Pentacost community, called out from all the natural peoples of the world to be a witness to God’s work, to be God’s agent in the world, and to give evidence of the new life available to us in God. There is in the world “a chosen race”, “a royal priesthood”, “a holy nation”, “God’s own people,” to use the phrase of Peter - a people called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light to declare the wonderful deeds of him who called her. Once this people, spread aroudn the God’s people. To be a Christian is to cast one’s lot with that people. It is calling in history. The Christian school is a project of and by and for years and encircled the globe. A fundamental task of the Christian school is to make the child aware of this great transnational people” (p. 125).
Christian curriculum must: (p. 129)
Give students an articulated sense of the character of God’s shalom.
Give students some sense of the structure of the society in which they will have to identify and live out their callings.
Look at how does the call to work for shalom alter certain aspects of our society.
We need a view “kaleidoscopic”
- To form a beautiful view
- God invites and obligates us with callings, responsibilities and tasks in our offices
- The call is personal and imperative (Isaiah 43:1; Jer. 1:7)
- The mandate: Development and Healing
- It is an invitation to flourish (Gen. 1:22, 28)
- Obedience, Gratitude, Delight
- Vision: Development, healing and delight in the relationship with God, self, fellow human beings and nature. Shalom as human flourishing - Shalom is harrmony and delight in all one’s relationships - with God, with other fellow human beings, with culture, with nature, with oneself.
- Work for creation’s potentials and healing of the dysfuntions in our relationship
- Celebrate shalom and lament for the absence of shalom
Wolterstorff also emphasizes that education for life also includes teaching for justice. As justice is inseparable from shalom (pp. 274-283). He says,
“There is no shalom without justice. But beyond that, shalom is delight in all one’s relationships: with God, neighbor, nature, and self. Shalom unites the fulfillment of culture with the liberation of justice. Life in the city of God is a life committed to struggling for shalom and appreciating the flickers of shalom that already brighten our existence. Christian education is education for shalom” (p. 79).
