Musings from the conference
Our Director, Emily, attended the National Institute of Christian Education Educating for Hope Research Symposium recently. What a wonderful day of learning, networking and also presenting our research. Emily presented doctoral research about gender and sexuality in Christian schools, a topic that generated deep discussion.
See below as Emily shares some of her musings from the symposium. These events are so thought provoking and often the musings and ongoing thinking inspired by the presentations is the most powerful aspect!
Kingdom Shaping Christian Education for Shalom by Bronwyn Wong fromTyndale Christian School.
Bronwyn shared action research she has been undertaking in her school. She began her presentation by introducing the concept of the Babylonian Kingdom. While not a new concept by any means, we are all familiar with the tower of Babel, I use the word ‘introducing’ as I have not engaged much with this concept in relation to my work with Virtue Community.
Bronwyn talked about ‘Babylonian thinking’ as a desire to flourish without God or separate from God. This is a concept I have wrestled with for many years working in schools that promote Positive Education and/or wellbeing programs that attempt to achieve flourishing or thriving without acknowledging God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit. The idea that we are ‘enough’ and we have all that we need within us and we just need to be more resilient or practice self-care, or set goals. We know as Christians that we need God to fully flourish, we need the holy spirit to work within us and we need Jesus.
Bronwyn’s described three elements of Babylonian thinking: self-promotion, power and fame. When I think about today’s society, these three elements are definitely valued and presented as ideals. Bronwyn described the tension that exists between Babylonian thinking and the Christian worldview. Kingdom building from a Christian perspective is flourishing with God.
This has motivated me to do some more reading and thinking about this notion of Babylonian thinking and how prevalent it is today. This deep dive led me to the book Who am I? by Martyn Iles. Martyn describes in his book the focus in our current society on the self.
Excerpt from Martyn:
‘We pursue a life that is made in ‘our own’ image. My career choice stems from ‘who I am’. My marriage partner is about completing ‘me’. My spare time is ‘me’ time. Me first, others and God last. I do what’s right for me rather than actually bending my will to submit to what is right for me or even admitting what is right,’ said Martyn. ‘I create ‘my’ truth, rather than submit myself to ‘the truth’. Even church is a space for me. I go there to get my spiritual needs met. And we start hearing language such as “I need to feel seen.” In other words, the world needs to revolve around me. Life is about being my best self. In other words, it’s all about me.’
This focus on self is also present in most Relationships, Identity and Sexuality Education resources that are being used in Australia. Identity education focusing on who I am, what I like, what feels good for me, what I can get out of relationships and sex, what I want. We need to remember that the Christian worldview is others centred. Jesus modelled servant leadership for us and showed us that we are called to care for our neighbour and love one another. When relationships and sex become about putting the other person first and following God’s commandment to love one another, and less about the self, then we can truly flourish and experience life as God intended.
This presentation by Bronwyn at the symposium has been a timely reminder that all our work at Virtue Community needs to begin with flourishing with God and the focus on an others centred approach in relationships.
The Missional Imperative of Christian Education by Cameron Pearce from Flinders Christian Community College.
Cameron shared his recent experience of measuring the missional effectiveness of his school. He did this by conducting an analysis of the perspectives of students who had studied at Flinders for their whole schooling experience. He highlighted the presence of hidden drivers and unintentional formation which can be anti-thetical to Christian worldview.
Cameron’s research uncovered student perspectives of the teachers in the school not always living what they say and the impact this has on student formation. Cameron suggested it is more important to start with Who than to start with Why. Who the teachers are will drive the formation of students whether it is intentional or not and Cameron aims to lead his school to be more intentional in what they do and this intentionality will not leave formation to chance.
One key takeaway for me in Cameron’s presentation was his statement – Consistent language and a powerful collective story are critical for a community to have genuine foundational impact. This resonates so well with the Health Education Teaching Perspectives theoretical framework developed in my doctoral study. The centre of the framework is a collaborating process where the teacher re-considers their perspective as they encounter their colleagues, school leadership, parents and students. This is the precursor to teachers making decisions about what to do in class and what to say. Cameron’s advice on consistent language reminds us all that when teachers are planning programs of work, they must engage in wider conversations across the school to ensure they are generating and using consistent language and that they have incorporated into their teaching the collective story of the school’s worldview (the Christian worldview).
Cameron suggests that missional pedagogy is story based and involves storytelling, however this story telling must come from a collective base, using the shared language of the school. Ensuring this occurs will require constant communication and collaboration of the teachers as they engage in curriculum delivery. Virtue Community proposes in its Whole School Approach that schools develop a Relationships, Identity and Sexuality Education (RISE) committee that includes leaders from across the school such as leadership, pastoral care, wellbeing, HPE, primary school, chaplain and the church. This committee would play a significant role in developing a shared language and collective story and would also be best placed to continue the conversations and storytelling to ensure genuine formational impact. In this way teachers will feel supported as they engage in program writing and curriculum delivery while also sharing in the mission and vision of the school.