On Christian Teaching

Practicing Faith in the Classroom

David I. Smith

WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505

www.eerdmans.com

© 2018 David I. Smith

All rights reserved

Published 2018

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ISBN 978-0-8028-7360-6

eISBN 978-1-4674-5064-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Smith, David, 1966–author.

Title: On Christian teaching: practicing faith in the classroom / David I. Smith.

Description: Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018001801 | ISBN 9780802873606 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Teaching—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Teachers—Religious life. | Education (Christian theology) | Christian education—Teaching methods.

Classification: LCC BV4596.T43 S64 2018 | DDC 248.8/8—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018001801

Contents

Preface

1. The Pedagogy Gap

2. The Whole Nine Minutes

3. Patterns That Matter

4. The Movement of the Soul

5. Motivated Design

6. See, Engage, Reshape

7. The Work of Imagination

8. Life Together

9. Designing Space and Time

10. Pedagogy and Community

11. The State of Christian Scholarship

Index

Preface

There is by now a rather large library of literature on Christian education of various kinds that discusses how to “integrate” (or substitute your favorite term) faith and learning.1 Yet I still have the feeling that we have not done a great job at putting our finger on what might be Christian about the actual process of teaching. Not the history of ideas, nor Christian perspectives on our subject area, nor the kindness of our character, nor devotions, nor whether we get to share our faith verbally with students, nor our stance on postmodernism or the nature of knowledge—I mean the teaching itself, what actually happens during the times when we are trying to help students learn in educational settings. I think that this is particularly (though not uniquely) the case in Protestant circles. I find myself commonly disappointed when I read books and articles on Christian learning and look for insight about teaching. I am often left with the feeling that the ways we are used to performing Christian scholarship, for all their other merits, rarely taste of the classroom. I suppose this book might not taste quite right either, but I have tried to keep the focus squarely on one key question: is there such a thing as teaching Christianly, teaching in such a way that faith somehow informs the processes, the moves, the practices, the pedagogy, and not just the ideas that are conveyed or the spirit in which they are offered? I am going to argue that there is.

In order to keep the focus on teaching, I am going to rely on examining examples of teaching and learning more than on elaborating big ideas (though I do hope that this will prove to be a way of getting at ...