How Christian Teachers Transform Course Aims and Curricula

This chapter explores what Christian identity means for pedagogical practice. By examining the connections that teachers make between their Christian identity and their actions in the classroom, this chapter investigates how teachers believe their Christianity influences the why, what, and how of teaching. Overall, teachers in the survey differentiated between two major perspectives on how Christianity changed the ends, content, and methods of their courses, identified as spiritual addition and Christian transformation. Spiritual addition professors understood their Christian identity as inspiring the addition of certain objectives, content, and methods to their classroom. Christian transformation professors drew upon the Christian tradition to reconceptualize major parts of their objectives, content, and methods in more radical ways than the former category of teachers. This chapter illustrates these differences and classifies the specific ends and content that the professors in the study claimed were influenced by their Christian identity.

The Fear of Teachers’ Religious Identity

This chapter outlines the origins of the tension purported to exist between being a teacher and a Christian. More explicitly, it explores how the tension between religiously identity-informed teaching and identity-informed teaching emerged. Beginning with the early European context and concluding with the current American postmodernist landscape, it argues that the idea that teachers should somehow not integrate their religious identity into their teaching is a recent development. The contemporary counterargument for reintegrating one’s religious identity into one’s teaching draws upon older ideals but also differs from these ideals in important ways. The chapter concludes by describing the similarities and differences between the older and newer arguments for integrating one’s religious identity with one’s teaching.

Introduction

Teachers are not just teachers. They may also be spouses, parents, members of specific religious, political, and ethnic groups and many other identities. Each of these identities orients them morally and sometimes metaphysically. When people try to become excellent in any of these identities, they will also need to learn how to integrate the moral tradition of a particular identity with the moral traditions associated with other identities. One’s professional, teaching identity is no different. Professors must then undertake the merging of this professional identity with their Christian identity thoughtfully, and for Christians, “Christianly.” This requires a complex approach. This book explores the argument that faith does make a difference in terms of how faculty teach and provides examples of this integration. Overall, this chapter sets the stage for the book’s argument by explaining these conflicts, defining key terms used throughout the book, clarifying the focus of the argument, and providing an outline of the remainder of the argument.

Identity-Informed Teaching in the Pluralistic University

This chapter presents the thesis that the most effective approach to managing the tournament of identities and narratives in the classroom requires the civic virtues that Plato and Aristotle taught (e.g., courage, honesty, self-control, justice). Since faculty members have multiple identities, the most important question is whether they can recognize which identities are important for giving life to a pedagogical practice. This ordering has deep effects on teachers’ pedagogical practices, course construction, ethics, and grading. Professors need to connect their personal identities and narratives to a vision of moral and intellectual virtue that applies to their classrooms in pluralistic educational institutions. While it is arrived at through one’s particular identities and narratives, we contend that this moral vision is one that most educators will likely share, which must be brought into regular conversation in any college or university setting.

In Praise of Diverse Teaching Contexts

This chapter explores the importance of a just educational system for nurturing different kinds of identity-informed teaching within specific types of university environments, including ecclesial universities, interdenominational Christian universities, online universities, and pluralistic universities. It makes the case for constrained disagreement by demonstrating why a pluralistic system of education is necessary to respect the various facets of identity-informed teaching. The argument focuses primarily on the strengths and benefits for teachers engaged in expansive forms of identity-informed teaching. The chapter begins by reviewing what academic freedom provides for this conversation, then explores the strengths and limitations of each type of university environment. Overall, the chapter maintains that in the same way that teachers must figure out how to prioritize their own identities, or as Augustine described, learn how to order one’s loves, academia must allow this same identity tournament to take place.

Christian Teaching in the Pluralistic University

With the help of the more sophisticated understanding of the ways one’s teaching may informed by one’s Christian identity discussed in chapters 2 through 4, we can now investigate the most controversial question of this book: How can a faculty member teach from a Christian perspective while honoring the integrity of the secular academy? In postmodern culture, teachers are expected to integrate their various identities into their teaching (e.g., feminist, environmentalist, Marxist). Therefore, this chapter explores how a professor could teach from a Christian perspective while working in the context of the pluralistic academy. It sets forth some general views about how teachers should address this matter, then focuses on how Christian teachers should determine when and how to draw upon their nonprofessional identities in their professional practice. Fundamentally, this chapter addresses the heart of what it means to foster a rich tournament of identities and narratives, which is the ultimate essence of liberal education.

How Christianity Animates a Teacher’s Background Beliefs

This chapter and the next two explore the following question: What difference does being a Christian make for a person’s teaching? Chapter 2 begins by reviewing the authors’ findings concerning the background role that teachers’ Christian identity and related convictions play in their teaching practices. Although various scholars explore this question by drawing from theory or their personal experience, most discussions about the difference Christianity might make for teaching have not relied on empirical findings. In light of this gap in the literature, this chapter describes the sample (2,300 Christian teachers at 49 Christian colleges and universities) and focuses on the background role that teachers’ Christian identity and related convictions play in their teaching. Overall, the study found that participating teachers’ Christian identity influences three factors: (1) their motivation to teach, (2) the ways they think about teaching, and (3) their understanding of their students.

When Christian Teaching Is Really Outrageous

This conclusion returns to answer the question: Is Christian teaching really that outrageous? As the range of examples cited in this book illustrate, Christian teaching is multifaceted and complex. After all, Christian teaching is not simply a vital form of self-expression or something that can and should be easily privatized. The calling to love and teach students requires that Christians respect the dignity of the student and the agreed upon purposes of the academic context in which one teaches. At this point, Christian teaching must become outrageous not only for individuals and for groups opposed to Christianity, but also to the powers in authority. While those teaching in the pluralistic academy must respect its customs, this chapter summarizes a Christian response to oppression that provides a way to resist oppression that will help them to model a markedly different kind of pedagogy for their students.

Is There Really Baptist, Catholic, or Quaker Teaching?

This chapter examines the explicit role one’s particular identities and their associated denominational traditions play in the practice of teaching. The analysis found four types of claims professors made when describing the influence of a particular Christian tradition on aspects of their teaching: (1) common theological beliefs; (2) common ethical teachings; (3) theological beliefs shared by groups of Christian traditions; and (4) distinct denominational emphases, which included differences of opinion on God’s role in the metanarrative, sources of wisdom, and the ultimate ends of teaching. Overall, although professors identified a range of tradition-related distinctives, some comments proved less specific to particular denominational traditions and more applicable to the general Christian tradition. It is important to understand these distinctions because teachers are usually not simply “Christian”; they also identify with particular Christian traditions, which affect their pedagogy, classroom practices, and interactions with students.

Thinking and Acting Christianly in the Classroom

This chapter examines what Christian identity means for actual classroom practice with regard to pedagogy, ethics, and modeling. The survey respondents’ approaches fell into the categories of spiritual addition and Christian transformation described in the previous chapter. The spiritual addition professors mentioned that they added a particular spiritual practice such as devotional Bible reading or prayer, or shared the personal story of their own Christian conversion to their classes. In contrast, Christian transformation educators demonstrated three unique pedagogical approaches related to: (1) their meaning and purpose, (2) their content, and (3) their method of interpretation. Fundamentally, the chapter argues that Christian teachers must view their task as more than helping advance a profession, providing students with academic capacities, or creating citizens. They must understand themselves and their students as God’s image bearers, helping them to experience human flourishing both inside and outside of the classroom.