Video Clip Introduction (Download RealPlayer)
What is the relationship between community and learning?
Extensive discussion in recent years on the topic of community, is, no doubt, due to the fact that community is diminishing. After identifying the critical nature of the situation, Hargreaves, focuses on the school in particular, claiming that:
..across much of the developed world, people are experiencing a crisis of community, and schools provide one of our last and greatest hopes for resolving it’[1].
In similar vein, Parker Palmer insists that ‘the concept of community’ is ‘indispensable in describing the terrain that educators inhabit’, and such community, and the restoration of connectedness, should be our goal.[2]
The
sociologist, Peter Berger, sees modern humanity’s alienation, fragmentation,
sense of ‘homelessness’ and the decline of community as a consequence of the
loss of our ‘sense of the transcendent’.[3] Augustine recognized ‘a God-shaped vacuum’, experienced both
personally and corporately.
From a Christian perspective, this ‘crisis of community’ is an inevitable outcome of the Fall in Eden when our first parents ‘dethroned God and enthroned self’. This condition stands as further evidence of the rampant ‘rise of individualism’ in contemporary society.
Defining community.
Sociological speaking, community may be understood in the following terms:
- it describes a group of interdependent people united for shared purpose
and goals;
- life within the community is dynamic and over time, develops a distinct
culture comprising beliefs, values and mores that are expressed and
shared in customs, practices, and relationships ;
- it often relates to a tradition associated with significant people, some
of whom achieve charismatic status;
- a sense of personal belonging, identity, solidarity, fulfillment and meaning stems from interaction within the group.
Community is fundamental to being truly human.
In Module 1, we noted that an intrinsic part of what it means to be human is to be:
relational, communicative, cultural, moral, expressive, meaning-makers.
Thus to deprive a person from relationship is to de-humanize them. God’s words are profound and significant when He stated;
“It is not good for man to be alone.” Genesis 2:18
The Organic Nature of Community
Relational deprivation affects not only the individual. The community suffers also.
Community
is an organism.
John Donne’s expression ‘No man is an Island” is widely recognized. However, his words that follow capture the organic, dialectical relationship between individuals and the community they comprise.
No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind. (Meditation XVII)
Such thoughts are reminiscent of the Apostle Paul’s use of the metaphor,
The Body of Christ (See 1 Corinthians 12)
Worthy of reflection also, in this vein, is the New Testament koinonia (fellowship), its diakonia (teachings that expressed their shared meaning), the spirit of agape (unselfish love and sensitivity), and the sense of shalom (inner peace) that pervaded their community, even in times of stress and crisis.
It is easy to see individuals as mere receptors, deriving community from the corporate body – a uni-directional process. However, Parker Palmer argues the interrelationship between the identity and integrity of individuals within and the quality of the visible community, thus placing certain obligations and responsibilities on individual members if the community ethos is going to be positively dynamic.
Only as we are in community with ourselves can we find community with others. Community is an outward sign of an inward and invisible grace, the flowing of personal identity and integrity into the world of relationships.[4]
The Dynamic Nature of Learning and Community
In essence, learning is both derived and shared from life in community. (Cf. Modules 3, 4 and 5). The link between faith and the learning community is clear and strong. Furthermore, such learning in the faith community is dynamic, involving all parties, and the unique contributions each makes to the whole. Dwayne Huebner [5] expresses this dynamic graphically. He adopts the metaphor of ‘weaving’ to describe how individuals create a 'fabric of life' comprising an interweaving of ideas, abstractions, memories, biblical metaphors, and cultural mores derived from the faith community and the relationships within it. He argues that life in the intimacy and context of those relationships affirm a personal and a collective past that in turn, acknowledges, practices, and celebrates the presence of God. And it is dynamic, nourishing, and renewing. Such ideas are consistent with the kind of individuals God created in His image 'with power to think and to do'.
The Place of the Teacher and the Nature of Teaching
Foregoing
discussion highlighted the fact that the ethos and integrity of any community
is dependent on the quality of the contribution each member brings to bear
on the life of the learning community. It thus follows that because of the
core role of teachers in the learning community, their personal identity
and integrity will have a major impact on the community at large.
A teacher who has not experienced community in his or her inner life, cannot
contribute positively to corporate community. (See also Module
2: The Place of the Teacher)
Teaching must, therefore, not be reduced merely to a set of techniques. It takes place in a context that is informed by both personal and corporate identity and integrity.
In this vein, Palmer again speaks of teachers who:
are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves…The connections made by good teachers are held not in their methods but in their hearts …the place where intellect, emotion and spirit will converge in the human self.[6] (Italics mine)
The three aspects identified are seen as three interdependent spaces that are each indispensable to effective learning.
Intellectual: Refers to the way we tend to think about teaching and learning in a pedagogical sense – content, concepts, students, teaching and learning strategies.
Emotional: Refers to the feelings that enable or constrain the interpersonal relationships – teacher, students and peers.
Spiritual: Acknowledges cooperation with the Holy Spirit to foster Transcendent connection in response to personal restlessness, and a craving for meaning, fulfillment, and shalom. (I have taken the liberty to modify Palmer’s third space to more strongly emphasize essential relationship with God through the ministry of Holy Spirit.)
The faith-oriented learning-community as an organization.
A
significant part of what we have been discussing about community and learning
harmonizes with Peter Senge’s notion of the learning organization.
He sees ‘real learning as getting to the heart of what it is to be human’
[7] He recognizes people as active, creative agents
who build mental models of reality and vision that shift from seeing parts
to seeing wholes and relationships. This vision is both personal and shared.
This learning community is:
.. an organization where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspirations is et free, and where people are continually how to learn together.[8]
This notion of organization is also relevant in the sense that it implies a culture demonstrating:
- intention;
- a raison d’être;
- a growing tradition or ‘story’;
- a sense of mission, and a strategic system, but, importantly;
- a genuine sensitivity for the people involved and affected.
It is important to note that this organization does not see organization an ideal, reified structure into which individuals fit. Organizations are people interacting productively in community.
Developing and maintaining a faith-oriented learning community.
At risk of reductionism and oversimplification, it is now possible to develop a model to represent the interrelationship between the concepts discussed.
In developing the model, two significant aspects are highlighted:
- the cultural context in which that learning takes place;
- the nature of learning that takes place.
Discussion Questions
· How does a Christian worldview shape the learning community?
· Describe how the cultural context of the learning community informs each of the three spaces of the model – intellectual, emotional, spiritual.
References:
Dwayne Huebner, ‘Practicing the Presence of God', Religious Education, vol 82, no 4, (Fall) 1987.
Palmer, Parker J. (1993) To Know as We Are Known, A Spirituality of Education, HarperSanFrancisco.
Palmer, P. J. (1998) The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape
of a Teacher’s Life, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.
[1] Andy Hargreaves, ‘Rethinking Educational Change: Going Deeper and Wider in the Quest for Success’, in A. Hargreaves (ed) Rethinking Educational Change with Heart and Mind. (1997 Book of the Year), Alexandria, Virginia: ASCD, 1997, p.4.
[2] Palmer, Parker To Know as We Are Known: A Spirituality of Education, San Franciso: Harper & Row, 1983, pp. xii, xiii.
[3] Peter Berger, Facing up to Modernity, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977; Peter Berger, Brigette Berger and Hansfried Kellner, The Homeless Mind, New York: Random House, 1973.
[4] Palmer, P. J. (1998) The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., p. 90.
[5] Dwayne Huebner, ‘Practicing the Presence of God', Religious Education, vol 82, no 4, (Fall) 1987.
[6] Palmer, P. J. (1998) The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., p. 11.
[7] Mark K. Smith (2001) ‘Peter Senge and the learning organization’, The Encyclopedia of informal education, www.infed.org/thinkers/senge.htm.
[8] Peter Senge (1990) The Leader’s New Work: Building Leanring Organizations, Sloan Management Review, No 7, Fall.