Sharing Faith-Full Living and Learning

Living the faith generationally: my sister, daughter, grandson, niece, and nephew

Don’t worry about writing about your faith. Live your faith, then write about life.

Gene Luen Yang, artist/author of American-Born Chinese, the first graphic novel nominated for the National Book Award, and of many other graphic novels since then, addressing the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College in 2014, shared the wisdom one of his teachers had shared with him. That stuck with me, because I think it’s true of teaching as well. How do I share my faith with students? Live my faith, then teach about life. In fact, live my discipline, then teach life.

It’s the same good teaching strategies that engage students in deep learning about science, English, math, and music that engage them in deep learning about faith. If math and social studies are just school stuff that doesn’t connect to life outside the classroom, and if Bible is just another thing to learn at school, it will connect to life in exactly the same way. If, on the other hand, our subjects connect to life—how we communicate, make decisions about health and stewardship, evaluate the news, appreciate beauty and patterns around us, spend our leisure time, and use our knowledge and skills to love and serve our neighbors—then Bible class and the faith that it nourishes will also connect to life. 

Here are some strategies I’ve found helpful in making life connections for students with my subject area and, consequently, with my faith:

Stories: Stories engage many parts of our brains from the logic of cause and effect to the sensory experience of visualization and also stimulate emotional responses. As a result, stories result in durable learning. 

• I choose literature whose characters or themes offer stories that help us appreciate the beauty of creation, mourn its brokenness, and commit to restoring peace, justice, and right relationships, like Cry, the Beloved Country (see “Integrating Learning and a Faith-Full Life”). 
• I find news stories that intersect with the themes we study, like “The White Man in that Photo” and “The Teenager Who Saved a Man with an SS Tattoo.” 
• I tell my stories of successes and failures to live out those themes, and I ask them to tell their stories.         

Heart: The stories that come from my heart show that I’m fully here, and invite students to explore the subject and their own hearts in the same way. I used to be afraid to show how much I cared—about students, about the subject, about faith—because it felt too vulnerable. If it were rejected, it would be a rejection of me. But the current phrase I’m seeing frequently really is true: “Students don’t care what you know until they know that you care.” I attend games and events to see students shine outside the classroom. I greet them before class. I share things just for fun, like pictures of my grandkids. I share books I’ve enjoyed. And I share how reading and writing help me process my struggles, like balancing the sadness of death with my hope in the resurrection (see my blog about my mother’s death, “Processing Death through Reading and Writing”).  

Application: Sometimes those heart applications just happen, and they happen more often when I plan for them. How do I plan for them?

• I structure units around themes that are important to my students, like finding love (see “Make It Real”) 
• I design a final assessment that keeps the focus on the theme, like a paper exploring cultural, temperamental, and spiritual identity (see “Giving Skills and Content a Purpose”). 
• I scaffold assignments to prepare students to do well on the final assessment of the theme (like empathy: “Reading Develops Empathy Even Better When It Is Targeted, Taught, and Assessed”)

Reflection: Applying learning to life takes deep thought and reflection, which takes time. How do I encourage reflection? 

• I ask questions. Then I wait—my students need time to reflect. (Sometimes, waiting is a challenge!) Then I listen in order to understand my students—not primarily to respond to my students or as a platform to say something.
• I structure my course around 4 essential questions (Who am I? Who is my neighbor? What’s wrong with the world? What is the significance of language?). And I structure each unit around essential questions: What is human dignity and why does it matter? What is the connection between the individual and the community? Why is empathy important?
• I have students journal on an essential question at the beginning of a unit so they can compare their view at the end and see what they’ve learned.
• I encourage students to come up with their own questions (see “Nurturing Questions”).
• I give students time periodically to reflect on what they are learning in relation to schoolwide student objectives (see “Not ‘What Am I Teaching?’ but ‘What Are They Learning?’”)
• I model my own reflection, sharing my journal, blogs, and other writing (like “Audience and Purpose in Writing: My Mom’s Eulogy”). I do this, in part, because I want to provide a classroom environment where the teacher (me) is the chief inquirer, modeling what it means to ask questions in subject area, in life, and in faith.

Keep on keeping on: tell your stories, share your heart, apply what you know, and reflect deeply. Live your faith and teach your life, wherever you are, and whoever you are with.