Rambling A Bit About Wisdom

What are the traits, attribute or values that our society, particularly our American society, esteems? Independence? Strength? Power? Comfort? Ease? How do these traits, or variations of them, show up in the aspirations and hopes and daydreams of our students? What can we learn from what folks refer to as “The American Dream?” What does this “dream” have to do with the notion of the kingdom of God? In which direction are we consistently pointing our children? Can they have both?

Matthew 18: 2 – 5 For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, "I'm telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you're not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God's kingdom. What's more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it's the same as receiving me.

Back in our beginning discussions of wisdom in August, we talked a little about our images of wisdom. A few of us connoted the idea of wisdom with being old and we joked a little about the incongruity of this image with the realities of the youth who sit in front of us every day. Is wisdom available to the young?

And then this word of Jesus comes in. Does this have anything at all to do with wisdom? In fact, I think that it may have everything to do with wisdom. As usual, Jesus turns popular conceptions on their heads and calls us to an upside-down way of thinking and believing. The societal values I mentioned a few paragraphs ago are undoubtedly the values and attributes we pass on quickly to each generation. But in their essence, this is not the way a true child is. Children represent dependence, trust, and what I often find the most endearing about them, a sheer ecstasy in the joy of the now, the joy of being in this moment. Perhaps the thing that frustrates us so much about children is that they learn so quickly to become just like us. This is the terrible and terrifying dichotomy of teaching – and parenting – from a Christian perspective. Our societal instincts tell us to teach them to grow up (how often do we actually even say those words?) and our Savior tells them – and us – to grow down.

What will it take for us to incorporate the notion of wisdom into our thinking as teachers? What will it take for NSCS to become a community of the wise? I’ll say again that I believe it will never happen unless we are invested in it very personally and very, very deeply. If we do not consistently, vigorously and vigilantly model wisdom and the wise way of being and seeing, it can never produce much fruit. Perhaps the root of wisdom stems from this going deeper and living our lives as if we were indeed utterly dependent upon God. When Proverbs proclaims that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, perhaps this is what the writer is really saying – that we cannot even think about moving in the direction of wisdom until we come at this from a position of complete and deep dependency and trust.

In our teaching, this notion will mean perhaps, less breadth and more depth. It may mean deeper and more enduring understanding that will transpose to a variety of other events that we may not take the time to study in detail. For example, studying the nature or revolution gives us understanding that we may apply to all revolutions, while at the same time employing compare & contrast categories to understand uniqueness as well as commonality. Understanding how this organism lives, survives, changes will give us a solid basis for understanding how all organisms experience the same phenomena, again employing similar evaluative criteria.

Teaching & the Inner Life

Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one’s inwardness, for better or worse. As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject and our way of being together. The entanglements I experience in the classroom are often no more or less than the convolutions of my inner life. Viewed from this angle, teaching holds a mirror to the soul. If I am willing to look in that mirror and not run from what I see, I have a chance to gain self-knowledge-and knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my subject.
–Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach

More Wisdom, please

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Application

Here are notes from our follow-up meeting in August. I'd like to begin our discussion on how you are finding ways to incorporate these ideas into your classrooms. Post your thoughts and ideas as they come to you and we will talk about them at our next all-school faculty meeting Monday.

August 27, 2009

1. How do you define Wisdom? Has that definition changed after reading Blomberg?

The realization of value. (To be fully aware of and to bring into concrete existence).

Wisdom is the ability to discern, "the most excellent way". I Corinthians 12:31 or what is right and good.

2. "Intimate relation between culture and organized education"

We must be counter-cultural.

3. What does Blomberg mean on page two that, " . . . a biblical perspective on wisdom has to function as an alternative to the dominant ideology of Reason?

We are biased by Reason

4. How do you react to his assertion on page four that the mode of relating (or relationship) to students constitutes curriculum?

Wisdom is found in relationship

5. What is the relationship between discernment and wisdom? Blomberg puts it as "critique is a concomitant of wisdom."

Problem-posing is a pathway

6. How did you react to the section on ambiguity and his belief that education should disclose ambiguity rather than conceal it?

Pat answers to complex questions are not acceptable

7. On page fourteen, Blomberg makes a key distinction between an Integrated Christian curriculum and an Integral curriculum. How do you understand the difference?

We begin with the whole. Faith and learning were never apart.