Faith in the Classroom

Applying faith in an academic setting should be both intentional and natural, as an outgrowth of one's world view and Christian practice. Much has been written about faith and discipline for college teachers but ultimately the question is a philosophical one with pragmatic application, worthy to discuss and worthy to embrace. Should we incorporate and even embed our faith in our teaching to our students? What do we gain with this approach or what do we lose? Can it be done easily or will the process become stilted, prescribed, and contrived. How do we, as college professors, avoid such pitfalls?

In reality we are discussing the integration and melding of two distinctly different but beautiful concepts--knowledge and faith. Of course, the objective is to make the two as one, unified ideals that operate independently and congruently. Let's use music as way to demonstrate the application of this goal.

The word monophony or monody refers to one sound or one musical line, namely the melody. In early music, the idea of singing in harmony with more than one sound was both unknown and even religiously rejected on the grounds that a service should have unity as one of its intentional outcomes. Singing in harmony or in polyphony (many sounds) acknowledges people's differences as they seek to worship the one Lord God Almighty. There are theologians, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and churches today that insist on singing in unison with the idea that harmony and musical division does not lend itself to unified worship. Yet, if one subscribes to the idea that music is one of God's greatest gifts, and that human expression through music can be rich and unbounded, and that harmony and polyphony add layers of creative beauty to music, and that God is the author and perfecter of faith, then it stands to reason that the ultimate expression of music is that which achieves the sublime and synthesizes many sounds into one.

So let's return to the idea of applying one's faith to the classroom. There is little doubt that adherence to the needs of the discipline and the requisite knowledge must be imparted consistently and well in order to meet the expected learning outcomes of a particular subject. All teachers are aware of the necessary goals required for claiming expertise in a given topic. If, for example, the history teacher does not present and demand exact historical information, with precision and awareness of both micro and macro history, the subject and the clientèle then are not being treated with the academic respect the integrity of the subject deserves. Since integrity of truth is supreme, teaching then must be the process of imparting accurate and complete information.

But is this really enough, and does it tell the whole story? If this were the complete truth, there would be little need for teachers since most of the world's information, particularly on any one subject, can be found in print among the thousands of publications currently available. A teacher, however, does more than present facts to students who then ingest them and regurgitate them for assessment. In fact, a teacher does more than teach the facts, a teacher inevitably teaches the topic through the lens of himself or herself. A good teacher cannot help but emanate his personality, values, integrity, philosophy, emotions, and life experiences in his commitment to excellence. To ask a teacher to teach objectively, extracting all biases and emotions from the topic, is to ask a teacher to be an automaton devoid of the very essence of what education is all about.

Back to music. Many consider the greatest music to contain melody, harmony, and rhythm (see earlier blog entries for discussions of sound and the meaning of music). A lesson without faith can be likened to monophony, certainly worthy and meaningful, but not multi-dimensioned. The application of faith in a lesson is polyphonic in essence and harmonious in content. One's faith and one's world view comes through naturally and holistically in the classroom regardless of the subject matter. It is not and should not be interjected abruptly, prescriptively, nor contrived in any sense; but rather, is simply a part of who the teacher is both specifically and comprehensively. To take the faith part out is to make the music, the classroom, the institution, and the experience less than its intention and certainly less than its potential.