Early on in our implementation of Teaching for Transformation (TfT), it became apparent that the journey was as much about the transformation of teachers and staff as it was about the transformation of students. During our first morning spent together around TfT, teachers were asked to engage with this quote: “Christian schools are about the transformation of student and teachers so that they might have the mind, heart and life of Christ—that is, to be Responsive Disciples” (Dickens, 8–9).
A teacher raised her hand and shared that our school has practices in place to disciple and transform students but that she saw little evidence that our school was concerned about the transformation of teachers. As she shared, I thought about the care we ask teachers to extend to students in their classrooms, and I wondered where teachers were cared for. As we moved further into the work of TfT, we began to unpack James K. A. Smith’s statement: “The primary goal of Christian education is the formation of a peculiar people—a people who desire the kingdom of God and thus undertake their vocations as an expression of that desire” (Desiring the Kingdom, 34). TfT asks the question, How do we get peculiar? and posits the “Peculiar Teacher Promise” as the answer to that question (see sidebar). I thought about the promise to invite, nurture, and empower, and I wondered: If this is how we’ve chosen to grow our students toward peculiar, toward transformation, and toward being responsive disciples, then shouldn’t we be extending the same invitation, nurture, and empowerment to our teachers and staff?
In his book You Are What You Love, Smith asserts that Christian schools must begin to see worship as faculty development—and faculty development that takes precedence over the rest. He compares worship as faculty development to the all-too-familiar instruction that flight attendants make: “In the event of loss of cabin pressure, secure your own oxygen mask before assisting others.” If we’re after the formation of peculiar people, we must be a school that forms peculiar teachers. And formation takes practice. Perhaps, better said, formation takes practices.
So, as we dove into year two of TfT implementation, we also set in place a rhythm for faculty worship and renewal. We began to meet monthly, gathering around a mash-up of best practices in teaching, like discussion protocols and close reading, and timeless spiritual disciplines, like reading Scripture and liturgical prayer.
Spiritual Practices
Smith writes, “Just by committing ourselves to communities of formative Christian worship, we are refueling our own imaginations with the biblical story, immersing our own hearts in the reconciling practices of the body of Christ. This is one of the most important commitments we can make if we hope to be formative teachers: to submit ourselves to the disciplines of Christian worship” (You Are What You Love, 161).
Scripture. Instead of engaging around a devotional book or something similar, we’ve disciplined ourselves to read Scripture together. During our times together, teachers read the chosen passage individually and then out loud together in small groups. Reading Scripture out loud is a practice we see God’s people engaged in early on in their story, and we see again and again that it “reminds them of where they came from, who they are, and the new future they’re called to live for” (Mackie). Moses, Joshua, Josiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, Paul, and others led their people in reading Scripture out loud. This is what godly communities do! And whenever we see biblical accounts of God’s people reading the Scriptures out loud in public, good things are happening; good things like transformation into peculiar people who “know who they are, where they come from, and how they can keep living as a part of this new story” (Mackie).
Prayer. Liturgical practices such as call-and-response prayer and corporate confession were somewhat foreign to me. I didn’t grow up in a church where these rhythms were in place, so I did not understand the beauty ushered in by these peculiar practices. However, through a variety of sources, God has slowly been turning my head to look again at what once seemed awkward and repetitive and to see it as formative and liberating. I was specifically challenged by Smith’s directive, “Pray together in ways that are formative” (You Are What You Love, 162). So in addition to the extemporaneous prayer that I and my community were accustomed to, we began to pray the Psalms together out loud to practice confession, to practice declaring God’s praises together, to practice thankfulness together. We still gather to pray over things in our lives and rejoice as we see God at work in our lives. But in addition, we’ve also embraced and enriched who we are as people by praying together the prepared prayers of the wise and faithful who have gone before us.
Best Practices
Because my primary role is coaching teachers, I knew I could not lead any kind of faculty development time that did not look, feel, and sound how I hope our classrooms look, feel, and sound at any time. This meant I had to abandon our more traditional devotional structure: one person brings something to share, everyone is invited to comment, a few prayer requests are shared and covered in corporate prayer. I don’t know that there is anything wrong with this model, but I do know this model isn’t a paragon of best practices in teaching. From what I know about how learning happens, this kind of devotional setting leaves a lot of room for passive reception of ideas and gives few opportunities for wrestling and grappling. And it seems the fiercer the wrestling and grappling, the deeper the learning and transformation. So I searched my toolkit of best practices in teaching and began to reframe our staff devotional times.
Close reading. In my classroom teaching days, I gave my students a purpose with their reading. I’d typically have them looking for something specific or finding evidence for a question or hunting for a specific kind of word. It occurred to me to use a similar approach with teachers when reading Scripture. We would often mark the texts we read with circles, squares, and triangles—we circled things that we were confused by, squared things we understood, and triangled things we could make connections to (personally or in other texts). This focused reading gave us purpose for the reading and also directed and launched our discussions.
Discussion protocols. We’ve all heard the adage “the one talking is the one doing the learning”; yet when I led devotions, I would talk the whole time. I do believe that the people talking are the ones doing the most learning, so now we structure our staff devotions so the bulk of our time is spent in groups of three to four people, so everyone has more time, opportunity, and even obligation to engage in discussion.
And, just like the students in our classrooms, teachers and staff are able to engage more readily and confidently in discussion when guided by a protocol. We have played with a variety of discussion protocols and found that the strongest are those that offer participants a moment to think independently before sharing. Another strength of the discussion protocol is that it provides opportunity for staff members to engage with a variety of their peers in a variety of conversations. Over and over, we’ve found that what works well in a classroom also works well in our staff meetings and devotions.
Building something. Our devotional times this year helped us become a certain kind of people together—just the act of reading Scripture and praying together is monumentally powerful. We also took the time to build memorials (very similar to and reminiscent of storylines) as we went through the year. After we finished each devotional hour together, teachers pulled out a theme to add to our wall. Throughout the year, our collective thinking became an artifact, showing the kind of people we were becoming. The act of building something together, even something as simple as a bulletin board display in the staff room, gave us a tangible expression of the work of discipleship we were doing together—work we carried into our classrooms.
Conclusion
I think we expected that TfT would change how our students learn. I think we may have even expected that TfT would change some of what they learn. Our teachers have chosen our school as vocation, work, and ministry because they believe, eagerly seek, and deeply hope to be part of the Spirit’s work in transforming students to the image of Christ. I don’t know that we expected that TfT would so powerfully impact and transform faculty and staff, both corporately and individually. We’ve learned to be people who gather around God’s Word, seeking Him as a reminder of who we are, who He is, and the story we’re part of. We invite God’s transforming work and power in our lives as we invest in life together, in spiritual growth together, and in dedication to prayer and the Word together. TfT is the making of a peculiar people—students and teachers.
Works Cited
Dickens, Ken, et al. Transformation by Design: A Curriculum Development Resource for Christian Schools. Penrith, New South Wales: National Institute for Christian Education, 2017.
Mackie, Tim, and Jon Collins. “Public Reading of Scripture.” Video. The Bible Project. https://thebibleproject.com/explore/public-reading-scripture.
Smith, James K. A. Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009.
—. You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit. Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2016.
Amanda Albright is currently the faith integration coach at Bellevue Christian Schools where she leads implementation of TfT. Amanda also serves as a TfT school designer for CACE
