by Debra Paxton-Buursma with John Booy, Kathy DeJong, Mark Ponstine, Aubree Cantral, Jeanine Bakker,  Janorisè Robinson, Becca Brasser, and Shanna Pargellis

How do spaces create powerful learning possibilities or pitfalls? The Sacred Space Pedagogy project explores how the arrangement of texts and objects can empower or restrain purposeful engagement, exploration, reflection, and production in learning. Consider how easily we remember a catchy song, manage the multiple steps in a restaurant, or experience emotion when baptismal water flows over flesh.

The Power of Habit

James K. A. Smith helps explain why ordinary experiences powerfully affect how and what we learn. Smith suggests that because people are embodied, they learn with their bodies—not just with their heads. The material and activity aspects of basic routines powerfully shape our hearts—what we believe and value—impacting the sense our heads make of experiences. We aren’t always conscious of this powerful influence until we experience disequilibrium when practices change. For example, we become disoriented when the cereal aisle is relocated or when new growth obscures a familiar hiking landmark. Smith calls routine practices “learning liturgies” suggesting that life liturgies in a church, coffee shop, or classroom shape us and teach us what we believe and understand (86). The powerful potential of ordinary texts, actions, and objects in teaching practices to shape hearts and minds may support distinctive, faith-shaping instructional decisions.

Discovering Common Themes

Jo-Ann and I discovered four common themes across the schools regarding the intentional positioning of materials. First, schools “galleried” objects and text in common areas such as entries, hallways, and gathering spaces, where the messages could be shared widely. The entry often proclaimed a yearly school theme, sometimes through student art.

Second, schools showcased collaborative pieces. Daystar commissioned an artist to design and create a mosaic. The artist worked with students as they positioned objects and helped to create the mosaic. Grand Rapids Christian School students painted Bible stories on tiles set into library pillars. The Potter’s House features a yearly multigrade Martin Luther King Jr. representation.

Third, language, symbols, or metaphors intentionally showcased distinctive aspects of a school’s vision or Christian nature such as doing justice or being faithful. Daystar’s bulletin board entitled Providing a Faith-Based, Culturally Engaged Urban Education displayed student photos featuring virtue statements such as, “I persevere when things are difficult” or “I welcome others to our community.” Named spaces at Daystar and Mustard Seed positioned messages about learning: Celebration Center or Think Tank. Worship spaces featured sailcloth, a back lit cross, or rocks marked with students’ names piled at the base of a Christ candle. This rock pile was titled Living Stones—a People Belonging to God.

Fourth, the school’s historical and relational nature was often represented. Daystar’s mosaic has a light projecting from the school into the neighborhood. Each of these texts and objects positioned within the school space send messages about what the school values.

While text and visuals lined walls and door frames, they were also stitched into the fabric of activity. We witnessed highly structured, consistent actions in school or classroom routines and heard particular messages educators were shaping in students. Most faith-shaping, heart-head routines related to multigrade worship practices. This article focuses on a morning greeting routine and pedagogical project routines. In these routines, we see intentional liturgies that position the belonging and safety necessary for developing deep thinking.

Good Morning, Alvero

Every morning The Potter’s House experiences a learning liturgy before entering classrooms: a greeting by the superintendent and two to three staff members. Some variation of the routine occurs from elementary grades throughout the high school. We witnessed what was described as a powerful routine expressing welcome, belonging, and care.

You can feel that there’s this electric thing . . . I keep holding their hand until they look up; they have to be seen by an adult; they have to look into the eye of an adult and then I shake their hand. There is a physical handshake, a look in the eye, a smile, and greeting the person by name. So this is a place that the superintendent knows them by name and greets them every day. They belong. . . . Then they will go around the corner and [someone else] will greet them, and then they will go upstairs, and then [someone else] will greet them all again and then when they get into the classrooms they will probably get greeted again. (John Booy)

We greet down all the hallways, and we note how kids are when they come in. . . . We can encourage in different ways, . . . and sometimes we become aware of conflicts and problems, and then we can pray over them [and] alert the teachers. You look at all the different aspects. It’s not just one person doing that but it’s a number getting a sense for where kids are. Last Friday one student . . . just stood and waited until they could make eye contact. . . . He wasn’t moving until they had eye contact. I thought, that’s . . . a powerful reminder why I am here, because of you—and we’re in this together. I need you as much as you need me. (Kathy DeJong)

Simple, repetitive liturgies communicated a sense of belonging foundational for encouraging student engagement and ownership in deep learning. Schools emphasized development of dispositions and thinking skills through texts, actions, and objects structured into corporate research routines.

Going Deeper

Teachers encouraged students to “go deeper” in learning. They articulated belief that students from the youngest to the oldest develop by exploring “gritty” spaces filled with complex ideas and difficult dilemmas.

Those students, . . . so invested in getting that right answer, they’re not open to taking risks or thinking outside of the box or trying to just play with an idea and until that shift happens; they are investing so much energy in the right answer. (Jeanine Bakker)

When you ask them a question that’s not on their homework [and a student says], ‘I don’t have the answer to that! Wait, wait, wait!’ [I say], ‘Yes, I know you already did the homework, we’re going deeper.’ ( Janorisè Robinson)

Going deep isn’t easy; it takes thoughtful, creative curricular and instructional design. At Daystar, learning excursions routinely position embodied inquiry; a middle school bulletin board commends students who are “thoughtful questioners, go above and beyond, or take responsibility in group work.” Instruction emphasizes structures that support inclusion of diverse students as they explore enduring questions and learn more about how they learn. The practice of going deeper mirrors a sacred dance routine: modeling, stepping back, and ceding ownership to students.

In order for children to feel safe enough to take risks, they need to know there is a secure structure in which they work . . . because my goal is for the children to ultimately be in control of their own learning. (Becca Brasser)

Big questions tie into each unit of study[, which] allow for deep discussion and reflection. . . . We see value in both breadth and depth and are wondering if we can do both well. Our goal is to be creative, . . . finding ways to model ‘going deep’ with students so they can carry . . . critical thinking and reflection into their own independent reading and writing. . . . Going deep takes time. (Mark Ponstine)

Really helping them think metacognitively about how they learn . . . that’s part of the growth process. . . . So we really try to diversify in the classroom. (Janorisè Robinson)

While many teachers discussed going deep, few articulated distinctively Christian practices that helped to structure deep learning routines.

The Potter’s House superintendent, Booy, noted how a Christian worldview would anchor all discussions: Everything comes down to our worldview . . . one centered on a radical Jesus. This would come up in every . . . discussion.

We’re always crossing over [from] the curriculum into biblical connections and what we’re learning spiritually. . . . Social studies is the easiest connection because it’s so people-focused. . . . We’re always thinking [in a] deeper way of how . . . the Lord lead[s] in history. . . . I don’t know if there [are] specific examples but just an overall . . . crossing. (Aubree Cantral)

We understand; conscious thinking and discussion about how embodied instructional routines shape hearts and minds for Christ is a work in progress, just like our students’ learning.

Supporting Drafty Classrooms

At the Mustard Seed school, the Pre-K–8 curriculum provides drafting routines using intentional objects and actions. Students practice drafting in both art and writing. Becca Brasser and Shanna Pargellis explain how the drafting process works in their classrooms:

Culminating projects are evidence of the drafting process. In the preschool, children begin their initial drawings and are given opportunities to try again, to leave the work and come back to it over time. In the first grade writing portfolios, the initial drafts of each writing piece are displayed alongside the final, published writing piece. The community expo presented by the students in second and third grades is the result of weeks of research and drafting of artifacts, games, recipes, and presentations. The memoirs written in sixth grade are the fruit of many months of rewriting and drafting activities. The exhibitions given by seventh and eighth grade students have been rehearsed and edited multiple times. By the end of each unit, children and teachers have become more mature as learners, acquiring skills and knowledge along the way that forever impacts future learning endeavors.

Drafting moves beyond a curricular design to a pedagogical routine. For example, first graders enter a recursive decision-making process in project work.

In a recent study of Viking longships, each child’s first attempt at a drawn Viking ship took place after hearing a vague description in a read-aloud book. Then, nonfiction books and other resources were presented to the children who were invited to draw multiple additional drafts. They were encouraged to visit each other’s tables and borrow ideas and strategies. . . . They participated in multiple class meetings to share their work . . . from draft to draft. Children who experienced frustration . . . chose to extend their understanding of Viking ships by creating multiple drafts in sculpture, paint, and blocks.

Project plan phases embed dynamic learning, providing supports through particular texts and objects within the routines of a collaborative learning community.

Students and teachers . . . make an intentional plan, but the plan is held lightly. There is a shared understanding that spontaneity and flexibility are necessary as well . . . from the youngest to the oldest. In classrooms, teachers and children can be heard asking, ‘What is your plan?’ or ‘What might you need to change or do differently?’ Older students visit and talk about their work. This inspires the students to critique their [own] work.

The children carry clipboards or folders containing their current plan and work for easy review by teachers, students, and parents. In kindergarten and the first half of first grade, there are no erasers. This cultivates the idea that mistakes are part of life, can be visible to others in our community, and can be opportunities for learning. Erasers are introduced midway through first grade as a tool for publishing—for crafting a final draft—not for fixing every mistake along the way. By the time children reach the older grades, they use computers and other technological tools exploring how tools make drafting a more complex process.

While not explicitly stated, conscious drafting routines metaphorically frame the dynamic refining of the Christian life. Teacher-led discussions on “going deep” distinctively shaped by biblical, Christian beliefs of Trinitarian God, communion, or Christ’s ministry of reconciliation could provide a sacred space for professional development. Consider reimagining how instructional decisions position text, objects, and actions for embodied routines that shape hearts and minds for Christ.

Note: Read about being known in “Hospitality from Cup to Community” and mistake-making in “Grace in the Missteps.” 

Works Cited

Smith, James K. A. Desiring The Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. Baker Academic, 2009. Print.

—. You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit. Brazos Press, 2016. Print.