John Walcott: This special issue of CEJ focuses on Sacred Space Pedagogy, and we will use this space to respond to two questions posed by the editors related to this theme. Here are the questions:
- In conversations about Sacred Space Pedagogy, we have found that educators quickly suggest chapel as an example. While chapel provides a critical sacred space, what other places or activity spaces in your school or classroom provide learning opportunities for encountering the sacred?
- In this issue, we share school routines and practices that build distinctively Christian kingdom activity, such as forgiveness routines or welcome practices. However, educators often have more difficulty articulating specific classroom examples of routines and practices embedded in their pedagogy that pursue kingdom activity. Can you describe any teaching examples?
Gayle Monsma initiated our conversation with the following:
This year our school decided to create a school garden where we are growing vegetables that will be used for school activities as well as donated to the local food bank. In addition, we began a school-wide compost program that provides organic matter for the gardens. While all of this could be considered “sacred space,” at the center of our garden is an outdoor classroom space that includes a pergola, rocks and stumps for students to sit on, and trees that will eventually provide shade and shelter (see photo). While still new for us, we are finding that it is a special place for learning, reflecting, being quiet, connecting with your peers and schoolmates, praying, reading and all sorts of other sacred activities.
Teaching examples of kingdom activity: For the last number of years, Covenant Christian has been using the Teaching for Transformation (TfT) school growth program that includes three specific core practices that are focused on “kingdom building”: (1) a classroom storyline that teachers and students use to place their learning and living within God’s Big Story, (2) discipleship concepts, or “throughlines,” such as justice-seeking, beauty-creating, and God-worshiping that teachers use as “thematic velcro” to give meaning and context to the curriculum the class is learning, and (3) Formational Learning Experiences (FLEx) that give the students a hands-on way to practice living out the throughlines. FLEx aim to address the real needs of real people, giving the students a real audience for their learning. Our work with TfT has been an incredible, kingdom-building experience that is truly transforming our school community! (Visit http://pcce.tftshare.ca/ for more details.)
Rebecca DeSmith replied:
Gayle, your school garden sounds amazing! What a great idea for many reasons: to teach students about growing plants and sustaining the earth, to offer authentic experiences in sharing your wealth with real people in need, and to provide space for students to experience God and his creation in a unique way at school.
I’m glad you mentioned Teaching for Transformation, and I am so happy that it has been effective in your school. This past year, I was part of an Early Adopters group at Sioux Center Christian School to explore Teaching for Transformation. This approach to teaching and learning has challenged me to think differently about how I design units and how I invite my students into God’s kingdom work.
Thinking about sacred spaces in our schools, I am reminded of the idea of “thin places.” The idea of thin places has its roots in Celtic mysticism, but many Christians have applied this idea to spirituality. Thinking in this way, a thin place is a place where the boundary between heaven and earth is especially thin. It’s a place where we can sense God’s divine presence more readily, where we can experience God more directly, and where we feel close to God. In an early TfT session our leader and teacher, Darryl De Boer, challenged us by asking, “Are your classrooms thin places where students can be close to God . . . where they can feel the presence of God?”
I’ve been thinking a lot about this question over the past year. Is my classroom a thin place? In thinking about this, I realized something important: thin places in our classrooms begin with us! It begins with our attitudes, the environment we nurture in our classrooms, and it depends upon the relationships we foster with our students. I believe that thin places begin with love. Thin places respect and accept all students, no matter their differences.
Thin places thrive when genuine and real relationships are built. They are places where we invite the Holy Spirit to move freely among our desks, books, and devices, where the Holy Spirit is heard in our words, is seen in our actions, and flows out of our hearts to our students and colleagues.
Thinking in this way, sacred spaces can be any place where the Holy Spirit is present and where love abounds. My hope and prayer is that TfT will help our entire school to be a sacred space for students to experience and explore God’s love, grace, and peace.
Christian Altena responded with teaching examples from his history class:
Gayle, I love the garden. And Rebecca, the idea of thin places is wonderful and compelling . . . and likely challenging in a humid room packed with ninth graders.
Several years ago I challenged myself to go beyond casual connections to our faith in the study of history; I wanted my teaching to be more integrated, sustained, and devotional. One of the results has been the creation of what I termed “History Litanies.” I begin each class period with prayer and a PowerPoint slide, usually connecting something that happened on that day in history to a scriptural theme or story. Many of the litanies are simple, riffing off a word or an obvious connection; some of them are humorous; several are politically or culturally engaging and critiquing. While most of the litanies are connected with a specific date, others are not, so they are free to be grouped thematically according to a current issue or topic of study. We are frequently amazed, however, how often a dated slide perfectly matches something in the news or even a question on the last test.
A more significant result of this integration meant moving away from a strict chronological approach to an emphasis on theme. My units have titles like The American Dream, War and Peace, and City Upon a Hill. Thematic units allow for a rich and natural integration of subject matter and discussion of American church history and scriptural principles. For example, we discuss the church’s role in politics, economics, and society in all units. The Civil War is discussed in War and Peace but is also featured prominently in City Upon a Hill. Questions like these can be posed: How are moral arguments and biblical ideals being used to understand the bloodshed in the 1860s, government legislation of the Progressive Era, or the concepts of Manifest Destiny and the American Dream?
(To see examples of my “History Litanies” visit the CEJ website at www.cejonline.com.)
Justin Cook closed the discussion with the following:
You’ve all shared such amazing examples of the sacred brought into the learning experience for teachers and students—thin spaces where heaven and earth are indeed the same place, as you’ve said, Rebecca. Reading through your responses brought to mind a few things for me to add to the conversation.
First, I was reminded of Parker Palmer yet again and went back to The Courage to Teach to see what he had to say about the sacred. He states that the sacred might be defined simply as that which is “worthy of respect.” I love how broad this is. Without this sense of the sacred, education “suffers the worst possible fate—it becomes banal” (111). Later Palmer talks about the sacred as a space: “In a sacred landscape, with its complexities and convolutions, surprise is a constant companion: it lies just around the bend or hidden in the next valley, and though it sometimes startles us, it often brings delight” (112). I think this is a pretty simple way of looking at it—a teacher who honors sacred spaces and children as sacred image-bearers worthy of respect creates conditions for wonder and surprise. I once heard a definition of wonder that I really like: it is to approach the unknown with an expectation of pleasure.
The young children in your photo, Gayle, brings me to one celebration of sacred spaces here in Ontario too—our kindergarten classrooms. They often use inquiry-based and play-based approaches to learning with a wonder wall displayed in the classroom that is accessible for the 4- to 5-year-olds to contribute to. More and more they’re using natural elements both inside and outside—wood, sand, and stone as opposed to plastics—to wonder about and play with. These become “provocations” for wonder and inquiry. One Senior Kindergarten (SK) teacher shared this in our kindergarten forum:
My two SK classes were wondering what would happen if we put some seeds and soil in our empty pumpkin. “A tree will grow.” “A petunia will grow in it.” “It will explode.” “It will make more seeds.” We had a great discussion about where to put the pumpkin—inside or outside? On the big kids’ playground? What if the big kids touch it? The children created signs to ensure that no one would tamper with the pumpkins. We will leave it outside all year and see what happens!
Approaching the unknown with an expectation of pleasure . . . I worry that we lose this more and more as we move through the schooling experience. (Cue the Ken Robinson TEDTalk here?) Christian, this is why I love it so much that you take the time for your “History Litanies.” Others might say there isn’t time for that, but is the tyranny of “covering all the content” a slide toward education as “banal”?
One last example from a professional learning space. Rebecca, I love the way you celebrate a shared vision for learning as it develops among your staff through TfT. As I’m writing this, I’m anticipating our annual Christian Teacher Academy that we run each August. This year we’ll have approximately eighty teachers working on project designs across all subjects and grades. This summer learning space is also full of surprise and wonder (and nervousness) for us as educators. How will this project I’m designing work out? How can I design it intentionally to include student voice and choice in the learning? Am I really going to contact that community expert that I think can deepen our learning in the project? Will my principal appreciate it when I share it with her at the end of the week? For me, the Christian Teacher Academy week is also a “sacred landscape” because we gather together to celebrate and challenge each other to design learning that students can experience as sacred too. We’re not always sure where it is taking us, but we believe in the possibility of delight.
Thanks for inspiring me with your own sacred spaces!
John Walcott:
To close, I thank our panelists for the rich and generative discussion and suggestions. In addition, I would like to highlight just a few things that emerged for me from these responses. First, please note Gayle’s description of the variety of “sacred activities” that accompany the diverse range of sacred spaces. Second, I appreciate Rebecca’s challenge to create thin places in our classrooms and to recognize that these places begin with us. As I first read Rebecca’s response, her reference to thin places made me think of theologian Miroslav Volf’s criticism of “thin faith,” which lacks deep biblical roots. Clearly this is much different from thin places, which seek to draw us closer to God. Christian’s example effectively demonstrates that a classroom routine can provide the foundation for compelling integration of faith and life, for welcoming students into a sacred space. Finally, Justin has highlighted the fact that our desire to create sacred spaces must extend beyond the classroom to our professional learning environment.
The panel consists of:
Christian Altena, who teaches at Chicago Christian High School in Palos Heights, Illinois.
Justin Cook, who serves as the Director of Learning at the Ontario Alliance of Christian Schools in Ancaster, Ontario.
Rebecca De Smith, who is the Discovery Room coodinator and the curriculum coordinator at Sioux Center Christian School in Sioux Center, Iowa.
Gayle Monsma, who serves as principal at Covenant Christian School in Leduc, Alberta.
John Walcott, who is assistant professor in the education department at Calvin College.
Works Cited
Palmer, Parker. The Courage to Teach. Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life.Jossey-Bass, 1998. Print.
Volf, Miroslav. A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good. Brazos Press, 2011. Print.
