C.S. Lewis’s book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe allows Christians to taste the grace of God and love of Jesus. We are all thrilled to see Aslan’s resurrection from the valley of the shadow of death where the Witch had led him. The next scene describes Aslan’s visit to the Witch’s courtyard, where he wakes up all the dead creatures. Lewis dramatically describes it this way:
For a second after Aslan had breathed upon him the stone lion looked just the same. Then a tiny streak of gold began to run along his white marble back, then it spread, then the color seemed to lick all over him as the flame licks all over a bit of paper, then, while his hindquarters were still obviously stone, the lion shook his mane and all the heavy, stone folds rippled into living hair. Then he opened a great red mouth, warm and living, and gave a prodigious yawn. And now his hind legs had come to life. Then, having caught sight of Aslan, he went bounding after him and frisking round him whimpering with delight and jumping up to lick his face. . . . Everywhere the statues were coming to life. The courtyard looked no longer like a museum; it looked more like a zoo. Creatures were running after Aslan and dancing round him till he was almost hidden in the crowd. (Lewis 168).
As a Christian teacher, I find this a very perceptive way to describe and explain Christian education. True education is to breathe living hope into the learners, just as Aslan did to the creatures. All of the statues in the Witch’s courtyard are revived again, so the courtyard no longer resembles a museum filled with the silence of death, but it is now like a zoo where all creatures sing, dance, run, and jump with joy and happiness.
This has led me to imagine two very different classrooms—one taught by Aslan, the other by the Witch. Even though both instructors teach the same content, the results are very different.
Aslan’s classroom is full of joyful noises. All children are allowed to speak, share their learning with other students, and develop their projects in a collaborative atmosphere. Children are treated equally, with care and respect. The classroom is a community where many different activities are designed and integrated into the learning process. Aslan’s classroom is like a playground.
However, the Witch does not allow students to speak when she teaches. All children should be seated quietly, obeying the teacher’s commands. The classroom rules are observed strictly. If a child breaks the rule, he/she is severely punished. The teacher knows everything and the students know nothing. The teacher is considered like a queen, and the classroom operates like a factory. Instead of being a playground, the classroom resembles the Witch’s courtyard described by Lewis, full of dead stone statues.
These analogies of two different classroom settings tell us of two common educational paradigms of education in the United States and Canada. The predominant model for education during the past century has been a factory model, where a desire for efficiency has created schooling with a very limited definition of student success. The students are expected to learn what the teacher teaches. In a playground model, children sing songs, play games, and create opportunities where they learn how to cooperate and communicate with others in informal learning situations. In this paradigm, students constantly explore their worlds and frequently encounter phenomena that they do not understand. By asking questions and collaborating with one another in authentic settings, they ultimately construct their own modes of their experiences.
The table below depicts key characteristics of two school paradigms.
Witch the Teacher | Aslan the Teacher | |
Role of Education | Dispensers of information | Creators and sharing place of new knowledge |
Learning Is . . . | To convey particular piece of information | To discover underlined principles |
Learning Activity | Drudgery, compliance | Excitement, creativity |
Teacher | Knowledge provider, source of information | Guide to information source |
Student | Knowledge receiver | Knowledge producer via collaboration and sharing with others |
Character of Knowledge | Something discovered | Something constructed |
Analogy | Classroom as a factory | Classroom as a playground |
Aslan: A Compassionate, Competent, and Committed Teacher
How can we change the classroom into a living place where the potential of all children is identified and nurtured in much the same way that Aslan changed a silent environment into a place full of joyful noises? Are there any strategies that can help us change from the factory model to the playground model? What can the story of Aslan tell us about how we might change our classrooms? Can Aslan’s method be a useful source in transforming a classroom from a museum, where the unique backgrounds and differences of students has been suppressed, into something far better and filled with life?
In order to answer these questions, we first need to look at Aslan’s character, because true education comes from the teacher’s heart rather than the techniques a teacher uses (Palmer 1998).
First, Aslan is a compassionate teacher who instructs students with love and care. He loves Edmund to a point that he dies for him. He loves all the creatures that were turned into stone by the Witch so much that he came back to them as soon as he arose from the dead. He breathed the living spirit into the stone, and all of the creatures regained their lives. Can schools be improved by introducing the loving and encouraging spirits of teachers like Aslan? Recently, several educators defined the function of school in society as putting the loving heart back into the classroom (Giroux 2003; Palmer 1998; Noddings 2003; Kessler 2000; Halbhavi et al. 2005). This suggests that excellent education depends on caring for students enough to invest time and money to help engage them.
Second, Aslan is a competent teacher who knows his students by name. All students are unique and different. Each student has a different style of learning, a different set of intelligences, and different preferences in learning. Aslan’s method of teaching inspires different students in different ways. He knows how to motivate students and engage them in learning. Lee and Edwards suggest seven essentials for engaging students effectively (293–4), which are key ideas for creating a setting for effective teaching. Those seven essentials are summarized in the table below.
7 Essentials | Meaning | Detailed Examples |
Grab Attention (“Hook”) | Teaching begins in a manner likely to encourage students to look forward to what comes next | Questions and activities that tap into the students’ personal experiences; questions and activities that assess create curiosity and challenge prior knowledge |
Authentic Tasks | Teaching provides students with learning tasks that are as authentic as possible | Students identify and work on real-life problems using a variety of resources and real-life data |
Appropriate, Relevant Resources | Teaching that uses appropriate/relevant resources for learning | Resources support every task option and students’ multiple intelligences using materials such as data, books, videos, experts, contacts, and Web sites |
Cognitively Rich Questions | Teaching poses questions that require students to think critically and formulate their own questions | Questions facilitate an inquiry-based learning; questions introduce contradictory concepts; tasks are framed to pose questions that require critical thinking |
Quality Student Engagement | Teaching involves activities, exercises, and dialogues that focus student thinking, and prepare students to meet learning objectives | Activities create student disequilibrium; activities elaborate (challenge) student thinking;lesson requires students to analyze data, draw conclusions, and apply knowledge |
Opportunities for Reflection | Teaching provides opportunities for the students to “think about their thinking”: to assess their progress and their decisions | End-of-the-lesson activities elicit evidence of what has been learned: by putting concepts together/ by pulling them apart through the lens of learning activities (journaling, discussions, and concept mapping) |
Multiple Assessment Measures | Teaching utilizes multiple forms of assessment using rubrics to judge student achievement and improve instruction | Adopting a variety of assessment: demonstration, design, essay, construction and products, accomplishment of tasks (individual and groups), and teacher observation |
Finally, Aslan is a committed teacher. He fully understands that teaching is a calling from God who implanted the seeds of divine qualities in children who bear God’s image. Being a child of God means having unbounded potential for growth. Therefore, teachers should inspire a deep respect for human dignity as well as a sense of the universal worth of learners. The eternal goal of education is to build a community of shalom where all people enjoy the peaceful relationships with each other the prophet Isaiah described in 11:6, where the lion and the lamb lie down together. Through education, all people grow the inner wholeness of the fulfilled person, but the can also contribute to the building of a relational world characterized by peace with God and peaceful integration within the society of God’s people.
Commitment is the teacher’s values and beliefs on education that drive the teacher’s actions when teaching. Teaching and education can be a useful channel to transform the world when committed teachers work enthusiastically in schools and classrooms.
Works Cited
- Giroux, Henry A. The Abandoned: Democracy Beyond the Culture of Fear. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
- Halbhavi, S., M. Prensky, L.A. Nixon, D. Levin, and L. Francis. “The Leadership Imperative.” Technology & Learning 26.4 (2005): 12–13.
- Kessler, Rachael. The Soul of Education: Helping Students Find Connection, Compassion, and Character at School. Alexandria: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development, 2000.
- Lee, HeeKap, and G. Edwards. (2010). If we build it, they will come: Will constructivism matter in the future of faith-based education? In H. Lee, ed. Faith-Based Education That Constructs. Eugene, OR: WIPF and Stock, 2010, 276–96.
- Lewis, C. S. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. New York: Harper Trophy, 1978.
- Noddings, Nel. Happiness and Education. New York: Cambridge, 2003.
- Palmer, Parker J. The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1998.