Grant to Fund Integrating Spiritual Practices

November 8, 2007 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Summary: A $56,000 grant to Calvin College will fund a project on integrating
spiritual practices into the Christian classroom.

Full story see http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2007-08/valpo-grant.htm
 
The Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning at Calvin College has
launched a project focusing on the integration of spiritual practices into the
Christian classroom.

The three-year project, titled "From Christian Practices to Christian
Pedagogy," is funded by $56,000 from the Valparaiso Project on the Education
and Formation of People in Faith.

The aim is to go beyond pedagogy that merely conveys information.

"Christian teaching and learning has sometimes meant having Christian theories
and telling students about them," said Kuyers Institute director David Smith, a
Calvin professor of German and Asian languages. "You can be doing Christian
content, but not attending enough to how the way you are teaching influences
learners."

"We're trying to get Christian educators to think about education as
formation," said Calvin professor of philosophy Jamie Smith, who co-leads the
project with David Smith.

The grant will convene a team of 10 colleagues—four from other
institutions— representing such disciplines as political science, biology
and history. The group will engage in a first year of shared study,
culminating in a summer seminar.

In the second year of the project, each of the group members will work toward
incorporating a specific Christian practice into his or her course.

The two Smiths hope that the project will also foster a greater sense of
community in the classroom.

"Too much of our Christian teaching and learning hasn't gotten down to the
idea of how to be together in a classroom," said David Smith. "I found at the
end of my first semester at Calvin that students could sit in my class all
semester and not know the name of the student next to them—because the
important thing is the grade. Some students displayed little sense of
responsibility for whether or not another student fails."

The two leaders of the project—which will culminate in a national conference
and a book—hope to have a significant impact on Christian higher education.

"We think there is a lot at stake in a Christian college," said Jamie Smith.
"We often emphasize that we're not Michigan State. We're different. But what
makes us different isn't just a different set of ideas. At stake is also why we
teach and how we teach."

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Received on Thu Nov 8 08:33:25 2007