Sharing Ideas On Transformational Education
When teachers get together to share ideas, their students benefit. When those ideas focus on gospel-driven transformational education, the benefit is eternal. Carl Miller, who recently attended TeachBeyond’s Transformational Education Conference in the Philippines, came away from the conference with a new appreciation for how teachers can let God work through them to bring transformation to their students. “The conference demonstrated the way that education and teaching go hand-in-hand with God’s work and his spirit to bring change in peoples’ lives. Teachers are in an amazing position to bring transformation to people’s lives,” he said.
Miller teaches Bible at Faith Academy in the Philippines. That seems like an easy subject for the application of transformational education. But how about in subjects like biology or algebra? Miller addresses this as well: “With every subject you would want to push students beyond the facts and knowledge into thinking about why things are the way they are. In science and math, for example, [we can ask students] why are we looking for patterns and why do these formulas work all the time? This encourages students to approach a subject in a theological way.”The conference also covered the difference between explicit and implicit curriculum, Miller said. The implicit curriculum is made up of the attitudes and actions a teacher takes that demonstrate their character and priorities. It can be so much more powerful in a student's life than the content of a class.
Learning how to approach content from a transformational perspective was only a part of what happened at the conference. Becky Hunsberger, director of Teacher Education Services, shared other highlights of the week:
- Sweet times of worshiping together, sometimes in English and sometimes in the other languages
- Learning more about what God is doing through his people across the Asian continent
- Thinking about how to practically and faithfully live out our mission as agents of Holy Spirit-driven change
“[This conference] was a time to build and deepen relationships, to challenge our own cultural mores and hold them up to the light of Scripture, and to deepen our understanding of how to integrate our faith into all that we do, both personally and professionally,” Becky explained.
The TEC conference will be held again in the summer of 2017, likely in Europe or Western Asia. Now is the time to start making plans to attend this amazing conference. To find out more about the 2017 conference, you can contact [email protected].
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