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joespencer
Robert C.
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KarenClassroom and community: the importance of the teaching situation
Posted by joespencer on January 10, 2007
In the course of discussing the role of paradox in teaching, I realized that there might be reason to take up a sort of “phenomenology of the LDS classroom” or something like that. That is, how much more important (or less important) is the community that underlies the teaching situation than the content, the material presented, the doctrines dwelt on, the questions asked, in short the lesson (recognizing of course that to some degree the community is these things)?
I had already been thinking about this question, curiously. My wife was called two months ago to teach in the Relief Society from the Presidents of the Church manual, and we were talking about some of her concerns and successes so far. She mentioned that she had begun to believe that there were two important “moments” to teaching by the Spirit (and I should probably state that I wholeheartedly believe one should teach by the Spirit always, though we should probably dedicate an entire blog to that subject): first, the teacher must know the spirit of the material, and second, the teacher must know the spirit of the classroom. That is, the teaching moment is a sort of interplay between those two spirits: the spirit of the material and the spirit of the classroom. Playing Hegel’s advocate (which sounds so much like devil’s advocate, it’s frightening!), I suggested that the two moments are really two faces of the far more fundamental teaching situation (fundamentally a community, a face-to-face situation), and that if one begins with the two tasks of knowing the spirit of the material and knowing the spirit of the classroom, it will ultimately be impossible to catch the meanderings of the Spirit (I love having a wife who studies Hegel with me). In formulaic terms: spirit plus spirit does not equal the Spirit, though the Spirit may well entail spirit plus spirit.
Over the course of the wonderful discussion that followed, we spent a great deal of time thinking about the nature of the Spirit int he classroom. If the Spirit ultimately marks the communion (read: community) of the Father and the Son, then does it not do the same in the classroom? That is, doesn’t the Spirit establish the community of the classroom precisely because it gathers the people together within the bounds of the text? Lest all of this be too cryptic–too Hegelian–let me state it this way: if the Spirit is in the classroom, then we can interpret the texts “correctly” (which I don’t think means absolutely, nor do I think it means the same way every time) and “together” (which I don’t think means in perfect agreement, nor do I think it means in terms of the group). In short, if the class is gathered together interpretively within the bounds of the text, the Word is made flesh in us as a class, and the classroom experience becomes sacramental, becomes a kind of communion, or the foundation of community.
Now this leaves open a major question: how on earth does the Spirit come to be a part of the classroom, and can we pick out experiences where this has happened or not happened? How can a classroom at once be an instance of “justice” (charity) and yet “truth” (learning)?
John said
So many parantheses! My head hurts…
Is this another of your paradoxes Joe? You’re the teacher. Can’t we just sort this out now, and go home early? :D
Joe Spencer said
Sorry, being trained in continental philosophy, I don’t know how to write a sentence without at least three sets of paragraphs, four dashes, and two or three “that is”‘s, “in other words”‘s, or “put another way”‘s.
A little more seriously (but only a little more), I realize that wherever I am discussing issues at some remove from scriptural texts themselves, I almost immediately begin to speak incoherently. I’ll have to make my next post a scriptural question.
Robert C. said
Joe, I like the plethora of parentheses that you use b/c it makes me feel less guilty for using so many myself (a bad habit I know; I guess I mean misery–or at least weakness, that is (ostensibly) poor writing habits in this case–loves company…).
I like your post and think I follow most of it. However, I didn’t quite follow this bit:
My inclination is to think you mean, roughly, that if we understand both the spirit of the material and the spirit of the classroom, then a third spirit, the Spirit (Holy Ghost), will enter in and we will have an inspired lesson.
At first I thought you meant something more to the effect that we should not strive to master the spirit of the lesson or the spirit of the classroom because they are unmasterable, and if we do, then the spirit will remain unharnessed (in the sense of perhaps coming to our classroom, but despite our efforts instead of a because of our efforts, something I’ve unfortunately seen in my own classroom!).
Joe Spencer said
Hmmm… I see that I’ve been a bit more cryptic than usual. I meant, actually, that understanding the spirit of the material and understanding the spirit of the classroom is not enough to teach by the Spirit. The two do not add up to the one formulaically. Put another way, a way I think I agree with still more: if we understand the spirit of the material and/or if we understand the spirit of the classroom, then we must already have taught by the Spirit (we can only think these two spirits if we have participated in the Spirit, at the very least because we think–we thank–as response, not in advance). In other words, one can only come to understand the spirit of the material or the spirit of the lesson by responding to the profoundly Spiritual teaching/classroom experience, not by thinking out the possibilities, interpretations, dynamics, etc., in advance (can this be summarized as “take no thought, etc.”?).
So I’m sorry to announce that I meant precisely the opposite to what you were inclined to think I mean, Robert. If I can phrase my point using as many of your words as possible: roughly, if we understand both the spirit of the material and the spirit of the classroom, then a third spirit, the Spirit (Holy Ghost), must already have entered into a specific classroom event (we experienced an inspired teaching/learning situation). I hope that clarifies things.
Robert C. said
Joe #4: Thanks, I see now. Besides the “take no thought” scripture, I think these “given in the very hour” passages also come to mind to support the point that the response must happen in-live-time so-to-speak, “not in advance” as you say.
Karen Spencer said
Hello, all. I never thought I’d actually join in on any of these discussions, but here I am (yes, I’m Joe’s wife who started this whole question). If it helps to clarify things, here is how I explained it to Joe in the first place.
The first time I taught I assumed “teaching by the Spirit” meant simply listening for promptings as to what to say – that all my attention, spiritually, should be thinking about what God wanted me to say next. It worked ok but there was something missing. As I was about to teach the next month, I worried about how to address the needs in our classroom – something I was told to do, but with a large and varied class, I had no idea what the needs were or how to resolve them through the lesson. I prayed to know the needs of the sisters in there, and also, to know how they were responding as I taught.
The result was amazing. I found myself listening very closely to all comments and watching faces carefully. I felt like I was having a conversation with the whole class, as if they were one person.
So, the way I consequently described it to Joe was that I began to see teaching as a two-step process:
1. Pray to know the thoughts and hearts of your students, and be ready to know this by the Spirit.
2. Once you can feel where they are at (in general, or in understanding your lesson), then the Spirit can inspire you how to teach them more; once you know they are at point A, the Spirit can tell you how to get them to point B.
Now we come to the original post. Is teaching a two-step process? Is this system flawed? He cautioned me that if I spend all of my time focusing on the class and the material separately beforehand, it wouldn’t work. The reason I was able to understand where the class was at and that so much real teaching went on was because the Spirit was uniting us as we were caught up in the teaching situation. As Joe put it,
“if we understand both the spirit of the material and the spirit of the classroom, then a third spirit, the Spirit (Holy Ghost), must already have entered into a specific classroom event (we experienced an inspired teaching/learning situation).”
I’m brand-new to the blog world so I hope I didn’t take too long or divert your original post, Joe. I hope this helps clarify the question and allows us to get on to answering Joe’s post. I am eager to hear your responses.
Robert C. said
Karen #6: Nice to know you actually exist, many of us were wondering if anyone really agreed to marry Joe–but your post is coherent enough that either you really exist or Joe is more schizophrenic than I can conceive….
Like many teachers and speakers I imagine, I’ve learned (the hard way, and more than once…) the importance of praying that my lesson or talk will benefit those listening rather than praying to “do a good job,” which oftentimes just means “please help me look good in front of others,” leaving unsaid a lack of concern for those listening.
Thanks for your very insightful comment.
brianj said
This is a great post. I’ve been struggling with this as a teacher since I began teaching Gospel Doctrine to a class of 50-80 students (I teach in the sacrament meeting room). In other teaching settings (