Kim Essenburg, English 10 teacher at Christian Academy in Japan, reflects on changing her instructional plan.

She isn’t connecting what she studies and what the Bible teaches. Hiroko, a Japanese student from a Christian family, is talking with me about a book she has read.
 
I ask, “What is the theme of the book?” Hiroko says, “It’s about friendship and how giving your life for someone is the ultimate act of love.” I respond, “What’s a biblical perspective of the book?” And she says, “The book didn’t talk about God, so I don’t think there’s a biblical perspective.” Bummer.
 
Clearly, my instructional plan hadn’t worked for Hiroko. I had modeled making connections between what we read and the Bible. I had taught a biblical principle for every short story, novel, and play we studied—for example, that people’s desperate search for belonging can only be completely fulfilled in God. I had then required students to articulate each biblical principle and how it connected to the work we studied.
 
But I hadn’t actually taught them that God created everything with a purpose and for His glory. I hadn’t actually taught them that there is nothing to which God and His Word are irrelevant. Bummer.
 
My revised plan? To start by teaching a biblical principle about the possibility and necessity of seeing every piece of literature through the lenses of Scripture. And then to teach several broad scriptural themes to which every piece of literature could connect—creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.
 
The result? Book talks are now about the brokenness of the world and about the importance of pursuing biblical justice, reconciliation, faithfulness, and wholeness! And not a single student says, “The book didn’t talk about God, so I don’t think there’s a biblical perspective.” My revised plan is working!

You’re focused on helping your students develop a Christ-centered worldview. During class, you want to help your students connect Biblical principles and what they study.
 
Question: What 3 engaging instructional strategies will you use?
 
Here are 10 options:

1. Advance organizers
2. Case studies
3. Compare/contrast
4. Cooperative learning
5. Debate
6. Discussion
7. Open-ended questions
8. Reflective writing
9. Role play
10. Hypothesis testing

Question: What other engaging instructional strategies can you use?
 
Target Biblical perspective. Use 3 engaging instructional strategies. Today.

Worldview affects educational practice. How does your Christian worldview affect your educational practice? When responding to this question, teachers at Christian Academy in Japan indicated that their Christian worldview affects:

• The essential questions they ask.
• The content and skills they teach.
• The assessments they give.
• The instructional strategies they use.
• The way they manage their classrooms.
  

Real question: The real question isn’t “How does your Christian worldview affect your educational practice?" The real question is “How will you help your students develop a Christian worldview?"

Take action. Today.

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Here’s are the responses of CAJ teachers:

1. The Bible is at the center of the curriculum. All subjects…are taught on the basis of the truth of the Word of God
2. Knowing that God has given us the ability to reason, I must be intentional in emphasizing questions that give students more opportunities to think critically. The questions I've used in the past few weeks have stretched the 8th graders in ways that were sometimes uncomfortable. For example, when I asked them to write the last chapter rough draft of their autobiographies, entitled “Who am I now?”, many struggled with writing what they believed when they know that they act one way but say they believe the opposite.
3. I have students ponder higher-level questions such as “Is there such a thing as a just war?” or “Should Christians support research on genetic engineering?” or “What is my calling in life?"
4. Questions – these should ask things that matter to God; should be core to a better understanding of the nature of God and humanity. Content/skills – should teach process over content (which is the great luxury of English classes) in that we need to know how to apply and understand worldview rather than just what it is.
5. In my curriculum I need to look for the larger principles or topics and not just the details of the unit. What are the life skills and issues I want students to learn and think about? Examples: How do I solve problems with friends? How do I get along with people? How do I serve others? How do I serve God?
6. I teach them to recognize numbers in God’s creation, giving them more appreciation. We look at social issues with the perspective of numbers, giving them another viewpoint to draw upon.
7. What I test, I value. I have to be careful about what I test. Does it really help students to articulate a Biblical worldview? Does it help them answer the core questions? For instructional strategies, I focus heavily on collaboration. I used to have my proof text for collaboration up in my room: Proverbs 27:17. I guess I’ve internalized that and seen the value over and over again of students working together…. As for classroom management, my worldview of people being made in the image of God comes out in this area. Students working together in a class will respect each other, listen to each other, and value each other as God’s creations.
8. Because I believe that my students are made in the breathtaking image of the invisible, triune God, each of them an active meaning maker with significant contributions to give and receive in the classroom community, I have them do many group activities, I challenge them with tough questions and/or choice, and I model, encourage, and require them to connect subject matter, faith, and life. Because I also believe that image is heartbreakingly defaced and distorted by the Fall, I realize the carrot method won’t always work. I try to make expectations clear and enforce them firmly—expectations regarding behavior, due dates, prompts for unit assessments, and school policies like dress code and late work.
9. My Christian worldview affects how I respond to students and how I teach them to respond to others. I put a lot of emphasis on teaching about treating each other fairly and that each person is talented in their own way.  I spend time teaching about right ways to speak to others, what it means to be uplifting, and what respect looks like. Part of this focus comes from personal hard experiences growing up with peers. My biggest reason for this emphasis is how often it is talked about or shown in stories in the Bible, especially in Jesus’ life. Loving your neighbor as yourself is the second greatest commandment, and Jesus showed so often that He cared about those others overlooked. He placed a huge emphasis on relationships, and that has been something I have always wanted to focus on – valuing relationships and keeping them healthy.
10. I value students learning to be responsible for themselves. This affects the way I teach the students to care for the classroom including materials, clean up procedures, desk organization. I value a variety of ways for students to show their understanding and so I do not give a lot of tests. I like to give students opportunities to apply their learning and so projects and process oriented ways to assess are used. I value and appreciate that all learners learn differently and so I use a variety of instructional strategies. I use a variety of groupings (whole group, small group, and individual conferences) and an approach that scaffolds the learning where needed.
11. As a Christian, I believe that every child has been created in the image of God, the Creator. This means that every child is creative in some way. In the art curriculum, I want to provide a wide variety of projects and assignments that give each child a chance to express themselves creatively. I want my questions to trigger thought and discussion that would help students learn more about God and His character and their relationship to Him. (What can we learn about God and his character from studying art? What is Christian Art? What does studying the principles of art tell us about God?)
12. I try to take every available opportunity to get my students to see a question from a perspective they have never experienced before. I do this because I believe that people are naturally (fallenly) bent in on themselves, preferring to see only themselves and the world as it appears and applies to them. By broadening their horizons, then, I can encourage them to take their attention away from themselves and be truly e-ducated (Latin: led out). I don’t do this because I believe that all perspectives are equally valid (they aren’t), but because resistance to seeing other perspectives is a symptom of selfishness.

A person’s worldview is connected to how s/he answers questions. How can you help your students understand this?

To help their students, teachers at Christian Academy have their students:

1. Role play.
   
2. Compare and contrast responses.
   
3. Process responses to questions.
   
4. Debate.
   
5. Discuss.
   
6. Learn about a variety of perspectives.
   
7. Connect perspective and behavior.

Real question: The real question isn’t “How can you help your students understand that worldview affects how a person answers questions?” The real question is “How will you help your students understand that worldview affects how a person answers questions?”

Take action. Today.

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Here are responses of teachers at Christian Academy in Japan:

1. My students understand differing worldviews when I have them role play and represent the ideas of someone that does not have the same view they do. When they role play, they learn that actions come from thoughts and thoughts are formed based on worldview. Giving students examples of conflicting or differing worldviews (i.e., literature, history, news, media) can help them see that people will respond and act differently depending on their worldview.
   
2. Last week I decided I wanted to begin senior English with the question, “What is the nature of man?” Why will that question help them see worldview, both their own, and others by contrast? They read Chaucer and Beowulf—decidedly differing views of the nature of man. I think that asking this question of themselves and of these two different pieces of literature, and of the medieval mind, will help students understand worldview. The medieval differs strongly from the present, but even within the span, early to late (Beowulf to Canterbury Tales), there is a strong disparity between views. Hopefully this will help the seniors see worldview as the source of choices.
   
3. Students need to be exposed to concrete examples of various worldviews…. One good example from the first grade curriculum is the study of Korea and the Venn diagram of Korean families and the student’s family. In “Our School” unit in second grade, I need to do more intentional teaching of Japanese school (or schools in other countries) and have students look at the differences. There are books in the library that tell about schooling in other countries.
   
4. By continuing to ask questions that force them to back up to basic beliefs. Eventually, they have to get to worldview. And the final answer is not “Because God made it that way!” Perhaps as I start the platonic solids unit, I will ask students to answer the question, “What’s beautiful?” How students answer this question will hint at worldview assumptions. I will then weave that question into future lessons each day. We will then examine a Biblical view of beauty and find support for it using specific Bible texts.
   
5. In math, I often look at the process for answers to see how students figure problems out; I scrutinize how students solve problems. There is also is a similar process that I use to help students to come up with their answers to my key questions. Through this process, students learn what their worldview is as it is being formed. I break down their thinking to small chunks (looking at social issues, and patterns around us) to grasp the process of building their worldview.
   
6. Have my students debate the issue of how increasing technology affects the lives of people, especially students. Since both sides of an issue must be presented in a debate, I hope to have enough time for students to switch sides, even if they don’t agree with the argument. Following the debate, I hope to have a discussion about the values held by each perspective, leading up to the idea that worldview is connected to how people respond to issues.
   
7. I would have to have questions, first of all, questions that would elicit different responses based on a person’s worldview. Then I would need to create an opportunity to talk about those answers. Or have them (the questions) displayed in a way that students could see that worldview affects the way one would answer them.
   
8. After working with the course question “Who am I?” in various ways for 3 quarters, students write a paper answering that question, addressing who they are spiritually, temperamentally, and culturally. To address who they are spiritually, we have discussed that people are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27), fallen, but loved and offered redemption, fully known by God (Ps. 139), and gifted and placed in the body to serve (Ro. 12), where they are one in Christ (Gal. 3:28). Students must articulate the Christian belief, but are encouraged to state to what degree they embrace it. To address who they are temperamentally, students learn about Meyers-Briggs profiling, take an online assessment, and read about and discuss their outcome. To address who they are culturally, students read the article “The Values Americans Live By” by L. Robert Kohls and discuss which values Japanese, Koreans, the CAJ community, and they themselves hold. After writing the first draft of the paper, they discuss ways beliefs/personality, personality/culture, and culture/beliefs interact.
   
9. Students need to be asked the questions and have an opportunity to answer. I think it’s quite amazing how often teachers/coaches talk and share what they think, but rarely do they stop and ask the kids what they think. By giving them this opportunity, students think for themselves. Students also need an opportunity to see and hear that others have different opinions and perspectives. If they never see or hear that, it’s quite easy for students to think everyone thinks the same.
   
10. I can help students to see the difference that their answer to my question makes in the way that they live their lives. This prevents them from thinking that this is all “abstract” and allows them to play out the significance of their thinking in concrete situations. I can do this by approaching a question in several steps: (1) What are the possible answers to the question? (2) What are possible strategies for choosing an answer? (3) What difference will the strategy and answer we pick make in our lives? A question with which I recently used these steps is: “How should we use the Old Testament law in our ethical thinking as Christians?”

Your daughter is having her 7th birthday.

You carefully select her present, one that you know she’ll enjoy. One that says, “I love you.” You put the present in a box, along with the batteries, so she can enjoy it right away.

You wrap her present is special wrapping paper that has characters from Winnie the Pooh on it. She likes Winnie the Pooh. Seeing this paper will make her happy and anticipate the gift. On a bright blue card, you write: “Kim, happy birthday! We love you.—Mom and Dad.” You put the card on the present where she’ll see it, read it, and feel special.

You take the present and put it where she can see it during her birthday dinner. After dinner you give it to her, saying, “Happy birthday, Kim!” You watch as Kim tears open the present and squeals with delight. She gives you a big hug

“Yes,” you say, “I know how to give my daughter a present. But what I want to know is how teaching a biblical perspective is like giving a present.”

Well, let me ask you a question: What difference does it make if you don’t know how to give a present?

• If you don’t carefully select a gift?
  
• If you don’t include the batteries?
  
• If you don’t wrap it?
  
• If you don’t put a card on it?
  
• If you don’t put it where she can enjoy anticipating it?
  
• If you don’t watch as she opens it?

What difference does it make if you hand her an unwrapped present, walk away without speaking, turn the TV on, and watch a program? A big difference. You know it does.

Now let me ask you this: What difference does it make if you make teaching a biblical perspective like giving a present?

• If you carefully select a topic that your students are interested in?
  
• If you include “batteries,” that is, everything your students need so they can apply the biblical perspective to the topic?
  
• If you wrap the lesson in an intriguing question, a case study, or a small group discussion?
  
• If you take 3 steps to increase student anticipation of understanding and using a biblical perspective?
  
• If you share with your students 2 heartfelt reasons why you want them to apply a biblical perspective to this topic?
  
• If you take a sincere interest in your students during the lesson?

So, how is teaching a biblical perspective like giving a present? You tell me. Then use your answer. Today.

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Bruce Young, MTW missionary
What does the Christian teacher posses that enables him/her to not only teach and explain truths, but to live out and model solid Biblical values? And how does he train himself/herself to do this? Underlying my question is the conviction that we need to be daily believing in the Gospel of God's grace where we see ourselves to be under God's radical grace. The minute we get away from this, we become judgmental, performance oriented rather than dependent and humble, cold, removed, etc. The more we walk in line with the truth of the Gospel the more the gap is closed.