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"Linking Beliefs, Values and Academics Within the SDA College Curriculum as part of the Integration of Faith in the Learning Process"

By

Franklyn N. Baldeo

Integration and its functions, operations and programmed should be at the core of the Christian College. The basis for this integration is the belief that life is a whole and not merely an assemblage of parts, that the life and work of the institution is a whole and not merely an assemblage of courses and programmes, that the life of the students, staff and faculty are wholes and not the uneasy co-existence of academic and family values. This belief is one rooted in the scriptures from which we learn that all things owe their origin and sustenance to God through whose integrity, love and justice all they held together in unity.

Thus, at the Christian College, every course should be an integrative course, every day an integrative course, every day an integrative day, every worship service and devotional an integrated service and devotional. Every meal time should be integrative, with these incorporating the meeting of nutritional and energy needs of the students, understanding of the nature of foods, education on the foods of various cultures, celebration of the gift of food, nurturing of Christian fellowship, and nurturing our Christian faith. Facilities and their maintenance, the auxiliary programmes for school and community, or outreach, and conferences we hast, should be similarly integrative, within and without, internally and externally, in relation to God and in relation to Creation and society.

Why then am I making these statements, when this is and should be the aim of every Christian college? I do so because I believe that for all the talk about the integration of faith and learning, values and faith, faith and life, or any other way we wish to market it in our public relation literature, we faculty members are, more often than not, at a loss as to how to link beliefs, values and academics in appropriate and legitimate in and out of the classroom. Indeed, a colleague, from another Christian college told me some time ago that his peers would rather not even talk about the issue, I suspect more out of frustration as to how to go philosophical quarrel with the concept. And thus I believe is the heart of the problem for us. We tend to glance at the floor and fidget in our seats whenever we hear "the integration of faith and learning". We react with ambivalence not because we do not wish to be about the task of integration, but because, if we are truly honest with ourselves, we are not sure on a practical level how to pull it off in an engaging manner.

Perhaps there was a time when Christian higher education could provide a truly Christian education without directly confronting the values and assumptions inherent in our culture or clearly articulating an orthodox Christian worldview. Whether or not legitimacy of this nature was achieved in the past, I am convinced it is no longer an option, although this approach continues to be the mode of operation at many institutions. Students, right here at C.U.C. can and do graduate without ever confronting the implications of their faith upon the disciplines they study, the careers they choose to pursue, or the neighbourhoods in which they live.

To understand why a situation like this could happen, we need to get a clear picture of how the institution operates. In this regard, there are two different schools of thought. There is the "message-dominant" and the "life-dominant" college.

"Message-dominant" schools tend to be on the biblically conservative end of the theological spectrum and usually have a fairly precise faith statement which students and faculty must adhere to. Message-dominant schools place heavy emphasis on the message of the word preeminently occurring during regular (and usually mandatory) chapel, spiritual renewal conferences, and the healthy dose of Bible and/or doctrine courses incorporated into the general education of the institution. Classes are often begun with prayer. These programmes and practices are built into the message-dominant colleges and are the primary agents which make the education one receives there "Christian".

On the other hand the "life-dominant" college is theologically more moderate than its counterparts. There is no faith statement which must be honoured, but there are a few regulatory guidelines drawn up so as to demonstrate that these are not just Christian taboos, but they also are validated by the most recent sociological and psychological research. In these colleges, lectures must have a Christian faith commitment although there is a latitude allowed for the outworking of this commitment that many conservative Christians might find somewhat disconcerting. While there are regular chapel services, students are not mandated to attend so most do not. Neither do most faculty. There are other opportunities for spiritual renewal on the life-dominant campus, but the optional nature of these programmes seems to doom them to spares participation. Any active commitment to service is taken as a sign of the student commitment to the Gospel, but the integral linkage of the two is not often made explicit.

It is important to point out that both categories often fail to address the linkage of Christianity and values consistently across the curriculum and have had very little to say regarding the impute of Christianity upon the creation and maintenance of a coherent and holistic world view. Too often message-dominant institutions view their proclamation of the Gospel from the programme created within the campus community and used as a basis for suggesting that the education received by students as "Christian". After opening the class with prayer, however, the lecture may do little to relate the course content to belief and or values. Conversely, life-dominant college can tend to place such emphasis on action and the individuals' choice to act that the Gospels' rational for such action may not be the subject of discussion in many classes. Lectures in life-dominant schools are extremely adept at busing their teaching on moral imperatives for just and compassionate action, hence the "Christian" nature of the education. But out of a concern for offending non-Christians or because of their own reluctance to speak of faith issues, the value orientation of their teaching tends to hang on these by itself without much of any grounding in a Christian worldview framework.

However, today my presentation for a truly Christian higher education demand even more from its teachers and administrators.

It is of utmost importance that message-dominant college no longer rely primarily on the programme they have created on campus, to communicate the Christian values to the student body. A campus which requires chapel attendance and where lecturers pray before classes can still fail miserably at helping students think Christianly in all areas of life and across the curriculum. To develop ways to help students in their struggles, to understand the implications of a truly Christian worldview upon each discipline and in all areas of life must lie at the heart of Christian higher education.

Life-dominant schools must stop taking for granted that students comprehend the linkage between the secondary call to moral/ethical social action and a personal faith commitment. We are all guilty of compartmentalized thinking (and faith).

The life-dominant Christian college must challenge the tendency to fracture the human experience by clearly providing opportunities to explore biblical foundations for faith and action across the curriculum. As lecturers, whether in message - or life-dominant school, we should commit ourselves to sharpening our pedagogical skills to include these issues in our courses when legitimate and appropriate situations arise.

Ah! But the grand question seminars, how do we do it? Before we all get too frustrated by yet another one of "those" presentations and that it joins its compatriots in our minds labeled as: "For deeper reflection when time allows" let me be encouraging.

I believe that there are different levels at which such integration occurs across the Christian college network occurs across the Christian college network.

What I would encourage us to do is to go to further, to build on the base we already have, to be even more international, more sophisticated and more creative in linking beliefs and values to our respective academic discipline. Once we clearly understand the levels at which integration occurs we can build into our courses appropriate discussions, projects, portfolios, research papers, lectures or readings that truly stimulate our students to take their beliefs with them into all of life's' challenges.

I want to propose here four different levels of integration that can take place. Each level builds on the successful utilization of the preceding levels and in fact presupposes the lecturers' appropriate manipulation of data and methods at these levels. The levels of integration are mutually coherent not mutually exclusive. Many lectures probably shift back and forth between different levels without consciously realizing it. At each level there is a greater intensity of faith-discipline integration generally correlated with Blooms' Taxonomy of Higher Levels of Learning which implies increasing degrees of confrontation with interpretive and value questions because teaching strategies are made progressively more explicit to these levels. It is also important to note that integration at the first three levels is perfectly applicable either to the secular or Christian learning environment.

In this level the lecturer seeks to transmit solid knowledge within the discipline to the next generation of citizens and to pursue respectable scholarship in that field. By modelling good teaching and rigorous scientific research, lecturers in this category hope to reflect their commitment to Christ. By being respected members of the faculty, they hope to bring honour to Christ. The only time issues related to faith are brought up is when students approach the lecturer which, surprisingly, happen occasionally. Even then these may be some reluctance to share too specifically with the searching student.

The next level is what I term:

This second level of integration occurs when the lecturer validates the possibility of multiple views of reality. The Christian scholar understands that humans operate according to many different imperatives at the same time. We are not solely noble nor rational creatures, but neither are we opposite because the Creation, though fallen, retains the imprint of the Creator. Lecturers integrating at this level might challenge materialistic answers to aesthetic, scientific and humanistic questions of knowing and being by questioning through lecturers or discussions the underlying assumptions of various perspectives. Christianity provides the scholar at this level with a theoretical framework for interpreting knowledge and life just as the other theorists. These lecturer utilize historic Christian doctrine to interpret knowledge and life, but few will explicitly announce to their students their theoretical assumptions.

The third level of integration is

Here we find the lecturer exploring deep value assumptions of an ethical, moral, philosophical or spiritual nature in the classroom. Lively discussions oriented to values discussions can make integration at this level much more stimulating to the students than the essentially straightforward presentation of material in lecture form as is often the case at the second level. Lecturer could guide these discussions such that issues of faith might ultimately arise, but might hesitate to share in class just why these values have for fear of appropriate boundaries, Value-based teaching can demonstrate the relativity of values if they are only based on social consensus. As such it can also crack the door open to discussions regarding the authority or ground for values which could lead directly to faith-related exchanges. These types of issues lend themselves handily to even larger questions related to the personal world view of students and their implications for an assortment of values and behaviours.

I have discovered that it is at this level of integration where students become actively involved, Lecture material can and should emphasize value but such information should be introduced in such a way as to elicit student responses so that they might make that linkage with their own thinking on these issues. The focus on values seems to be most simply achieved by the use of supplementary readings. Class discussions based on these readings often allow students to confront the bases for their own attitudes, environmentalism, the impact of technology on cultural norms, the pursuit of leisure are sexism, etc. Small group worksheets centered on value-based, open-ended questions give rise to lively debate in class. Sometimes splitting the class into opposing campus to debate critical issues, works well as a way to review key readings and to enter the domain of value-centered teaching as long as the lecturer can serve as an effective moderator.

At this level of integration some discussion of the mechanics of a world view would also be appropriate. The sophistication must fit the capacities of the students, but even lower capabilities students can be challenge with basic questions, the answer to which will be the domain of world view thinking. All these opportunities can allow students to comprehend more coherently their own assumptions about the value decisions they make and the beliefs which motivates them as well as to discern more readily the world views of others.

The fourth and most satisfying links values directly and explicitly to the examination of an orthodox Christian world view. This is what I refer to as

Synthetic Integration

and it is at this level we Christian institutions should excel. At this level value assumptions are directly addressed in relation to historic Christian worldwide issues. Since this final integrative step relies heavily on a strong value orientation, lectures may use level to challenge students tos compose contemporary theoretical in the natural sciences, arts, humanities or social sciences with a biblical view of these same fields by helping students grapple with the implications of a Christian world view which addresses these fields and disciplines. To do so lectures provide what they conceive to be fundamental components of a Christian world view so that students can contemplate world view questions in this context.

Course content will be influential by the desire of the lecturer to link faith issues directly to the disciplines. Questions proceeding from the operating assumptions of the discipline are fertile fields of inquiry. Supplementary readings for class and small group discussions can be more direct in addressing issues from a Christian world view.

These readings can range from distinctly Christian analyses of issues to works which explore the enduring questions of science, human activity, and life. Course assignments also could reflect a greater emphasis on analyzing issues from a Christian perspective. The personal reaction component will be especially instructivce here, but the lecturer must be very careful not to judge a student's personal beliefs. If this cannot be done in good conscience, then this type of assignments might be avoided.

Another project which would be appropriate especially for senior students in a college course, is to have them compose their philosophy of the discipline. In the guidelines to introduce such an assignment, the lecturer must again be careful not to prejudge the outcomes, but merely to make sure the student understands that such an assignment can not be done in a vacuum. The student's philosophy of the discipline must proceed from personal answers to world view questions even if the connections are not immediately obvious to the student.

It is at the Synthetic Integration level where concrete articulations of a Christian world view, done appropriately, can only demonstrate to students the real basis of their value assumptions, whether they are Christian or not but it can help Christian students recognize where their world view is at odds with their profession of faith. True Synthetic Integration in theory and in practice, will also help heal the breach in the minds of Christian educators between faith and professional learning.

I hope that all of us can see ourselves somewhere in the process of linking beliefs, values and our academic disciplines through the above paradigm. But my challenge to us is to go further, to plumb the depths of our disciplines, to help our students mature in their understanding of who they are and why they believe what they believe. I also realize there are many who may object to the gauntlet I have thrown down to us as Christian educators and I would like to meet and answers some of the major objections if I might.

Some Christian educators might contend that such a direct linkage of beliefs, values and academics would detract from the supposed "objectivity" of the course. It is my firm conviction that this objection is rooted in the schizophrenic nature of our own graduate educational experience.

A common concern heard most often at life dominant schools is the fear of offending those with other faith preference if anything is done with true faith-discipline integration in the classroom. I find this argument troubling for a number of reasons. First, it assumes that raising issues of faith in the classroom equals trying to indoctrinate the student to one's faith, which clearly is not what I am advocating. I am merely arguing that we must allow for discussion of faith issues. A second observation that I would make is that I have never heard anyone told the same scruples about challenging a student's politics, social or ethnic awareness or personal study habit. After all, don't we really believe that students learn best when they are confronted with a belief or value different from their own? It is confrontation in a supportive environment that maximizes learning. I would argue that Christians or non-Christians alike will learn more why they believe what they belief if we are do not shirk these most important issues for fear of offending.

Often we are so busy protecting the few who we imagine might be offended if we are directly address issues of faith, that we fail to challenge those Christian students and searchers who are struggling to see the big picture.

At the most basic level we must see this objection for what it is. An acceptance of the preeminent value of tolerance at all cost in our culture. We are saturated by a culture which seeks to convince us that to even raise beliefs issues or value issues related to beliefs issues is offensive to those who do not hold those same values and beliefs. If we really believe that we are in effect saying that anything of value is inappropriate in the classroom because someone may not agree. I ask you when did nay educator you know discontinue speaking about a political, social, or creative issue of theory because it might be offensive to some in the classroom? Tolerance at this extreme is one of the great heresies of out time, and even the great heresies of out time, and even the greatest advocates of such tolerance show their intolerance of those who disagree with the value of tolerance.

I do believe there are two more personal, and therefore in my mind, more difficult problems to address. Some Christian educators are very reserved, and not saying all that they know to link beliefs, values and academics because they come out of a faiths background in which deeply held religious convictions and their implications for life and thought, no matter what the context have been deemed inappropriate to express before others. This indeed is a difficult issue, and one on which I would hope we could work out together. Without calling into question the very real convictions of our colleagues who feel this way, I would like to ask two important questions what is it after all that draws us to a Christian college teaching career?

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