Religious Studies News

As I design each of my classes, I ask myself, “In twenty years, what might a student remember?” In a lower-division “Religions of Asia” course, is it of utmost importance that they memorize the four stages or goals of life, each element of the Eightfold Path, or the particular teachings of Honen or Shinran? These are facts and ideas they can look up if forgotten. However, if they come to appreciate that there are a variety of religious worldviews and that it is worth their time and energy to try and understand their colleagues, neighbors, or friends who view the world differently than they do, this is good. Additionally, in my ethics courses, if students become more conscious of the decisions they are making in their daily lives, and take greater responsibility for these decisions, this is good. A number of students seem to have an “all or nothing” attitude: “If we cannot have world peace right now, then forget it.” However, if through their academic studies they come to realize that one does not have to change the entire world to make a real difference, this too is good. If, through their college career, students learn to critically and accurately understand the material before them, and to clearly articulate their own questions and ideas regarding this material, this is very good. A student with these experiences will not only have the necessary skills to be responsible, actively engaged citizens; they will also have the ability to transform themselves and the world around them (on this point, see Tony Wagner’s 7 Survival Skills).

From all of the above, it is obvious that I believe in “student-centered learning,” “embodied,” “engaged,” and “transformational” pedagogical strategies. However, I must confess that I do struggle. There are certain ideas, facts, and concepts that I want students to know coming out of particular courses. So I sometimes struggle to find the balance between focusing on their questions, perspectives, and experiences and what I want them to know. There are times, if particular issues or ideas have not surfaced from the students themselves, when I will explicitly bring them up and insist that students learn them. But I also have to remind myself that, just because I want them to know something or even if they get an “A” on a test I set for them, it does not mean they have actually learned it. As I listen and watch my mentors utilize more learning-centered pedagogical strategies, I admire their ability to trust the process and the students. I continue to work toward that same level of trust.  
 
Another skill set I am developing is the ability to deal with the challenges that arise when these types of pedagogical strategies are employed. Jack Mezirow discusses how transformative learning has both individual and social implications. It demands that we are aware of how we know what we know, and it demands reflective discourse that requires one to critically assess assumptions. In this process, students and faculty alike are often “experiencing unusually high amounts of incoherence between their preexisting understandings and the new ideas they encounter in our class” (Concepción and Thorson Eflin, 185). This is a difficult and sometimes threatening experience. Thus we (students, professors, and others) need to be aware and prepared to address issues as they arise.

Even with the challenges that accompany these pedagogical strategies, students seem to appreciate what they learned in the course. Often it was in the challenging and uncomfortable situations that transformative learning occurred. When students are transformed by what they confront in a classroom, when they have their own experiences of struggling through difficult ideas and making a difference, then these experiences can accompany them out of the classroom into the world. I remain committed to learning more and implementing these strategies in my classrooms because, ultimately, learning-centered, engaged, and transformational learning environments break down the separation between the “classroom” and the “real world.”

During a “Transformational Teaching” presentation at the 2009 Peace and Justice Studies Association conference, George Lakey emphasized how the immediate situations within the classroom provide the students with opportunities to engage the process of living. According to him, the “vividness and immediacy of transformational learning experience invites application.” Through the CEP assignment discussed in this article, students were no longer simply reading a text, or talking about a particular issue; they were actively applying what they read in a meaningful project of their own design. The students’ classroom experience not only had them developing and demonstrating skills necessary for the real world; it had them engaging that real world directly.

Syllabus - Environmental Ethics - Bhattacharyya