Anyone who has applied for more than a handful of
college-level teaching positions is probably familiar with the so-called
“teaching philosophy”--a document that attempts to summarize the author’s
priorities and philosophical approach to education. I’ve written a few, and
while none of them were eloquent enough (or used sufficiently trendy
pedagogical lingo) to land me the tenure-track position of my dreams, the
process of writing one turned out to be useful for my own classroom. I even
made my students write their own “learning philosophies” at the beginning of
the semester. In general, writing through a personal philosophy often clarifies
it, both for me and for my students. I understood more why certain activities
in my classroom were more productive than others, how I could prioritize my
time more effectively, and how I knew when something had been a success.
On Sunday afternoon, about a week and a half ago, I was wondering what had possessed me
to decide that it was a good idea to show my 3rd and 4th
grade Sunday school students “St. Patrick’s Bad Analogies” during a lesson on
the Holy Spirit and the Trinity, much less to follow that up with a little
detour on the femininity of the Holy Spirit. Not because it went badly (the
faces of the two girls in the class lit up when my response to the
question, “So wait, is God male or female?!” was “yes!”), but because it seemed
like an odd choice.
And then I realized it was probably time to start thinking about my
Sunday school teaching philosophy. At its heart, it’s not radically different
from my philosophy of teaching college English—that learning is a lifelong process
of exploration and revision that often happens most vigorously in community. But
with younger students and subject matter that is primarily tested over the course
of lived experiences rather than in coursework and career success, it works itself
out a little differently.
When I was in 3rd grade, I knew all the
answers—at least, all the answers to any questions that my Sunday school
teacher might ask. For a long time, I thought that was what it meant to be a
good Christian—answering all the questions right. That’s about the age I was
baptized, and when my pastor met with me to talk to me about whether or
not I knew what I was doing, I answered all those questions right, too, or at
least right enough that he decided I was enough of a believer for a believer’s
baptism. I loved seeking out the right answers—I was a front-row, straight-A
student at both school and church. I loved raising my hand and announcing those
right answers even more, whether or not anyone had even asked a question. And
when I made my faith my own, and stepped out of the church I had grown up in,
it was for another church that seemed to have even more right answers to
questions that my childhood church hadn’t even asked. I might call myself an
answer-addict.
Naturally, I eventually started have questions that my
church didn’t have satisfactory answers to—I mean, they did have answers, but
they didn’t seem nearly as clear and obvious to me as they did to everyone
else. So I scrounged and scrambled and read a lot, but the only thing that
became clearer was that those answers weren’t nearly as right as I was told. I
found a lot of other answers that *might* have been right, but I couldn’t be
certain of any of them. The experience was profoundly disorienting, but eventually my questions and I learned to live together, as I
discovered that not knowing the answers often meant it was easier to keep my
eyes, ears, and heart open when I encountered new people and new experiences
that didn’t square with my previous assumptions.
So, what does this have to do with teaching Sunday school?
I don’t think that 3rd graders need to be given
only answers, or to be encouraged to see answers as being the Answer to their
challenges. Kids are good enough at being know-it-alls—they don’t need my help!
What they do need is someone who will validate their wonder at this world that
grows bigger and more mysterious and beautiful as they grow up and become aware
of more and more of it. My students arrive every Sunday full of questions. Some
of them are easy: “How do I find 2nd Samuel?” Some are a little more
involved, but I can give a stab at them: “Why did Jesus die?” And some are the
questions that used to keep me up at night when I was their age, but I quit
thinking about them because not knowing made me anxious: “What existed before
God created the world? Where did God come from?” And I’m not doing them any
favors if I blow those questions off.
Instead, I go out of my way to show them that they should be asking questions. Everyone
should. Hence St. Patrick’s bad analogies. The handout for that day gave them
several activities intended to help them get a handle on the concept of the
Trinity, but I couldn’t help noticing that an example in one of the activities was
also one of the “Bad Analogies” (specifically as an illustration of modalism).
My purpose wasn’t to claim that the handout author was an evil heretic (because with the Trinity it's almost impossible to talk about it without accidentally saying something heretical, as poor St. Patrick did, and anyway I'm hardly someone to get my undies in a bunch over a little heresy between friends), but to
emphasize that in church we often throw around words and phrases like “Trinity”
and “created ex nihilo” without
actually having any idea what we’re talking about, and it’s good and proper to
find it strange and confusing, no matter how old or how smart or how faithful
you are.
I try to make my Sunday school classroom a space where it’s
ok to ask those questions, and to make it clear that having answers isn’t what
makes you a good Christian. I hope I encourage my students to grow into their
questions, because someday they'll probably need to remember that questions don’t have to
have answers.
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