Alternative Educational Initiatives
Hello All,
I am beginning to orchestrate a conversation between a mix of Christian scholars, activists, and community organisers regarding the creation of an alternative grass roots university the builds on the strengths of solid academics, while avoiding the many pitfalls that are inherent to the academy as it is traditionally understood. Essentially, we are looking at developing a more holistic understanding of Christian education as discipleship -- discipleship that combines serious learning with rootedness and action in Christian communities within marginal places and so on.
I am curious as to whether or not anybody here (a) would like to contribute to this conversation or (b) has any awareness of others who have created something similar.
To save you some time, I am quite familiar with Bob Ekblad's "People's Seminary", with the work Dave Diewart does with "Streams of Justice", and with Richard Rohr's model of centres of contemplation and action. I also am aware of Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and the "School For Conversion" and Ched Myers' work with "Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries" (although I need to become more familiar with these two). I've also come across Javier Giraldo's idea of a "University of Resistance" but need to learn more about this (and whether or not it is something that has actually taken place).
So, all that to say, if anybody would like to discuss this topic with me, and if anybody has any recommendations of models or even literature on this subject, I would greatly appreciate your input.
Grace and peace.
I am beginning to orchestrate a conversation between a mix of Christian scholars, activists, and community organisers regarding the creation of an alternative grass roots university the builds on the strengths of solid academics, while avoiding the many pitfalls that are inherent to the academy as it is traditionally understood. Essentially, we are looking at developing a more holistic understanding of Christian education as discipleship -- discipleship that combines serious learning with rootedness and action in Christian communities within marginal places and so on.
I am curious as to whether or not anybody here (a) would like to contribute to this conversation or (b) has any awareness of others who have created something similar.
To save you some time, I am quite familiar with Bob Ekblad's "People's Seminary", with the work Dave Diewart does with "Streams of Justice", and with Richard Rohr's model of centres of contemplation and action. I also am aware of Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and the "School For Conversion" and Ched Myers' work with "Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries" (although I need to become more familiar with these two). I've also come across Javier Giraldo's idea of a "University of Resistance" but need to learn more about this (and whether or not it is something that has actually taken place).
So, all that to say, if anybody would like to discuss this topic with me, and if anybody has any recommendations of models or even literature on this subject, I would greatly appreciate your input.
Grace and peace.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Nathanael Snow on -
I'm happy to participate in this sort of conversation. I taught school at a mission for 8 years in inner-city Durham, NC; and am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Economics and hope to be a professor someday.
But I don't think education happens at school.
Schooling happens at school. Hauerwas talks about the most totalitarian group of people on earth being the popular set of teenage girls at the local high school. He also once said that school is like the primitive society where everyone threw their children into a pit when they turned 5 years old and did not let them out until they were 18 (or 22 in today's culture). And then we are surprised at what sorts of people those who emerge have become!
Steven Davies, a British Historian, has much to say about the uselessness of schools.
For example: A child can be taught to read in 100 hours. A foreign language can be learned fluently in 4 months. Most mathematical concepts can be grasped in relatively short increments of time.
We really ought to spend more time working, or serving others.
How this applies to an alternative educational initiative relies completely upon what it is you want to teach or learn.
But I don't think you really want to do either. I think you really are interested in formation, of both individuals and community. Which brings me back to work. Formation occurs in the context of action.
The most we can hope for from conversation is confession and agreement. The best we can hope for from teaching is conformation. What we are after is an emerging phenomenon, which cannot be centrally directed or organized. We are each required to seek understanding in and through the Spirit.
Certainly there should be reading, of scripture and theology and all other books, both together and alone. But I am reluctant to join in an effort to generate a new institution.
Finally, what might be most lacking is argumentation. If the academy has anything to offer the church it is this ability to criticize and affirm new ideas in a constructive but accountable way. My favorite discussions are those like professional paper presentations, where everything: methodology, assumptions, model creation, prediction, theory, results, and application are tested and questioned for validity.
Within the church we should argue more, even rhetorically sometimes, if only to hone our thinking. We should also test ideas on one another and go to the scripture with one another to see if such things are so.
That said, anytime you think you've got a great thought, send it my way, and I'll be happy to help you test its rigor.
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Permalink Reply by Mark Van Steenwyk on -
Robert Banks offers an interesting analysis of theological education in his book Reenvisioning Theological Education.
I've talked to a few folks here and there around ways of doing formation...the older I get, the more I get frustrated with the academy as it is. There are SO many embedded assumptions that are toxic to a living theology centered on the Way of Jesus. If forced to choose between a sort of robust apprenticeship in intentional community (which we're slowly trying to offer at Missio Dei) or a formal education, I'd rather have the apprenticeship. For all the cost involved, I'm not sure that those traditions that offer formal theological and ministerial training are really being that much more faithful than those traditions past and present that don't offer formal training for theological or ministerial education.
That isn't to say that I'm anti-intellectual. But my role models are those who are practitioner and/or lay theologians like Bonhoeffer, Stringfellow, Ched Myers, and others.
So, I'm very very interested. I've taught some at the local seminary and thought it was only scratching the surface. At Missio Dei, we've started monthly workshops that explored things in greater depth, but in the context of intentional community. It would be interesting to see how such an approach could be deepened with more and better workshops and curriculum.
Not to keep blabbing on and on...but one idea that I've talked to with Eliacin Rosario Cruz and Jason Evans is the idea of "strining" together intentional communities in such a way that a handful of students could rotate around say 6 communities...spending a few months at each. Each community could handle a particular part of the curriculum--based upon its own unique gifts or the presence of someone qualified to teach in an area. If there were space for five students at each community, that would allow for 30 students at a time. Not a lot, but it wouldn't require additional buildings or classroom spaces or anything. And it could be done for relatively cheap. If each student paid rent and a modest educational fee, it could help provide some income for the communities. And there may be an existing institution who would consider accrediting it for those who feel the need to get course credit. Or it could stand alone.
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Permalink Reply by Martin on -
These may be of interest from the UK, they are linked in to something called the Root and Branch Network (www.rootandbranch.org.uk), which a group of networks and organisations here that share similar values, many of them Anabaptist.
All of these would meet the aim of - "developing a more holistic understanding of Christian education as discipleship -- discipleship that combines serious learning with rootedness and action in Christian communities within marginal places and so on."
They are at a variety of academic levels, and take a variety of timescales, but none are rooted in a local community as such, but are very much about forming a learning community that can share ideas, which individuals then implement locally.
Anyway you can read more about them on their individual websites:
Crucible
Peace School
Workshop
Advanced Workshop
As a slight aside, I'm part of the Anabaptist Network in the UK (which is also part of Root and Branch!) and have been chatting with Eliacin Rosario Cruz about connections between the Common Root and the Anabaptist Network in the UK. All the 'courses' I've mentioned above are facilitated by people in the Anabaptist Network who I know, so if you'd like to hear more or enter into a conversation with them let me know and I can introduce you! Hope that makes sense.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Smith on
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I'm also very interested in this conversation and have been thinking (and to a lesser extent) working in this direction for a few years, collaborating with Schools for Conversion and others.
One key resource in this conversation that has not yet been mentioned is Paolo Freire's PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED. Neil Postman and Ivan Illich's critiques of the educational system are also valuable.
Our vision for the work that we are doing in putting out THE ENGLEWOOD REVIEW OF BOOKS ( http://www.englewoodreview.org )is focused on identifying resources that would merit the study/reflection/conversation of church/community-based educational groups of the sort that Mark and others have described. I have written about this vision here:
http://www.the-next-wave-ezine.info/issue115/index.cfm?id=38&re...
Chris Smith
Indianapolis
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Permalink Reply by Magdalena Perks on -
There was Frontier College in Canada years ago. Young grads would go work with people in farming or mining and teach them at night. Someone else probably knows more about this than I do, but there's one model. My husband just posted something about this on his blog "Anglican, Mostly Anabaptist." (fathernicholas.wordpress.org) Apprenticeship was the model for ministry years ago. Our own experience with being recruited to teach/moderate at online seminaries is that they were either, at worst, a scam or, at best, delusional. Just a warning.
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Permalink Reply by Chaplain Nik on -
I've been thinking about this at the professional level too. Those who want to work in chaplaincy cannot claim "house church" as a denomination. It requires us to half-heartedly jump hoops with a denomination for the "credentials" or give up working with the sick, hospitalized, hospice, military, nursing home, or business chaplaincy. I agree that we can find an alternative expression, in the context of chaplaincy, to form a community that creatively embodies Christ.
I know Tim & Katie Mather in Georgia tried the Bible College route. And perhaps have some experiences to share with you.
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Permalink Reply by Magdalena Perks on
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Yes, the denominatinal issue always comes up in institutions, no matter how gifted you are. We had problems, too, at a major hospital when we had a community but no big-name affiliation. Right now we are getting realigned but there are roadblocks! CPE is the usual route for training in chaplaincy, but for some of us, it was a bit of a joke - it's a culture all to itself. There's always voluntary work to be done in homeless shelters, food banks, meal centers and so forth, though, which can lead to an informal chaplaincy, and is usually more effective than the collar and cross credibility! tTat kind of street level work long term is an education in itself. Are we thinking of some form of mentoring as well, a kind of job shadowing?
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Permalink Reply by Chaplain Nik on
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Magdelena,
I envisioned on-line mentoring at the least and I set-up a sample ning site to see how it might look. We could learn so much from each other, sharing experiences, tips, consulting. I think it could be a vehicle for matching up folks for shadowing though we'd need to gather a pretty big pool of folks to find 2 in the same city!
The "volunteer chaplain" positions you listed are a brilliant observation and I think you are absolutely right. Hospices and hospitals often take volunteers, in fact the hospital where I work does take volunteer chaplains!
Nik
(not sure if the link will work right since it is a "private" site by invite. If not, just add me as a friend with a request to see the board and I will send you the invitation.)
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Permalink Reply by Chaplain Nik on
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I changed the settings to public so everyone can give input: Simple Christian Credentialing Community
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Permalink Reply by Dave Huth on -
Hello,
I don't know if these folks are quite as radical as you may be thinking, but the Oregon Extension has been experimenting with accredited, community based alternative Christian education fro 30 years
http://www.oregonextension.org/
They started as a group of friends from Christian higher education who were frustrated by the sorts of academic structures others are talking about in this thread. The learning is an intensive concentration on single integrative subjects, in the context of community living and a commitment to authenticity and a safe place to ask hard questions without precondition. I have several friends whose lives were transformed by their experience there.
Dave
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Permalink Reply by Ben on -
This looks like a promising conversation and one I'm definitely going to stay tuned in to. But I've got a less "academic" (heh) question. I assume most of you have at least completed some sort of undergraduate work; I haven't yet. Right now I'm not in school; I'm taking some time off to reevaluate whether my college choices have really been where God wanted me or whether I just went the places that I assumed God wanted me -- that is, the places I wanted myself to be.
I'm not looking for a "way out"; I have no problems getting the traditional four-year degree and that was my plan all along (until God rather forcibly stepped in and forced me to reevaluate things). But I am wondering if any one has any suggestions for college students looking to inject a bit more discipleship, community and service into their educational experiences. I just left Calvin College in Grand Rapids, which does a great job giving student opportunities for service, as well as having "community houses," where students live together in a local neighborhood and do service work there. I may very well end up going back, but I want to consider all my options. Your suggestions on injecting community and discipleship into the undergrad experience would be much appreciated.
Oh, and I just saw Dave's post. Thanks for the tip! That looks like an awesome experience and definitely something I'd like to investigate.
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Permalink Reply by Magdalena Perks on
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There's the Mennonite Central Committee. I found mission work through the Episcopal church to be very rewarding. maybe you could connect with an organization to teach in another country. I went to Honduras where I lived and worked at an orphanage. it was probably the most formative learning experience of my college years.
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