Teaching professionally since 2008, I have witnessed many changes in the educational paradigms that guide leadership in making decisions and planning for the future. Effective learning environments should support each student in their unique pathway to success. This can be done by recognizing that learning is a science and teaching is an art. The Science of Learning is a domain of cognitive science that teaches us how the brain learns. The Art of Teaching is a discipline that is responsive to developmental psychology and the exact learning expectations of the content area. In a Lasallian environment it is also a deeply spiritual endeavor.
Research in both developmental psychology and cognitive science should be a primary guide for instructional design. This directly serves two Lasallian Core Principles, Quality Education and Inclusive Community. Designing education around the science of learning and developmental psychology serves inclusion because it is responsive to how the brain functions and the holistic development of every learner. It also tends to serve learners who have significant learning challenges. In a study on retrieval practice (RP) which is a learning technique that grew out of cognitive science, researchers found that “several studies in healthy undergraduates show that “retrieval practice […] RP presents a promising learning strategy for children and adolescents with memory problems after a TBI” (Coyne, 2020). Furthermore, developmental psychology (Erickson, Bronfenbrenner and Gilligan) tells of the important of environment in influencing the development of learners. It also highlights the importance of relationships in human development, an essential component of the Lasallian charism.
Teaching in the 21st century, involves seeing students as individuals through data collection, teacher narratives, and a rigorous analysis of student work. Equally if not more important is seeing students as part of a larger system, network, body, or team which serves a mission or goal that is larger than the individual. In others, students needs to an experience of Communion in Mission.
There is an educational philosophy which aligns with this perspective and it is called connectivism. This theoretical approach recognizes the importance of mental activity to create meaning and places central importance on the experiences of the individual (Ertmer, 1993, 62). Furthermore, “learning must be a way of being—an ongoing set of attitudes and actions by individuals and groups that they employ to try to keep abreast of the surprising, novel, messy, obtrusive, recurring events . . .” (Vaill, 1996, p. 42). This educational theory predicted the increasing reliance on technology that has grown ever stronger in the 21st century. Connection is one of the most essential elements of the human experience. In a 21st century school setting, connection is about more than in-person interactions with people on campus. These interactions are combined with on-going interpersonal interaction which occur synchronously and asynchronously 24 hours a day via the internet. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the entire Christian Brothers community to use the network to facilitate learning in new ways and under unique constraints. Through periods of frustration and revelation, our community came together in person and online to persevere throughout this pandemic. Greater than any pedagogical claims, one of the most powerful considerations for connectivism to me is that it compares to St. Paul’s great metaphor of the Body of Christ. Each member serves a vital function in service to the whole. This very Catholic notion is beautifully reflected in the learning environment of a Catholic school. We are called to recognize our unique value as individuals born in the image of God, but this value finds its ultimate purpose in sublimating the needs of the self to serve the greater mission of salvation in climbing the mountain toward the Kingdom of God.
Aside from connectivism, community of inquiry and self-transcendence are essential ingredients to a Catholic educational community. Each of these theories or frameworks have applications in schools and virtually every other setting, personal or professional, that a person may encounter in a lifetime. This is because learning and being are an on-going part of the human experience. The school setting should structurally model and support the sorts of learning that will continue long after diplomas have been earned. Being authentically Catholic also requires an engagement with the world and experiences that transcend notions of the self.
As Yuval Noah Harari states in Homo Deus, human beings are quite divisible into an experiencing and narrating self or a left-brain and right-brain self (2016). If we apply this to human networks and the Catholic Church, we recognize that there are Pauline and Petrine elements in and outside each of us. Elements of great integrity along with the spark of creativity and innovation are essential to crafting a better vision for the future. A school should be a place for integral planning—curriculum, scope and sequence, and assessment tools—but it should also open the door to creativity in departments other than media and performing arts.
We are living in interesting times and have an immediate need for teaching to the greater goal of the salvation. While this task might seem fundamental to the faithful, in our increasingly secular world it falls on deaf ears. I believe that each learner, educator and member of the community is in search of spiritual meaning and growth. As bell hooks says, love is “the will to extend oneself to nurture one’s own or another’s spiritual growth” (1999). Therefore, we must find new ways of teaching eternal truths. So that each member of a Catholic-Lasallian community might understand that when I raise my heart and mind to God, I am both elated and grounded in the awareness that there is great work to be done. I must be called to express my love in action. Catholic Education should be rooted in both empathy and action. All learning needs to be connected to a concern for the world and to a Christian consciousness which directs activity to the empowerment of those most in need.
My understanding of the role of each member of a teaching and learning community is founded on partnership, organization, attentiveness, and care. Teachers are partners in their students’ learning. Administrators are partners with all major stakeholders in creating a coherent vision for the future, because according to George Siemens, “our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today” (Siemens, 2004). We should design our classrooms and pedagogy around what students need to know and what learning experiences they need to have.
I believe that teachers should connect learning to students’ core identities and their personal goals for themselves and their futures. When teachers plan and implement curriculum without these social and emotional connections, students become burdened by work that appears tedious and irrelevant to their lived experience. It in effect becomes a source of trauma and disdain for learning, the exact opposite of the goal of education. I understand that developmentally students may not come into high school with a clear understanding of why they are driven to succeed at their level, but I hope that by the time they graduate their purpose is clear and undergirded by their own understanding and faithfulness in the Holy Presence of God.
RESOURCES
Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005). Ecological systems theory (1992). In U. Bronfenbrenner (Ed.), Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives on human development (pp. 106–173). Sage Publications Ltd.
Erikson, E. H. (1980). Identity and the life cycle. W W Norton & Co.
Ertmer, P.A., & Newby, T.J. (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 6(4), 50-72.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Harvard University Press.Harari, Y. N. (2016). Homo Deus. Harvill Secker.
Harari, Y. N. (2017). Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow (First U.S. edition.). Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
hooks, b. (2000). All about love: New visions. William Morrow.
Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm
Vaill, P. B., (1996). Learning as a Way of Being. San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Blass Inc.
Julian A. Elorduy, MET, MA 