Learning Encounter: Encountering Heads, Hearts                                                           and Heaven

Learning Encounter (LE) class is coming to a close, but the impact of LE is not going to vanish. I see the students of this class are becoming agents of fostering a Christian community of seminary education, who will ripple the pool of conventional top-down methodology of teaching and learning. As one of the agents, I am so glad to share my gleanings.

1. Deep Learning – How Deep Can I Go?

I used to be deeply influenced by a book named “The Art of Learning” (not the one authored by Joshua Waitzkin). This book, described euphemistically as The Art of Learning, actually introduces strategies of effective learning including how to write a score-winning paper, etc. When Brother Casey was critically evaluating Mastery Learning and Strategic Learning, for a few seconds he sounded a little titillating or patronizing to me. I was wondering whether he was devaluing the essentiality of head knowledge. It seemed that the learning culture of a community does not require so much individual effort in pursuing head knowledge any more. “Faith seeks understanding.” (St. Anselm) Intellectuals will not be convinced by Christian faith unless they find gratification in theological knowledge.  

But, when he expounds the concept of Deep Learning, I was inspired by him and totally agree with him. Learning in a community does not deny and deprive individual endeavour and strength, instead it motivates and conduces to the learner to be a deeper thinker who seeks truthful meaning that leads to the way, the  truth and the life – Jesus Christ. Deep Learning is definitely not as superficial as I assumed previously.

2. Fidelity to Community – A Commitment by Heart

For her book Living into Community, I will give Christine Pohl a sister’s hug if I have a chance to meet her. I love the part of Making and Keeping Promises.  What is fidelity? Fidelity is making and keeping promises. Jesus is in the same storm-tossed boat with His followers, He was hung on the cross while His friends fled…He has promised He will be always with His people till the very end of age, no matter what. He is a faithful friend in all situations. True fidelity is to be faithful to one’s community or friends even faced by threat or danger. To us sinners, it is not easy to be committed to keeping-promise especially when the situation turns detrimental to ourselves. We often calculate the pros and cons of fidelity. If we judge the worthiness of keeping-promise by our mind not by our heart, we probably would not keep the promise with fidelity. Fidelity is a fruit of the 

heart that is true to God all the time.

Pohl states, “If we do not grasp God’s faithfulness and the importance of our own fidelity,

it is impossible to make sense of great sacrifices for the Kingdom.” (Pohl)  I will never be only a fair weather friend to Jesus. This is my promise to Jesus. In ACTS College, there are many students who stay faithful to the community through thicks and thins. Their silent fidelity speaks a lot to me. 

3. Christian Learning Community – Community of Faith

I was really touched by my classmates’ posted reflection and interactive messages. There

are so many anonymous angels around within this learning community. These angels sacrificed their personal time to scan documents for the whole class to share so that everyone can enjoy the convenience of available learning resources. They are the practitioners of 1 Corinthians 10: 24 who do not seek their own good, but the good of others. They are the unsung heroes. Their faith is seen on the little and small things they do.  Their altruism makes our learning environment distinctively different from the secular learning communities – not a place for  competitive performance, but a heavenly place for learners. If each member in a Christian learning community wills to be an angel serving others, that community is a heaven on earth.

Frankly, I was set back when I was on my first module in AGBC as I found some 

classmates were unwilling to share their resources. Let the bad experience flow with water under the bridge! I will promote the Christian altruism to my fellow classmates in future.

4. Relaxed Alertedness – Tasting Success w/o Fear

(A Pick-up from Outside Reading)

Relaxed Alertedness, the brain’s optimum state for learning, is a term first coined by Renata and Geoffery Caine in their book Making Connections as far back as 1991. Caines discover that if a learner is put into a state of being where he/she feels comfortable and experiences a high level of challenge, his/her brain operates with β wave which produces the best learning outcome. When he/she is expected to reach a goal of perfection, the learner will be threatened and his/her brainwave will be switched to α wave which will caused tension and fear within himself/herself; on the contrary, if the learning environment is too cosy and the learning goal is not challenging enough, the learner’s brain will shut down its executive function. （You may refer to the illustration below. ）

 This website tells more: http://www.thelearningweb.net/chapter04/page169.html. In short, Relaxed Alertedness consists of a combination of high challenge and high expectations with low threat in the learning community as a whole. It is a state of mind that combines confidence, competence and intrinsic motivation.

Knowing Relaxed Alertedness, I always consciously try my best to assist friends within my group to achieve Relaxed Alertness. How can I help my friends reach the best learning state? Here you go:

a)  Let my friends feel cared for and respected; share “fellowship meal” with  them; share learning materials and information as well;

b) Set a goal together with other group members and make sure each one is comfortable with and confident of the goal;

c) Offer help to others and receive help from others with a thankful heart;

d) Provide specific, positive, constructive feedback on the progress of group work;

e) Allow myself and others to make mistakes; celebrate what we have learned from the mistakes.

Certainly, there are f), g), and h)…

Last but not least, I must say a few words for our heroic rabbi who has launched a challenge on the monotonous, monological and even monopolizing andragogy. Just a salute to the courageous reformer. Please do not be pai sei, Brother Casey!