My Philosophy of Teaching and Learning

If one asks me what do I believe about teaching and learning, this is what I will say:

I believe education is a lifelong journey to understand, explore, deepen, and challenge one’s mission in the world. To educate is to “lead out”, to foster change and transformation. I treasure a Confucius conviction that says: The moment we cease learning, we cease being human.

My perspective in doing Christian education can be characterized by the term coined by Thomas Groome, “Christian religious education.” The essence of Christian religious education is remembering and imagination. I am inspired by Thomas Groome’s idea of education as “pilgrimage in time” and adult educator Mary Boys’ notion of transformation as making traditions accessible for personal and communal transformation. As a postcolonial practical theologian who occupies a space I call “in-between worlds,” I help people to see the beauty and problems of the past and imagine possibilities for the future through intentional conversation on power dynamics, practices and praxis. To provide safe space for reflection, both personal and communal is part of my core value in teaching. I treasure another Confucius saying that says, “Study without reflection is a waste. Reflection without study is a danger.”

I am fortunate to have been taught by two prominent adult educators of our time, Stephen Brookfield and Jack Mezirow. They teach a brand of transformative education that focuses on critiquing assumptions and examining meaning perspectives. This understanding is empowering for me to examine colonial biases and reconstruct faith practices anew. To be aware of hidden assumptions, often hegemonic in nature, is crucial to any educational activity.

I believe good teachers are sensitive to the presence of the null curriculum – what is not taught. That is why creating safe spaces for dialogue and learning is so important. My basic core value in teaching, especially teaching adults is to value learners’ experience. Knowledge of the student’s lived experience and cultural background shapes the method and the content of the teachings. I see the prerequisite in any educational activity is to wrestle with one’s educational ideals and assumptions, and to reflect upon one’s calling to a task that is deeply political in essence.

Teaching is about empowering of others, honouring diversity, building relationship, collaborative endeavours and is a vocation. Equipping leaders to lead in a fascinating pluralistic world such as ours is an art.

As an artist - a pianist and a photographer, I am interested in bridging artistic expressions and religious thoughts in a creative fashion. Throughout human history, arts and visual images have always been the medium by which humans learn. Before or even after the printing machine was invented, most people learned by watching icons, paintings, monuments, and listening to authoritative figures such as tribal elders telling stories. While we may feel comfortable living in a western culture where knowledge is closely associated with printed words, the contemporary popular culture is such that it opens wide the doors for teachers, religious or otherwise, to relearn the power of images and media to foster personal and societal change. Learning does not solely occur by means of cognitive reasoning of abstract ideas, but requires the ability to connect meaningfully with the artistic dimensions of human existence.