Jim, an English teacher at a secondary school, hesitates while reviewing Peter’s essay. How can this average student have possibly handed in such an excellent text? Jim suspects Peter owes this not to his own intelligence but to Artificial Intelligence.
This is how teachers often feel nowadays when checking papers. What is the authenticity of the knowledge reproduced by Peter? This is just one of the questions posed by the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI). What is knowledge, and is knowledge only of value if someone has made it their own? Where do the senses come in? Was it not claimed in the past that students like Peter need their bodies (eyes, ears and movements) to learn, or is it enough to master a computer screen? And what role is left for the teacher when so many sources of knowledge are freely accessible, and machines can be excellent trainers? These are questions for a philosophy of education. Such a philosophy is ‘centrally concerned with questions of meaning and value, with conceptual matters and with coherence of ideas’ (Bailey, 2010, p. 10). A philosophy of education provides no easy answers. This book aims to assist reflection on basic questions from a Christian perspective.
The title The Courage to Guide is programmatic, it shows what we believe teaching should be like today. We envision the teacher as a vital person in knowledge acquisition, summarised by the word guide. This word can be taken as a noun, placing the teacher in the centre. In this book we explain that the teacher has a mission, calling him to work in a long Christian tradition. But the word guide is also a verb. The Christian interpretation of being a teacher is reflected in one’s actions. This book emphasises that teaching has to become an embodied practice. Referring to the image on the cover: it is like navigating with a compass to find the right way. Being a guide in times of AI can be quite a challenge. This brings us to another aspect of the programmatic nature of the title. We believe that in this day and age, it takes a lot of courage to take on the guiding role, which is why we have written this book to encourage those involved in the complex task of teaching. The title is also a nod to Parker Palmer’s wonderful book, The Courage to Teach, which has the subtitle Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life. The Courage to Guide offers our own access to the inner landscape from the Dutch context. Yet, we feel a strong affinity with the ideas in Palmer’s book, especially where he places teachers and students in the midst of that one great thing, referred to in our book as the reality of God.
1
Firstly, as mentioned, this philosophy of education aims to serve Christian reflection on new developments in the 21st century. The influence of educational possibilities, ultimately displayed in AI, leads to greater attention to personal learning paths. The invention of a diversity of tools has enriched education, but it has also caused it to become instrumentalised, which, in turn, has caused pedagogical issues to fade into the background. Above all, this publication wishes to bring pedagogy back into the spotlight (compare Biesta, 2011; Deng, 2024). We will not be focusing on the political, legal or social function of the Christian school in society, which can differ greatly across the globe (De Muynck, Reijnoudt-Klein & Spruijt-De Kloe, 2017; Wodon, 2019). Although important for justifying the existence of Christian schools and Christian-inspired teaching, political discussions will receive little attention.
Secondly, this book is intended as study material for students and alumni of master’s programmes, although it is certainly conceivable that parts of it are used in bachelor’s programmes. It should be noted, however, that this publication is not meant as a practical guide to teaching – even though the teaching practice is constantly present in the background. Besides being used as study material in training programmes, we would like to see The Courage to Guide function as a background study for trainers of educational professionals who wish to deepen their understanding of the character of Christian teaching.
2 Our Position
What is our position in relation to the many others who have reflected on education and, more specifically, on education in faith schools? Our life course is coloured by the Protestant Christian tradition in which we were raised. During our careers as pedagogical and theological academics, respectively, we have served in teacher training and theological education programs at universities with a reformed commitment. We prefer, however, to see our vision as one of the voices in the rich Catholic-Christian tradition. We aim to nourish our biblical thinking in the spirit of what Paul says to educators: ‘Bring them up in the training and instruction of the LORD’ (Eph. 6:4). When expressing this intention, we must acknowledge that we stand in a long tradition of Christian reflection on upbringing and education. This tradition starts with the Bible as the primary source, having a long history via early Christian thinkers such as Augustine (354–430), medieval scholars like Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) and
Influences specific to our Dutch and Reformed setting can be added to this list. In this context, representatives of Pietism, such as Johannes de Swaef (1594–1653), Johannes Hoornbeeck (1617–1666) and Jacobus Fruytier (1659–1731) have been of significant importance. Of a more recent date we regard highly, in particular, Herman Bavinck (1854–1921), Philip Abraham Kohnstamm (1975–1951), Martinus J. Langeveld (1905–1989), Wim ter Horst (1929–2018) and Siebren Miedema (b. 1949). As for contemporary thinkers, we are also especially indebted to international colleagues: Nicholas Wolterstorff (b. 1932), David Smith (b. 1966), Trevor Cooling (b. 1952) and Hans van Crombrugge (b. 1961). While we gratefully acknowledge all the mentioned thinkers as guides, not all of them are explicitly mentioned and we do not discuss their work in separate sections. The names mentioned are by no means a complete list of those whose reflection on school pedagogy we consider important.
3 Reading Guide
By way of a reader’s guide, we draw the reader’s attention to a few features of the text that are mainly related to the fact that the book was written as an academic book used for educational purposes. The fact that we view the Bible as our primary source and have an ongoing conversation with various scholars becomes manifest in each chapter by citing a Bible passage for the chapter concerned and one quote from our conversation partners. We aim to link our reasoning with practice, which is apparent from an example, a quote or a practical case mentioned in the introduction to each chapter. We subsequently refer to this in the text that follows.
4 Impression of Content
In Chapter 1 we present the main message of the book. Psalm 78 has been chosen as the starting point for pedagogical reflection. We emphasise that students in Christian education must learn to orient themselves to God and his Word and, from there, to place their trust in God. This chapter explains the pedagogical triangle (teacher, student, content/reality) as a structuring framework for our reasoning. This framework secures the coherence of ideas, as required for a philosophy of education. Our theological engagement with Psalm 78 raises the question of how pedagogy and theology are related. We
5 Terminology
In this book, we take teaching to refer to the wide range of activities by teachers. We approach teaching generically, addressing issues within all contexts of education. Therefore, what is discussed in this book concerns primary, secondary, and tertiary education, as well as vocational training so we mostly speak of students, meaning learners in a general sense, and sometimes pupils in sections referring specifically to school children. We are aware of the significant differences that stamp each practice. In primary education, teachers are usually responsible for a wide range of subjects, while in secondary and tertiary education, teachers are specialists in subject content. The word education stands for the more or less institutionalised form of teaching as it takes shape in schools. We also use the word pedagogy. By this we do not just mean a certain way of acting by a teacher or even more specifically didactics, such as is often used synonymously in the Anglo-Saxon context. We also use pedagogy as a designation of the academic discipline referring to assisting the maturing process (as happens in families) and the teacher’s educational actions. Thus, pedagogy is a ‘practical discipline centred on understanding and developing educational practice’ (Deng, 2024). Conceived in this way, pedagogy is closely related to the meaning of philosophy of education. Because we focus on educational practice within the school (and not, for example, in the family or youth work), we speak of a school pedagogy in this publication.