Abstract
The current essay draws upon the author’s involvement and teaching experiences within a global network of international youth-student exchanges. The central question that is brought to the fore is: How does an educator teach the idea of being human among different nations situated in the same classroom? It therefore is polarized on the question of theological anthropology, and how these notions are received within cross-cultural exposure. The essay begins with the concept of culture itself, and particularly the way in which it is transmitted contemporaneously through resurfacing and enactment. The essay then moves onto the content of pedagogy, which is summarized under the themes of (1) conversation, (2) questioning, and (3) opening up traditions to new perspectives. The purpose of (1) is to emphasize and bring to the surface those crucial traditions relative to the class subject matter, while (2) seeks to teach students to not accept anything as given; to challenge students to defend the fundamentals and presuppositions of their arguments; to remind both questioner/challenger and responder/defender to always make clear the local cultural context of the challenge and the defense. And finally, (3) facilitates a moment of encounter whereby a student who is foreign is invited into another student’s reality, and to see something new in an ancient memory that is different to their own. The essay closes with a suggestion that certain cultural or artistic artifacts, namely language and music, might provide a salient point for class-room discussion, especially in the way these cultural productions are received both locally and globally.
Highlights
The central question that is brought to the fore is: How does an educator teach the idea of being human among different nations situated in the same classroom? It is polarized on the question of theological anthropology, and how these notions are received within crosscultural exposure
The essay moves onto the content of pedagogy, which is summarized under the themes of (1) conversation, (2) questioning, and (3) opening up traditions to new perspectives
After a long semester of my lectures and classroom conversations, I posed to the students a simple question. What does it mean to be human? The Korean students mentioned “food”; the Thai students indicated knowing which of the three hand positions one uses when greeting another person; the Chinese student pointed to “family”; the Ghanaian student embraced “the ancestors”; the Pakistani student asserted “no daily violence”; and the two students from the United States affirmed “individual rights.”
Summary
These two exciting undertakings of intellectual engagement raise the question: How does an educator teach the idea of being human among different nations situated in the same classroom?2 My teaching fluidity (i.e., my teaching adaptability) presupposes that (1) all knowledge first arises. Parts of culture as human resurfacing and enactment flow out of the flexible impact of nature, time, and space. Each student is asked to pursue this comparative method by examining the comparisons on different levels of being human – that is, on the family level, spirituality or religion level, indigenous tradition (space and time) level, and economic level. At the end of the class, each student is asked what “being human” means in his/her particular country after being in a classroom of different cultures. Such a comparative approach applies directly to my own teaching definition of theological anthropology. Shaughnessy, The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1999); and Basil Davidson, African Civilization Revisited: From Antiquity to Modern Times (Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2001)
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