Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Getting Students to Think-For Their Own Good!

by Julie Walton, Ph.D./Calvin College

Part of being whole and well involves tending to our intellectual health.  This entails keeping an intentional eye on what we think, read, and say.  What are the things to think deeply about, and why should we think on these things?  The command is to love things that are pure and lovely, and of good repute.  This is what we are to think on.  But, the work of thinking stops us from setting aside times for thought.  The centerboard on a sailboat keeps the craft from being blown sideways in a broadside wind, allowing the sail to capture the wind and propel the boat forward.  But, whenever I intend to just sit and think, my mind is quickly blown off course by the telephone, a child, the sudden realization that the mortgage payment didn’t go out on Monday, or the sight of a cobweb up in the corner; my mind rarely gets out of the shallows into the deep water of contemplative thought or prayer because I fail, time and again, to become centered.

How does the shallowness of life manifest itself?  There are ten ways I can think of which daily threaten to blow my thinking off course (click on READ MORE).

One, I read a lot, but remember little, maybe because I am always in a hurry and fail to read with focus.  Two, Scripture remains an acquaintance rather than an intimate friend or counselor.  Three, conversations are monotonous and perfunctory instead of encouraging, edifying, or enlightening.  Four, my life tends toward reactive rather than proactive approaches to challenges.  Five, I spend too much time in worry instead of prayer, fearing life instead of God.  Six, my inability to follow God-given thoughts to a higher end, or to deeper waters, clouds my thinking, twists my senses, and leaves me befuddled and befogged.  Seven, work becomes just work instead of exciting discovery or fulfilling service.  Eight, time becomes the enemy and busy-ness the watchword of success.  Nine, I accept too many responsibilities that invade and occupy my very soul until the fatigue is so great that thoughtful contemplation, even when sincerely entered into, results only in uninvited upright sleep.  And, ten, my life takes on a timbre of cynicism in the form of a critical nature that cannot possibly radiate the love of Christ and the hope that love offers.

In many ways, thought, contemplation, and study are linked.  To enter into one is to automatically include the others.  I ask students to take what they know, and to critically build that knowledge into a body of thought that synthesizes and integrates information into a formative and useful “whole”.  I am routinely frustrated by their inability, and, often, unwillingness to “critically think”.  Usually, they have the information at hand- it is rare in this day and age for students to have too little information.  The problem arises from two roots:  one, the students have not yet studied the information in a way that drives them to the deeper waters of thought, and two, their own life experience is limited so that a particular river of thought is so foreign as to be uncomfortable.  As a teacher, then, my job becomes less about delivering information, and more about giving students the tools they need to 1) discern which information is relevant and to study it in depth until it becomes comfortable, and 2) to prod students to integrate multiple pieces of information into tangible, cohesive and meaningful ideas by developing and practicing what I perceive is the virtue of thought. 

Please comment on my “thinking” and share ways you in which your teaching inspires students to new and higher thoughts.

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