David L. Ream
4 Courses • 1 StudentBiography
God began my pursuit of a teaching career in high school with my choosing the college preparatory track of coursework. God also used my grandfather’s example as a Bible. God formed the foundation of my teaching philosophy through the influence of King Jesus and His Holy Spirit (John 14:26; 1 John 2:27). God attracted me to timeless truth while he has grounded me in reality. Thus, my teaching philosophy never evolved, it matured in response to God’s grace. The Bible presupposes teaching and learning. God commands and exemplifies teaching by passing down timeless truth across generations. (Exodus 12:24-28; Deuteronomy 6:6; Joshua 4:6; 4:21-22; Psalms 145:4-5; Matthew 28:18-20; Luke 11:1, 12:12; Acts 1:1; 1 Corinthians 4:17, 11:14, 14:19).
Adam and Eve as finite, contingent beings learned of God, through relationship. Similarly, the best teachers know the aphorism, “No one cares what you know until they know that you care.” We are no longer in the garden, and yet when the learning environment is safe enough to take risks, and each person is in a caring relationship, a transference of knowledge remains possible. Though it is a faint facsimile of the original, God-to-human relationships enrich teaching and learning.
Knowledge exists because truth exists. Teaching and learning pre-suppose the existence of truth. One must know truth of some kind before one can impart it to or receive it from another. Which is to say learning and teaching are possible. Pastor Chuck Smith describes correspondence theory of truth as, “We discover truth by what God has revealed to us through His Word and the testimony of the Holy Spirit, as well as observed facts of God’s created order. Therefore, truth is knowable because God has revealed it to us.” 20th century missionary and theologian Francis Schaeffer explains, “The Christian has a certainty right from the start that there is an external world that is there, created by God as an objective reality…The Christian being sure of the reality of the external world has a basis for true knowledge.” The evidence is existential. The very words on this page communicate thoughts that illicit either assent or dissent in your mind. This experience is real and has the potential to communicate absolute truth.
In contrast, a relativistic view of truth is self-defeating. Consider the proposition, “Truth is relative.” is set forth as an absolute truth claim. Theologian Norm Geisler reminds us, “Absolute truth is literally undeniable, and therefore it is not illegitimate to make absolute truth claims about the Bible or Christianity, such as evangelical theology does.” One must humbly remember humans are finite, so absolute truth can be known objectively, but not exhaustively.
In teaching and learning which values humans as created beings and glorifies God as Creator, meaningful communication is communicating truth. Communication of truth is actual and possible. Thus, truth can be known and shared. While the philosophical problem of knowledge is real for those who have willfully set themselves apart from the infinite and personal God, the Christian is relieved of this problem. Education is knowing and communicating truth analogous to the truth God has revealed in The Bible. “Truth is what corresponds to its object.”
Before the creation, within the triune God, communication always exists, “and part of making man in His own image is that man is a verbalizer. That stands in the unity of the Christian structure.” God also communicates to humanity—favored recipients—being created in God’s image. The content may be opinion, fact, humor, entertainment, or otherwise thought-provoking, but communication is possible. This pattern briefly summarizes the epistemology of teaching and learning. I began teaching by example. A most basic technique is encapsulated in the teacher maxim, “Show, don’t tell.” Before I could explain, I could teach by example. All coaches know, showing is the teaching complement of imitation, which is learning.
God’s first corrective object lesson to Adam and Eve was in the garden when he sacrificed an innocent animal and made coats of skins to clothe them after the fall (Genesis 3:21), showing, not telling that forgiveness would come through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God.
One way to integrate “Show, don’t tell” in the online classroom is to show students the grading rubric. Then clarify their understanding of the rubric as an objective way to demonstrate and measure learning. The exercise of the students thinking through the rubric in relation to their work is educative for college students when coupled with guidance to help them synthesize a solution from the course content to meet an objective standard of performance. This develops deeper metacognition. The shared experience becomes the context for specific teacher praise of effort and thought, which is supportive and motivational.
The biblical text in both testaments places importance on teaching. In the New Testament it is undeniable—teaching is a vocation within the body of Christ—for which some are especially gifted (Ephesians 4:10-11). Jesus, in his first advent, was a teacher (John 3:2). Jesus’ own testimony was that he was daily in the temple teaching (Matthew 26:55; Mark 14:49). Teaching is central to Jesus’ earthly ministry and is corroborated in the gospels (Matthew 4:23; 9:35; 21:23; Mark 6:6; Luke 5:17; 13:10; 13:22; 21:37; 23:5). Further, Jesus commands teaching (Matthew 28:20).
In The Book of Acts the disciples obey the command to teach (Acts 5:25; 15:35; 18:11; 28:11). The encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch underscores the necessity of educative work in the world today. The Holy Spirit leads Philip to leave Samaria and engage a man reading Scripture. One translation reads as follows: So, the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join him in his chariot.” Then Philip ran up and listened to him reading the prophet Isaiah, and he asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He answered, “How in the world could I, unless someone teaches me?” And he begged him to get up and sit with him. (Acts 8:29-31 Williams emphasis added).
For those called to teach the response is compelled by the love of Christ to do so (2 Cor. 5:14). I teach in order to prepare leaders for their vocations—to do a good work for Our King and His Kingdom until He returns. God has been redeeming the time, preparing me to join with Him in the good work of serving the next generation to go and take their place in response to their calling.
The Acts passage concludes, “When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away; the official saw him no more, for he went on home rejoicing; but Philip was found at Ashdod, and he went on telling the good news in all the towns until he reached Caesarea” (Acts 8:39-40 Williams). This conclusion is exhortative for us. As the Ethiopian Eunuch did, let us also “go on home” in the Spirit of the Lord rejoicing.
