Now what? Midwiving pastoral leadership in the midst of digital churn

TTEG at ATSOrlando, FL11 November 2016

Mary E. HessUniversity of St. Michael’s College

in the University of Toronto

digital tech can make a difference to learning by:

• providing a richer, more multiply intelligent environment within which to learn

• providing more opportunities for collaboration

• giving teachers a better angle of vision on the challenges their students are facing and the specific assumptions with which they enter courses

• providing better access to primary source materials

• overcoming constraints of geography and time

• attending to the meaning-making contexts of our students and our communities of faith

let’s talk about context

“a great story is not about providing information, though it can certainly inform, a great story invites an expansion of understanding, a self-transcendence… more than that it plants a seed for it, and makes it impossible to do anything else but grow in new understanding – of the world, of our place in it, of ourselves, of some subtle or monumental aspect of existence”

Maria Popova

culture is… a process “by which meaning is produced, contended for, and continually renegotiated and the context in which individual and communal identities are mediated and brought into being…”

Brown, et. al.

digital media — tool or culture? deliver information or navigate an ocean?

placing equipment rather than engaging pedagogically

copyright: minimizing risk or engaging culture

tell or show? transfer content or invite inquiry?

We cannot have control. If we truly believe in a God who is incarnate, a God who breathes God’s spirit into the world, a God who poured out love by “emptying” Godself, by “becoming a servant,” then the wisdom we need to be sharing, the story which emerges from climbing the ladder from data to information to knowledge to wisdom, the story we need to be telling is one of openness, of discernment, of inquiry and collaboration, of learning from failure and of not fearing death…

“… I want to talk with you about two issues. Both have been the focus of ATS work for years. The really important issues, it seems, seldom go away; they simply continue in ever-changing forms that require new patterns of response. The first is the gift of the changing racial/ethnic composition of the population. How schools deal with this issue will have major impact on both schools and the communities of faith they serve. The second is the educational practices that ATS schools will employ to educate the next generation of religious leaders. How schools deal with this issue will have a major impact on how effectively they exercise their core responsibility.”

Daniel Aleshire

“course in a box” or “domain of one’s own”

the specialist medical approach rather than the organic natural one

a path that promised control over one which welcomes widespread participation

WillieJames

Jennings

many voices have been raised — many are being raised! — to transform our narratives

The human need to control, the human sin of aligning with power over rather than power poured out, these human dynamics constructed a vicious and brutal system of racial oppression in North America – and Christians were at the forefront of it, creating theological rationales which blessed the process rather than resisting it.

Digital media offer fertile ground for sharing creative agency.

Digital media makes possible the “re-contextualizing” of story in the midst of context collapse.

we are in the midst of a new kind of Pentecost moment…

We are in a new

moment of

Pentecost

The challenge here is to find ways to live into this moment that open us up to the Spirit, rather than closing us down. The challenge is to find ways to breathe into the pain, to open ourselves up to the stretching, to rest in the trust and faith that God is bringing something to birth in our midst.

BryanStevenson

• Getting proximate • Changing our narratives • Finding our hope • Embracing discomfort

(1) getting proximate

“Undergraduates are used to being given answers through lecture. I tried instead to create opportunities for them to make their own discoveries through dialogue, but I often lacked the patience that this process requires. I wanted them to arrive at the truth in their own time and in their own way, but I hadn’t prepared myself for the role of guiding them to deeper understanding, and too often I tried to just correct mistakes. On one particularly shameful occasion, a student presenter offered up an interpretation of data, and I raised my hand in front of the whole class and said, “I don’t see it” — a rudely dismissive move that it still pains me to remember. If I really wanted knowledge to emerge from discourse, I needed to allow the group to live in a place of uncertain and incomplete understanding. I told them this many times as they grappled with difficult concepts, but too often I didn’t allow them the space to actually do it.”

Daniel Ginsberg

“What students really learn through inquiry — sometimes you don’t understand something, and that’s fine; sometimes nobody is going to tell you the answer, and you have to discover it for yourself — if I had to articulate a purpose for education, I might name this as its most important principle, but it’s not something you can teach by explaining. Perhaps teaching is essentially an effort to help students arrive at this deeper truth, in comparison to which academic content is only ever secondary.”

Daniel Ginsberg

emphasize listening

• Are you being asked to evaluate a learning management system? Make one of your criteria student agency.

• Are you being asked to implement surveys for assessment? Make sure there are questions on the survey that invite more than a likert scale response to questions of student experience.

• Are you being tasked with designing a “smart classroom”? Privilege infrastructure that invites relationality and listening – moveable chairs and tables, for instance, rather than smartboards and projectors; soundproofing between rooms and windows that let in daylight, rather than more microphones; access to google hangouts and open access badging, rather than proprietary systems of video conferencing.

dynamical change is “complex and results from unknown forces acting unpredictably to bring about surprising outcomes”

Eoyang and Holladay

If digital media are part of our cultural surround, if they are part of how “meaning is produced, contended for, and continually renegotiated and the context in which individual and communal identities are mediated and brought into being” – then they are also part of how God continues to create and reveal Godself in our midst.

And yet…

When I came to you, brothers, proclaiming the mystery of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling… (1 Corinthians 2:1-2)

…lift up the multiple voices you hear around you. Try to “get proximate” to the students at your institution. What are they struggling with? What is their experience of technology? Of learning? How are you helping to create mechanisms for iterative assessment? For ongoing feedback?

cognitive surplus

reflective stance rather than an instrumental one

the paradox in which we experience the joy of human freedom to a greater degree and also the public performance of hatred…

Michael Wesch

These movements privilege story sharing and story listening. They privilege taking the time necessary and finding the inner resilience adequate to nurturing deep listening. They are also movements in which substantial numbers of religious leaders have become active…

(2) change the narratives

“Learning is essentially a social activity, where people scaffold and extend each other’s knowledge gain [54], but in recent years, new theories have emerged to explain distributed forms of learning that have been made possible through mobile technology and social media. Digital forms of scaffolding emerge where learners access new knowledge using personal devices [55].

Proposed by Siemens [58], ‘connectivism’ suggests that knowledge now resides in the network as well as in the minds of those who use it. Learning is amplified and knowledge becomes more widely available as the network of people, tools and connections strengthens.”

Boulus, Giustini, Wheeler

• storied identity (fluid and dynamic identity construction, performative in nature)

• shifting authority (authority is built, not assumed structurally)

• networked community (loosely bounded social networks)

• convergent practice (personalized blending of belief and ritual, internet becomes a hub for assembling religious identity)

• multi-site reality (distinction between “online” and “offline” no longer adequately descriptive)

Heidi Campbell

…but by sharing in these common platforms we can also develop a capacity to become aware of these challenges. We become part of a larger public which is struggling with them, and we can bring our ethical and justice concerns to that public. The narrative we need to be changing is one which promotes technology as a purely individual, purely commercial concern which creates self-enclosed micro spaces, and instead find every chance we can to talk about it as part of our shared commons.

I am always eager to remind us that a disciple is a learner. This is a commandment to go and make learners. And we must always remember that the act of learning is an act of risking your current understanding.

(3) find what gives you hope and resilience

try small practices…

• using Google hangouts to support shared prayer and silence together over geographic distances

• inviting the changing of passwords to take on the intentionality of prayer (imagine a password, for instance, which is “praise God for all creation”

• helping faculty to find and use videos made by others, videos which invite prayer and reflective silence

• using streaming technologies like YouTube to draw together people over geographic distances and then helping them to build community together

• choosing to put 10 minutes of personal silent meditation into your day EVERY day

• teaching people how to curate practices that move from polarization to reflective disagreement within Facebook and other social media streams

What helps you stay grounded and calm in the midst of anxiety and the unknown?

Doing this work of finding hope and nourishing resilience is not simply a personal practice, it is an essential element of transformational work, and as such, I believe, part of what God is bringing to birth in our midst. If we are truly midwives in this process, then attending to our breath, finding moments of silence which help us to retrieve hope – these are constitutive to our role.

(4) embrace discomfort

“I wonder how much our tendency to avoid pain keeps us from some of the serious discussions that we need to have. And, I wonder if the tendency of people like me to avoid the pain that this issue evokes results in intensifying the pain that people of color experience. There is no virtue in feeling pain. Individual or institutional pain will not redeem racist structures, but there is no pain-free way to address racial prejudice.”

Daniel Aleshire

We don't know what God is bringing to birth in the world right now. And we who are the caretakers, the curators, need to find ways to attend these processes that deepen our breathing, that connect us ever more directly to our core convictions about God’s presence and action in the world.

share something of where you believe your school is on this journey, and one step you are taking to develop

“why do the midwives have this honor? What makes them so important that they merited being placed between our forefathers and our redeemer?”

Nechama Rubenstein

…many of our students as well as members of communities of faith, are robust – they are giving birth all around us to ways of listening to God, to patterns of practice that recognize God’s Creative breath in our midst – and it is past time to listen to and for that breath.

these slides are made available at slideshare.net/maryhess1 mhess@religioused.org

references “Wisdom in an age of storytelling” (https://vimeo.com/105692521) “sit with a kid in the cafeteria” image (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154380035628654&set=a.430302708653.211156.550088653&type=3&theater) Aleshire quote (ATS Colloquy) 7 powerful shifts in learning (https://twitter.com/mraspinall/status/604638331134222336/photo/1) Maya Angelou quote (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10107198550653720&set=a.10107181579663720.1073741839.13954176&type=3&theater) Audre Lorde quote (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153935442702840&set=a.10150186232672840.328738.688942839&type=3&theater) Authorship learning (http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/journal/constructionism-reborn/) Domain of one’s own (http://spartanideas.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Domain-of-Ones-Own-Giulia-Forsythe-1024x768.jpg) e-course in a box (http://drkellyedmonds.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/EcourseInABox_logo.png) puzzle learner (https://moxieexchange.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/moxie-puzzle-pieces-leaders.jpg)

references #BLM founders (http://static2.politico.com/dims4/default/aa5a457/2147483647/legacy_thumbnail/970x635/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2Ff0%2F44%2Fe150c9c84bf5a5f311b59c112809%2Fblacklivesmatter.jpg) Midwife image/MaryElizabeth (https://www.facebook.com/LiturgyCanada/photos/a.416990838414088.1073741828.416975425082296/416990868414085/?type=3&theater) Parker Palmer quote (https://www.facebook.com/couragerenewal/photos/a.72247664972.97071.47893474972/10153333696019973/?type=1&theater) Bryan Stevenson photo (http://bryanstevenson.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Bryan-Stevenson_credit_Nina_Subin.jpg) Buddhist Monk with computer (http://www.fbesp.org/synapse/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/isolation.jpg) Connected students image (https://www.facebook.com/MindShift.KQED/photos/a.285520908150502.58308.143782868990974/963290983706821/?type=3&theater)

references Prayer for learning: https://www.facebook.com/pastoralimagination/photos/a.196010777087893.44928.122573534431618/1226690890686538/?type=3&theater) innovative pedagogical practices (http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2014-nmc-horizon-report-he-EN.pdf) John Dewey quote (https://www.facebook.com/MindShift.KQED/photos/a.285520908150502.58308.143782868990974/960098027359450/?type=3&theater) Copyright clarity (http://blog.lib.umn.edu/copyrightlibn/2014/08/another-flowchart-deconstruction.html) Picasso quote (https://www.facebook.com/RawForBeauty/photos/a.290957997682437.61668.280583218719915/713937082051191/?type=1&theater) St. Francis quote (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153614712159328&set=a.10150512671284328.426055.760589327&type=1&theater)

references help the network (http://jarche.com/2016/08/a-network-perspective/#more-16661) Mary Engelbreit image (https://www.facebook.com/maryengelbreit/photos/a.283968321636466.87914.138832742816692/993662340667057/?type=1&theater) innovations in scholarly workflow (https://innoscholcomm.silk.co) Naked pastor cartoon (http://i1.wp.com/nakedpastor.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/jesus-eraser.jpg) learn through wonder (https://www.facebook.com/MindShift.KQED/photos/a.285520908150502.58308.143782868990974/948391295196790/?type=3&theater) C.S. Lewis quote (https://www.facebook.com/spirit1059/photos/a.144459288931676.27369.138292756214996/1073062186071377/?type=3&theater) Listen to understand (https://www.facebook.com/energytherapyuk/photos/a.415706755384.363615.314270915384/10156673127145385/?type=3&theater)

references religion is learning (https://www.facebook.com/UnitedChurchofChrist/photos/a.377652286786.165494.13217786786/10152561147561787/?type=1&theater) Micah6:8 (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153841956759998&set=a.10150219718504998.322480.619854997&type=3&theater) Richard Rohr quote (https://www.facebook.com/CenterforActionandContemplation/photos/a.214277931917524.59678.111022348909750/1279573585387948/?type=3&theater) James Baldwin quote (https://www.facebook.com/CTSChicago/photos/a.135303406889.121494.43990211889/10153202018741890/?type=3&theater) Rohr on prayer (https://www.facebook.com/33399052545/photos/a.10150947966412546.411993.33399052545/10153401802192546/?type=3&theater)

references Profile of a modern teacher (https://www.facebook.com/MindShift.KQED/photos/a.285520908150502.58308.143782868990974/781144061921515/?type=1&theater) Willie James Jennings (http://www.politicaltheology.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/willie-jennings.jpg) true peace (http://static4.quoteswave.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/True-peace-is-not-merely.jpg) 60 seconds (http://www.go-gulf.com/wp-content/themes/go-gulf/blog/60seconds.jpg) 15 rules of great teaching (https://www.facebook.com/MindShift.KQED/photos/a.285520908150502.58308.143782868990974/948393475196572/?type=3&theater)