223 Subjectifying Education and the Art of Living Together 6 its weaker powers—that is, not relying on cognitive knowledge and measurable skills, nor on strong socialising tendencies, but instead on giving good examples and inculcating the moral ideal of good citizenship. Especially outside of their comfort zones, when put in contexts that are highly diverse and complex, students start to discover their selves. An important aspect of this discovery is understanding that diversity and complexity are not (just) threats to their identity but (also) challenges to be a self—and the subsequent eye-opening experience that diversity is an invitation not to conceal one’s identity but to present it honestly. Students still experience tension between their comfort zone and contexts of high diversity and complexity, although this tension challenges them to know what they personally stand for and to learn how to act and behave towards others with respect, subjectifying themselves to what the relationship with these others’ needs. WCD, as a model, is helpful in seeing what is necessary and placing the (pedagogical) relationship at the centre of attention and behaviour. Given the practical nature of subjectifying education, which was tied by the conversational community in the first place to practice (the hands), the voices of operant and espoused theology were dominant in this chapter. Still, the voices of formal and normative theology appeared to be particularly helpful in finding the deep, motivational words and concepts necessary to adopt a WCD approach. In particular, Wolterstorff’s (2004) shalom idea proved to be appealing. In a Biblically theological sense, it integrates the doctrine of personal salvation through justification with the sanctification of life via the healing and restoration of relationships—with God, the self, others and the world. It also combines the motivational vision of the messianic kingdom with practical action at a personal level in the form of social justice, and it helps students to connect, for example, faith and the challenge of adversity. For the training of Christian trainee teachers, it is good to include shalom-seeking citizenship as a leading principle for both holistic experiences outside of their comfort zones and lessons based on how this Biblical principle relates to contemporary reality. The aforementioned elements (relations and their healing at the centre, with shalom as the leading principle) are helpful in terms of being both critically faithful and critically open towards others. Approached from Christian anthropology, as was done in Chapter 3, both are fundamental for the holistic formation of trainee teachers. In the experiences of students and teachers, however, there seems to be some tension between the dynamics of faithfulness and openness. To address that tension as a challenge (or even an invitation) to learn how to develop an attitude that enables students to be themselves in a subjectifying way, they first need some epistemological formation for the art of living together in a highly diverse context. This will, therefore, be the next chapter’s topic.
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