250 Chapter 7 The vivid canon proved to be successful in the first year of DCU’s curriculum renewal (2022–23) and was, following more careful preparation, even more successful in the second year (2023–24). In the conversational community’s 18th meeting, two members of the insider team who had recently considered the practice of the song reported their experiences, stating that ‘the canon makes an impression and helps students remember that the idea is that they are really allowed to be themselves, even though the assignment expects them to listen uncritically to the fundamentally dissenting Christian’. Another element of the new curriculum intended to support critical faithfulness was the integration of special chapel hours in the first year of teacher training. The idea behind these chapel hours was to challenge students to not depend on their teachers for morning devotions. From the start of their teacher training, they were given responsibility for preparing a short morning devotion. During each semester, they received (for the first time in 2022–2023) instructions from a teacher of Christian education on how to do so. The conversational community endorsed this idea of motivating students to give form and words to their own faith and to handle any differences within their classes and learning communities. Although the choice of learning communities will be considered in the next chapter, it is important to note that every class was now split into two smaller learning communities where differences could be examined and joint responsibilities, such as the morning devotions, organised. In this way, the curriculum now places students much earlier in an active role with regard to practicing and explicating the Christian faith. These first-year elements are elaborated while the curriculum continues. Along the lines explained in Chapter 6.3, diversity and complexity are gradually increased. The conversational community helped with the development
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw