271 Basic Attitude and the Art of Living Together 8 people is a very important aspect of citizenship education in the Christian elementary school. Deeply, children may learn what it is to be a citizen of heaven, to live a life to the glory of God and to the blessing of one’s neighbour. For Christian teachers, this also means that they do not do the work for themselves (focused on their own success, to earn money, emphasis on the all-knowing teacher who just tells how everything is) but that there is a ‘big story’ to tell wherein children can be included. In a pedagogy of longing, the emphasis is on love, attention and respect. Action-oriented work to help children move forward is good, but it must be balanced by the above. Teachers should be aware of their leading role model. Every child/ every human being needs others ton get excited about/inspired by. Teachers should, therefore, be transparent about their doubts. At the same time, they also live the gospel, speak with enthusiasm and amazement about all that can be taught. The goal of education is more than conversion to God (too much emphasis on this can lead to passivity), and also more than ‘doing good things’ (too much emphasis on this can lead to activism without a vertical line upwards). The goal is to form children into the ‘image bearer of God’, thus arriving at the destination/meaning. For Christian teacher training, it seems important to us that students engage in conversations on these themes, asking inquiring questions about systems, each other’s motives, etc. They too need a role model—that is, an engaged mentor who speaks to and knows the students. The underlining in the quotation is not original; rather, it has been placed in the text to analyse how the outsider group managed to combine the question of societal fragmentation with the faith-based answer of heavenly citizenship; the problem of polarisation and hyper-individualism with active communitybuilding starting in groups of students; a pedagogy of longing with the gospel’s big story; and the teacher’s role of being present for students with children’s goal of finding happiness and flourishing in being an image bearer of God. The core elements of this statement by the outsider group not only show a remarkable coherence with the theorical part of this dissertation but also with the parallel statement—without the interchanging of ideas during the period of separation of the two groups—by the insider group. The statement made by the insider group is much more staccato in its formulation and, therefore, harder to cite, although below is an overview, again with the keywords underlined afterwards: The insider group started elaborating on the devotion, describing how a pedagogy of longing can be helpful for the intended attitude of ‘being with’. Broad, good education arouses the desire to know more, to become more
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