275 Basic Attitude and the Art of Living Together 8 In the second meeting, a member of the outsider group advocated for good professionalism with the words ‘high-quality education’. She perceived it as ‘education based on connection’. Somewhat later in the same meeting, another outsider group member stipulated that it is possible to do the educational job and fulfil educational tasks ‘devoid of feeling’. In the fifth meeting, yet another member of the outsider group, when speaking about the kind of teacher that is needed for multi-ethnic Christian schools, stated that it should be people ‘with a heart for: I want to mean something for this neighbourhood’. In all three cases, the different participants underlined that the deep motivation for the intended attitude comes directly from the combination of a Christian faith and a highly diverse context: • PO1 mentioned the person of Jesus: You have to show Jesus’ love, and more I need to not do. • PO2 mentioned the Bible and the telling of Bible stories: I’m just thinking back to my time in teacher training, with lesson preparations. After my Bible story, I always had to think neatly about my application at the end of the story. Well, I wrote it down neatly, but without any feeling, so to speak. But here I really think: Yes, but what is the real application, now, here in this neighbourhood? Then there really is a story, an image. • PO3 mentioned the heart with the adjective Christian: But at such a time I think you do have to show your Christian face (…) That is why we never had so much trouble in times of teacher shortages. Because within the Christian church there are always people who have this in their heart. And these are often people with a heart for: I want to mean something for this neighbourhood. In a broader sense, the members and other (invited) participants spoke of ‘an attitude of service’. When the 10th meeting very specifically discussed a letter to help sophomores from the teacher training programme to enter multi-ethnic schools for an exploratory internship, the originally used term ‘service learning’ was criticised. From the outsider group, the advice was to keep the language used accessible to school staff and students. The group indicated that ‘it can be used, but it must be clear that it is really about the attitude of service’. One invited participant added after the ninth meeting’s deliberations on personhood formation that it would be helpful to include the terms ‘responsibility’ and ‘discernment’ in what needs to be said on personhood formation and, especially, attitude formation. A responsible and discerning attitude is meant to be helpful towards others, to be of service, wanting to be there for others. For all of the participants, it seemed to be perfectly clear that this attitude is driven by Christian, Christocentric love.
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