279 Basic Attitude and the Art of Living Together 8 The objective was never to exclude these students or force them to demonstrate a certain hypocrisy to obtain their grades or diploma. Therefore, the choice was made to work with ideals that represent DCU’s vision and goals, inviting students to freely reflect on them. This matches the basic attitude identified by the conversational community of not forcing students, but inviting them to live the good life as promoted by the Christian faith and a Biblical focus. Working with ideals places the teacher not in a position of power but in a position of guidance, where the teacher functions as an example of his or her own ideals. One of these ideals is connectedness to others, to ‘those around’ the Christian teacher. With regard to this connection, DCU formulated in its professional profile: ‘Our ideals require the teacher to be concerned about and subservient to the students and their parents or guardians on the basis of the commandment of love’ (Driestar hogeschool, 2020, p. 4). What stands out in this formulation is the direct connection it makes with one of the core elements of the Christian faith—namely, the great commandment to love the neighbour—and that, according to DCU’s ideals, an attitude of service belongs to it. To practice this attitude from the start of teacher training, DCU decided to work on its personhood education process with small learning communities. In these communities, students learn to put their individual talents into service to learn with and from each other. A permanent supervisor is always present to guide each small group and pay clear attention to the needs of every student. Relationship and community building are crucial elements of a learning community’s existence. It appeals to students to perceive both their studies and their jobs (e.g. internships) as not just an individual but also a joint responsibility. At the same time, they learn the importance of the feeling of just being one more student but really being seen and really seeing each other. The learning communities function as the mini-society that the conversational community promoted and perceived as exemplary for classes in primary schools. In its seventh meeting, the conversational community concluded that ‘these learning communities provide a good place for working together to articulate and internalise the Christian faith’. This conclusion was repeated in the 10th meeting. It was especially connected by several insider group members to the pedagogical need to delay, interrupt and support the educational process to enable the personal growth of the individual student and the group. This three-way approach was found within the overarching WCD project and brought into the conversational community and the TAR
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