Café

The Hardest Sermons You’ll Ever Have To Preach
Reviewed by Hans Kristensen
Little Black Books: Science and God
Reviewed by Andrew Laird
Making the Most of the Cross
Reviewed by Lesley Hicks
Higher Ground
Reviewed by Andrew Laird

The Joy of Performance

8:37am Wednesday, 21st July 2010

Stephen Fyson on why
the “optional extras” are
necessary in Christian
education.

The little girl comes out onto the stage and smiles nervously into the black space where the people sit. She of course cannot see them, but knows she only has to do her part, just like her patient teachers have taught her.
The little boy comes bouncing in, grinning from the beginning, as if the stage was another part of the playground, and it was just like any other play time. His best friend, also on stage with him, keeps looking up and down because he knows that Grandma and Grandpa have made a special trip to see the show, and this makes him so excited that he appears nervous. And then there is the dancer—the girl from the class that makes it look all so easy because she has been trained in her craft from such a very young age. The
audience does not see that she is just as nervous—because even at this tender age, her increased experience counts when she is up front…
During the next part of the show, the teenage girl is singing like a young woman well beyond her years. Her early maturity has blessed her with the capacity to sound almost as good as a more seasoned performer. Her long and lanky partner’s voice is not as settled, but he has the confidence to fill the stage every time he steps onto it. The audience smiles on the inside and the outside whenever these two appear, and their friends of different abilities who are around them trust all of the others on stage (and those behind) so much that they take all of the audience on a mysterious and wonderful journey of suspended disbelief through the rest of the memorable evening.
These scenes (and many sporting ones) could be at anyone of the many schools around our country where performance has become part of the culture of what schooling is. Whether it be a group of students leading worship, a junior, middle or senior School major performance, or one of the many music and drama classes “doing their thing” for another group somewhere, there you will see teachers, students and parents working together to routinely offer these creative opportunities to our young, across the ages and stages of their schooling.
Why do committed teachers do it? Is it because they love being creative? Is it because it gives them another way of relating to students (and vice versa)? Is it because they believe it to be one of the unique ways of expressing our humanity in soul enriching ways?
I believe that the answer to all of these questions (and more) would be “yes”. However, the wonderful thing is that all of these activities also enhance learning—and they particularly encourage lifelong learning.
There was a fascinating piece of research based on 30,000 student responses that explored what helps students develop a positive attitude to learning for life.
The researcher involved was Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and the study (as reported by Scherer, 2002)1 noted that of the tens of thousands of student responses, 30% said they enjoyed their learning activities, but did not consider them important. Another 30% said they didn’t necessarily enjoy the experiences but were committed to them because they thought it important. The smallest group (10%) said the experiences were important and enjoyable. The other 30% said that the experiences were neither.
When the researchers sought to identify which learning experiences typified the most positive groups, they found that “cross curricular” (what we would call extra-curricular or co-curricular) activities were those most likely to give both enjoyment and meaning. This was described as “flow … when you have a close match between a high level of challenge and the skills you need to meet the challenge ... academic classes did not offer him [the student] an opportunity to meet serious adult standards, but the cross-curricular activity did”. Scherer called this “engagement”, and it was dependent on the right mix of physical and cognitive interactions between teacher and students, in a context of safe, just and respectful relationships (Scherer, p. 14).
A more recent Australian study reported it this way: “The research found that a student’s connection to school is the most important factor shaping future wellbeing”.2
The article was based on the research of Meredith O’Connor from the University of Melbourne. The article further explained:
O’Connor’s analysis showed that a happy school experience has the most consistent impact on the five facets of positive development: social competence, life satisfaction, trust in public authority, civic engagement and tolerance for others (p. 10).
So in the face of some people claiming that doing such things are optional extras in a Christian approach to education, I would respond that I’m not sure. Faith-based (i.e. deep) learning is an invitation to believe and act, and the soul of another cannot be forced. To educate is to lead out, and Csikszentmihalyi’s work seems to be describing part of the thumb-print in her outline of some of the important principles of engaging the heart and thus the minds of our students.
Scherer’s conclusion can perhaps also be a refresher about why performance (including performance on the sports field) is important to those who wish to see education as more than the simple transfer of cognitive information and skills: “To educate is to expose kids to many possibilities until they find a connection between what’s really important to them and the world out there” (p.17). Can we do that only in the traditional classroom where most of the experiences are compulsory? Could any of our students be fully engaged within a life that is fully imposed? How can we and our students develop faith when we don’t choose to take a risk together?
Let us be patient and courageous in continuing to explore such things together.
Stephen J Fyson PhD, Principal Southland College, Director of Education Morling College
Registered Psychologist NSW
1 Scherer, M. (2002). Do students care about learning?
A conversation with Mihaly Csikszenmihalyi. Educational
Leadership, September, pp 12-17.
2 An Education for Life feature article in Education Review
February 2010 pp 10-11