teaching like paul

At the very beginning of chapter 3, Wong begs the question, "How do we enable our students to be full participants in more than on speech community and to walk in multiple worlds?" In a way, my husband and I were just discussing this question the other day from a missionary perspective. The most effective method for reaching out to others and spreading the Gospel is to become like them. In his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 9, verse 19 - 24, the apostle Paul writes:

"For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you. Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain."

Essentially, he explains that although he had the freedom to do whatever he wanted to, he chose to become like the people he was teaching so that he could relate to them and more effectively teach them.

As teachers, our job depends on our ability to relate to our students! We might not be able to become exactly like them, but we may have walked in their shoes or learned another language like they are doing. Freire's "Problem Posing" strategy, to me, was very similar to Paul's approach to spreading the Word of God. On page 85, Wong writes, "As teachers, we can be seduced by the promises of the permanent. If I use the same syllabus as last year or the same text, then I can predict what will happen. At the same time, I might not reach all students with this. In fact, I might only reach the docile students, the ones who are already privileged within the system. If I can use a problem-posing approach, in which I as a teacher do not know the answers but am willing to work with my students to find them out, then I am working within a "dynamic present". I may not be able to predict the future - what and how my students will learn, but they will be learning." Essentially, in problem posing, teachers and students participate in dialogue, rather than constant teacher transmission.

But what caught me about problem posing is that it is "dynamic", as Wong puts it. In Teacher Ed. classes, we refer to this as "autonomy" - the teacher's freedom to present the material in a way that they choose, that best reaches their students.

So back to the original question - how DO we prepare students to "walk in multiple worlds"? It seems that they must learn to be dynamic - to be willing to change, based on their surroundings. In his teachings, Paul "to the weak [...] became weak." It is about talking, relating, sharing, and being autonomous. Teachers must be willing to search out the best methods for the students, who will respond better to a lesson specifically adapted for them. As Wong explains, problem posing defies permanence and encourages an ever-changing approach to teaching languages to meet the needs of an ever-changing world.