Integration of Faith, Learning and Working

The integration of faith and learning (IFL) provides an opportunity to share our faith in all classroom disciplines. This endeavor has been largely left to classroom teachers. As Lisa Beardsley-Hardy, Editor-in-Chief for College and University Dialogue, says, “all teachers need to develop their capacity to achieve the redemptive purpose of Adventist education and to model Adventist values and lifestyle.” However, it is my belief that everyone, Adventist and non-Adventist, faculty or staff, working in an Adventist’s educational institution is a teacher.

Integration of faith and learning is not an isolated activity belonging in a classroom alone. Learning takes place both in and outside the classroom, so all school employees need to show faith integration daily in their areas of work so that what students learn in the classroom can also be observed and experienced outside. It’s about integrating faith with learning and with working. An unknown writer once argued: “If you don’t practice what you preach and don’t practice what you teach, then what you preach and teach will not reach; it’s just a speech.” Thus, the integration of faith and learning should go beyond an individual’s efforts to encompass the entire institution’s workforce.

The administration should not only support the practice of faith and learning, but also should apply the principles of the Bible in their operations; rules and regulations should be fair, just, and applied equally and consistently. Both employees and students should be treated without discrimination or favoritism. Disciplinary actions should be redemptive and equitable. The administration should also create a physical environment conducive to the integration of faith and learning. The décor of all building facilities and the campus landscape should reflect our faith in such areas as cleanliness, order, and harmony.

Both faculty and staff are open books that all readers, including students, read. As good as praying, reading a Bible passage, or sharing our faith in all classroom subjects is, this will not go far enough in the lives of students if faith and learning is not integrated in the faculty and staff member’s own lives. Therefore, our work ethic and lifestyle matters very much. They see what we do and try to imitate the qualities we show. According to Randall Sorenson, “Faith integration … is caught, not taught.” That is, students catch more what we do than what we say.

Integration of faith, learning, and working also means hiring employees who espouse the Adventist faith or are willing to support Adventist principles. As Knight has once asked: “What is Christian education without Christian teachers?”; “What is Adventist education without Adventist teachers?” Beardsley-Hardy argues that “The data shows that we also need systems and deliberate efforts to increase, where needed, the percentage of Seventh-day Adventist teachers who work in the system. The past 14 years show a clear downward trend for primary, secondary, and tertiary teachers. We increasingly employ people of other faiths or no faith at all.” Having Adventist teachers in Adventist schools is an important factor for faith integration.

What are some ways you can practically integrate the role of faith with your teaching?

References:

1.  Hardy, L. (2017, February). Adventist World-NAD, 26

Author

Athanase Rutebuka

Rutebuka has a PhD in Educational Administration and Supervision – Andrews University. He served as Interim President of Ethiopia Adventist College (2013-2015), Africa. Associate Professor; currently serving as Head of the Department of Management. Is author of "School Violence and Unspoken Messages to Children: The Remedy Is In Your Hands" (2001) and "My Story" (2010), a book that tells the story of a church established and developed under difficult circumstances.