Communities of Formation
As is (hopefully!) obvious by the title of this blog, 'formation' is a key educational category for me. I'm not as interested in what someone learns as how that learner is affected: how will the student change? Will they learn a new skill? Connect previous knowledge to new knowledge? Will they become uncomfortable with past lived assumptions? Will they be energized towards a certain way of life? In a sense, all education is towards a way of life, a practiced philosophy. We are never just loading students up with "content" nor are we just influencing one part of their existence - education is always holistic, as humans are always whole. What we teach the mind affects the body (no one has ever learned in a bodiless way - even Descartes was embodied while he thought); how we train the body affects the soul; and so on. At the same time, learning is never a totally individual endeavor, as we are not just individuals: we all come from cont...