IMTN A conversation of trainers that leads to
action
Bulletin
1
January 2015
Equipping
the whole person
Ruth
M Wall PhD
Welcome to our first IMTN
bulletin
The aim of the bulletin is to
stimulate conversation between mission trainers around the world. It is an urgent - and massive - task today to
equip the church for mission. Today the global church is sending out
unprecedented numbers of its members across the cultures to bear witness to
Jesus Christ. Yet what kind of
preparation is given and what kind of impact is this mass movement having on
receiving churches, on sending churches and on those who are going?
The scale of the challenge can
result in expedient training solutions.
We have to do something so let’s do what we can (pragmatic) with the
resources we have (feasibility). But
expedient solutions may not be the most fruitful. Mission trainers need to think critically –
and we need to think together- about best practices in preparing men and women
for crossing the cultures.
To start our engagement in
critical reflection this bulletin will focus on the issue of equipping the whole
person. Effective ministry requires
more than knowing information and more than knowing how to apply that
information in other contexts. Effective
ministry also requires mature and godly emotions and the ability to relate to
God, to self and to others in ways that are healthy and resilient.
Examining the ‘head-heart-hands’ of
mission training
For several decades the popular
mission training slogan, ‘head-heart-hands’ with its alternative
‘knowing-being-doing’ has been used to summarise whole person learning. Take a
look at the websites and brochures of many mission training institutions around
the world and they will present this slogan as their ethos for training. [1] But what does head-heart-hands really mean
and is this triplet a useful or adequate description for the kind of whole
person learning so essential in Christian mission training?
The ‘head-heart-hands/know-be-do’
motif neatly signifies three domains of learning that were described in the
1950s and 1960s by Benjamin Bloom. He
conceived learning in three domains that he described as cognitive, affective
and psychomotor. The cognitive domain refers to developing knowledge, the
affective domain refers to attitudes and psychomotor refers to skills. Importantly, Bloom’s taxonomy was developed
in the context of Western academic institutions.[2]
Mission trainers recognise that
preparation for mission is not solely a cognitive process leading to knowledge
acquisition but must also include the development of right attitudes and
appropriate skills. So the
‘head-heart-hand/ know-be-do’ appears to be a helpful way for mission trainers
to design training that equips people with appropriate knowledge, attitudes and
skills. However, there are two
significant problems with this understanding of learning.
Firstly, the ‘head-heart-hand/
know-be-do’ motif ignores a crucial social dimension of learning. Understanding about learning has developed
since the 1950s and 60s and educators now recognise that all learning is both
situated (cannot take place in a vacuum) and a social process. The social dimension of learning is essential
not only to understand whole person learning but also, in the context of
Christian discipleship and mission training because missionaries’ ability to
relate is crucial.
Secondly, the ‘head-heart-hands/
know-be-do’ over emphasises the cognitive (thinking) dimension of learning.
Knowledge and skills are essentially both cognitive processes. Therefore, if
educators use the ‘head-heart-hands/ know-be-do’ slogan to guide their training
design they are likely to emphasis the cognitive. It is also much easier to measure and test
the cognitive (knowledge development and skills abilities) so training is
skewed towards ‘knowing and doing’ with less attention to emotions and no
explicit attention to the social dimension.
Reconceptualising
whole person learning: H3
Therefore,
I suggest that ‘head- heart-hands/know-be-do’ as it has been understood is not
an adequate description of whole person learning and needs to be
reconceptualised if it is to be helpful in informing mission training.
We
need to move on from Bloom and find alternative ways to conceive learning. Knud Illeris is a Danish professor of adult
education. He defines learning as: ‘an
entity which unites a cognitive, an emotional and a social dimension into one
whole’ [3]
(Illeris, 2002, p.227).
Using
this view of learning I offer a reconceptualization of ‘head-heart-hands’ where
‘head’ signifies cognition/thinking (knowing and doing), ‘heart’ signifies emotion
(feeling/attitudes), and ‘hand’ signifies relating. This is shown in figure 1 below.
|
Interaction
|
Cognition
(knowing and doing) = Head Emotion
(feelings/attitude) = Heart
______________________________
Social (relating) = Hands
Figure 1: Reconceptualising
head-heart-hands, adapted from Illeris, 2002
Furthermore,
Illeris[4] conceives learning as a two-dimensional
process of acquisition and interaction.
The three dimensions of learning: cognitive, emotional and social, are
developed through an acquisition process interacting with others. These ideas of learning have informed my
research in mission training and shaped the way I think about course designs. [5]
Over
the last decade I have introduced the symbol H3 to
represent whole person learning. In this
symbol the H signifies head-heart-hands
(thinking-emotions-relating) and the superscripted 3
denotes the possibility of whole person learning (holistic learning) when
these three dimensions are addressed together.
My research has found that transformation may be possible when there is
integration of our thinking, our emotions and our relationships.
H3 and its
implications for mission training
Adopting
the ideas of H3 may helpfully inform how we design
mission training. Firstly, it can enable trainers to give attention to
nurturing the learners’ emotional and relational development. Trainers mostly focus on the information
content of the curriculum but to foster whole person learning trainers will
need to consider different kinds of questions.
For example, how will the learners’ emotions be engaged in the
learning? What kinds of learning tasks
connect thinking and emotions? How will
emotions be challenged? How will emotions be supported? How will relationships be nurtured? How will learning strengthen relating with
God, with self and with others? What kind of learning tasks foster
relationships?
Finally,
Illeris’s two learning processes of acquisition and interaction
are a helpful way for us to talk about two crucial aspects of mission training
namely, learning to learn and learning to relate. The acquisition process concerns how we learn
and the interaction process concerns how we relate. Being able to learn and
being able to relate are essential in Christian mission. Being able to learn and being able to relate
are indivisible and together represent the process of whole person
learning.
Now
let’s share ideas! How can we design
training that will address these and other questions arising from the whole
person learning?
Ruth
Wall is a mission trainer at All Nations Christian College, UK
