Teaching for Transformation: Insights from Fiji, India, South Africa, and Jamaica

• Published in: Teaching theology & religion Vol. 8; no. 4; pp. 218 - 231
• Main Author: Hill, Jack A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.10.2005; Wiley-Blackwell
• Subjects: Curricula; Ethical Instruction; Ethics; Fiji; Foreign Countries; India; Influences; Jamaica; Religion; Religious Education; South Africa; Teaching; Teaching Experience; Teaching Methods; Texas; Transformative Learning; Undergraduate Students; Undergraduate Study; South Africa; Fiji; Jamaica; Texas; India
• ISSN: 1368-4868; 1467-9647
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9647.2005.00248.x

.  How can teaching and living abroad impact our teaching in North America? This article explores how what I do teaching religion and ethics to undergraduates at Texas Christian University has been influenced by twelve years of teaching in the two‐thirds world. It is structured in terms of three insights that correlate with what I call the past, present, and future dimensions of ethics, respectively. First, we need to begin where our students are – taking their contexts seriously. Second, we should expose them to the moral and religious experience of others, so that they might be pulled by those others toward broader perspectives. Third, we should challenge them to envision new ways of living, including new self‐understandings and images of society. Drawing on examples of how I use these insights in courses at TCU, I contend that we can best promote transformation in our students by holding these three insights in creative tension.