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Teaching as Creating Harmony Out of Differences: The Role of the Imagination in Christian Education A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of Claremont School of Theology In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by Tae Young So May 2009 £jfi) CLAREMONT \>TV SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY This Dissertation, written by Tae Young So under the direction of his Faculty Committee and approved by its members, has been presented to and accepted by the Faculty of the Claremont School of Theology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty Committee: Frank Rogers, Jr., Chairperson Elizabeth Conde-Frazier Andrew Dreitcer Dean: Dennis R. MacDonald May 2009 Abstract Teaching as Creating Harmony Out of Differences: The Role of the Imagination in Christian Education by Tae Young So Many Christian educators widely recognize teaching as form of art. However, most Christian educators have insufficiently explored the role of imagination in the art of teaching. This dissertation explores the essential role of imagination in the field of Christian education and develops an imaginative pedagogy and identifies teaching as an imaginative act. Imagination is the artistic capacity to harmonize Christian traditions, lives, visions, and actions and to mediate God's transcendence with God's immanence. Therefore, imagination is not something superfluous that should be separated from real human history, but is the real power that enables humanity to participate in the history of God's Praxis in this world. Since humans are created in the image of the Creator, they can subjectively participate in the ongoing creation of God as Artist. The imagination enables us to visualize and actualize God's vision. Imagination is the capacity to expand personal faith into participatory and active faith. Moreover, imagination is the capacity to create harmony between the past and the present, formation and transformation, an individual and a community, and the particular and the general. The study of the theological and educational role of imagination crafts a theory of imaginative pedagogy and teaching as an imaginative act. The imaginative pedagogy suggests the artistic, creative, and rhythmic flow of four movements: remembering, encountering, visualizing, and actualizing. Teaching is an imaginative act of harmonizing these four movements with five variables: imaginative visions, teachers as artistic evaluators, learners as artistic subjects, environment, and wonder of the Spirit. The concepts of an imaginative pedagogy and approach to teaching are far from superficial; they are valid, just as Jesus' employment of these techniques in His own teachings were valid. Imagination-centered approaches to teaching and pedagogy are as applicable to curriculum development today as they were two thousand years ago. Table of Contents Chapter List of Figures iv 1. The Need for Imagination 1 Problem, Thesis, Methods, and Contributions of This Dissertation 1 The Need for the Imagination in the Field of Christian Education 9 The Art of Teaching 10 Groome's Shared Praxis 19 Moore's Art of Teaching 23 Lee's Cooperative Art-Science 28 The Need for Imagination in Art of Teaching 31 2. Theology of Imagination 35 God as Artist Who Creates Harmony 38 The Image of God and Imagination 45 The Image of God as the Passage to Imagining God 46 The Image of God as Imagining Authority for Care 50 The Image of Trinity for Imagining an Ideal Community 54 The Image of God as Imagining Vocation 58 Imagination as Fancy vs. Imagination as Harmony 62 Imagination as Fancy 62 Imagination as Harmony 67 Imagination and Faith 73 3. Constructive Views of the Imagination 84 Harmony and Imagination 84 Imagination as Remembering, Encountering, Visualizing, and Acting 86 Imagination as Harmony between Generalization and Particularization 90 Imagination as Harmony between Forming and Transforming 95 Imagination as Creating Human Wholeness 99 Imagination as Harmony between an Individual and Society 103 Imagination that Creates the Rhythm of Harmony 109 4. Imaginative Pedagogy 114 Groome's Five Movements vs. Harris' Five Movements 115 Imaginative Pedagogy 123 The Harmony of the Four Movements 127 Encountering Others 131 Remembering God's Story 136 Visualizing by Imaginative Reflection 142 Actualizing as Action 148 5. Teaching as an Imaginative Act 156 The Four Variables of Lee's Art-Science Model 157 Harmony of the Five Variables 161 ii Vision-Oriented vs. Goal-Oriented 162 Imaginative Vision 168 Imaginative Students as Subjective Artists 172 Imaginative Teachers as Artistic Evaluators 176 Wonder of the Spirit 182 Artistic and Creative Environment 188 6. Application of Imaginative Pedagogy and Teaching 193 Jesus as an Imaginative Teacher 193 Imaginative Pedagogy of Jesus Christ 202 Four Imaginative Curriculum Resources for Korean-American Youths 208 Seeking Harmony between Korean-American Lives and Biblical Stories 209 A Vision for Four Curriculum Resources 211 Actualization of the Four Sessions 212 The Flow of the Four Movements and Variables in the Four Sessions 225 7. Conclusion: Under the Tree of Imagination 228 Appendixes 232 A. Who Am I? 232 B. Gifts Inventory 233 Bibliography 234 in List of Figures Figures Figure 1: Eisner's Scale and Scope of Curriculum Decisions 93 Figure 2: Feldman's Locus of Creativity 104 Figure 3: Imaginative Pedagogy 124 Figure 4: Formation of New Identity 134 Figure 5: Lee's Closed-Loop System 157 Figure 6: Harmony of Five Variables 162 Figure 7: Goal-Oriented Education 164 Figure 8: Vision-Oriented Education 165 Figure 9: Eisner's Curriculum Planning Model 166 Figure 10: Imaginative Vision 169 Figure 11: Korean-American Youths as Chameleons 209 IV CHAPTER 1 The Need for Imagination Problem, Thesis, Methods, and Contributions of This Dissertation A few years ago, a Korean-American professor invited me to a jazz concert for Christians. I was amazed as I listened to the harmony of the beautiful sounds of trumpet, flute, drum, keyboard, and other instruments. I was impressed by the musicians' ability to harmonize the different sounds of their musical instruments. Every player moved fingers or parts of his or her body according to the rhythm of the music, and harmonized with one another. They created a harmony out of differences. All of the musical instruments contributed to creating harmony with their own unique sounds. The musicians spiritually, emotionally, and physically became one in the rhythm of the music. Most of all, I was amazed by the improvisation in the Jazz concert. Even though the musicians played their instruments according to improvisational rhythms, they made beautiful harmonies. They were inspired by something Holy and moved their bodies in time with that inspiration. After the concert, I kept asking myself, "What on earth is this human capacity to create harmony out of different sounds of instruments?" and, "What is this inherent power to touch holy inspiration and to create improvisational rhythm and flow in jazz music?" Alfonso Montuori compares teaching with playing jazz music that emphasizes improvisation and harmony in a variety of musical instrument sounds.1 In this sense, 1 Alfonso Montuori, "The Art of Transformation: Jazz as a Metaphor for Education," Holistic Education Review 6 (1996): 57-62. 1 Jazz players can be compared to students who ontologically possess and create different sounds, listen and respond to the rhythms of others, and create artistic rhythms as a kind of harmony out of their differences in the classroom. Even though Montuori describes the artistic flow of teaching as the improvisational and inspirational play of Jazz music, he does not explore the capacity to create harmony, inspiration, and improvisation. I argue, however, that humans can ontologically tune their differences to a common code or rhythm. All humans as well as musicians can create great beauty as harmony out of different voices and sounds in a kind of musical rhythm. If differences can be thus harmonized with each other in a rhythm, what is this power to create harmony? What is this human capacity to make artistic and rhythmic collaborations? This dissertation assumes that imagination is the capacity to create harmony out of differences, to harmonize humanity with divinity, and to create the inventive rhythm of teaching. Many educators identify education as an art, artistic activity, and artistic rhythm. They have focused on the creative and rhythmic flow of teaching, but have neglected the study of imagination as the inherent power of artistic rhythm and holy inspiration to create art. As a matter of fact, in the field of Christian education, the role of imagination has been insufficiently explored. This is unfortunate. The imagination is a central and indispensable component of Christian theology and pedagogy. Therefore, this dissertation explores the role of the imagination in Christian education and develops a distinctive "imaginative pedagogy." Christian educators widely recognize that teaching is an art; Christian education creates an artistic synthesis of tradition, experience, and action that mediates the presence of God. Christian education particularizes the general tradition within individuals' 2