Creative, Critical, and True

Abstract

In this dissertation, I argue that Bible education is best understood as training students to improvise responsibly with Scripture. I explore this pedagogical model by reflecting on my experience as a Bible instructor at Cristo Rey New York High School, an inner city Catholic school. The goal of a Cristo Rey education is the integral liberation of students. In the language of liberation theology, to be "integrally liberated" is to survive and to thrive on all levels - material, cultural, psychosocial, and spiritual. Learning to improvise responsibly with Scripture helps students to grow in integral liberation. It helps them develop the capacity to perceive and to act with greater freedom, discernment, and commitment. It helps them to handle and interpret the Bible in ways that are creative, critical, and true. Here being true means more than being factually accurate; it means being true to the text, being true to the needs of one's interpreting community, and being true to the inner promptings of God's Holy Spirit. Responsible improvisation connects Biblical interpretation with artistry, with problem-solving, and with the construction of counter-cultural spaces. The dissertation supports a pedagogy for improvising responsibly with Scripture in several different ways. In the first chapter, I explain my proposal and the teaching experiences on which it is based. The first half of the chapter introduces the Cristo Rey setting within which I developed the Biblical pedagogy theorized and refined in this project. The second half begins to locate and unpack that pedagogy in terms of academic disciplines and relevant terms. I explain more concretely what I mean by "training students to improvise responsibly with Scripture." I also describe what I mean by "integral liberation," and by "interpretations that are creative, critical, and true." Chapter Two answers the question: "Why consider teaching a program of training?" I use the theory of Situated Learning to outline the religion classroom as a place of training, where students learn to master different interpretive practices in the midst of intersecting communities. I show how my model accurately reflects the teaching and learning dynamics of high school classrooms. A situated learning perspective helps educators identify specific areas where their interventions can help students become better, more responsible Scriptural improvisers. Chapter Three answers the question, "How can you train students for improvisation?" In this chapter, I correlate my educational model with the popular educational technique known as Theatre of the Oppressed (TO). TO brings together critical pedagogy and creative expression to help participants improvise artful and liberating social actions; it has proven both powerful and enduring in a broad range of class and cultural settings. I use TO as a generative metaphor to help teachers imagine more deeply and richly what training students for responsible improvisation might look like. Chapter Four steps back to take in a broader perspective. It answers the question, "Is this pedagogical model coherent? How does it all hang together?" In this chapter, I use the Pragmatist theology of Donald Gelpi, SJ as an overarching framework. I relate the concepts of "interpretation," "creativity," "responsibility," and "norms" with each other, and with a theology of God's Holy Spirit. Using Gelpi's semiotic realism as a conceptual framework shows how my pedagogy is not only conceptually coherent, but also convincingly rooted in the Christian intellectual tradition. Chapter Five presents a detailed example of teaching the Bible for responsible improvisation. It outlines the process of preparing and teaching a chapter from the Gospel of Matthew - specifically, Mt 13, the "Parables Discourse." This chapter argues that a warrant for improvising responsibly with Scripture can be derived from the Gospel itself. In short, I argue that "training students to improvise responsibly with Scripture" is a justice-grounded, empirically accurate, pedagogically compelling, intellectually coherent, and eminently Christian approach to teaching the Bible in Catholic schools. I conclude by discussing the implications of such a model in the context of Catholic educational ministry and ministerial training.