![]() ![]() ![]() It has its own rhythms, culture, economy and seasons. My illustrations and jokes (which were not that funny anyway) did not translate. When I landed in prison, I learned quickly that I did not understand that world. In order to persuade we must seek to be understood, and in order to be understood we must understand our context. Naturally truth is the target we are aiming at, but we also need to be attentive to persuasion. ContextualizationĪugustine, writing in “On Christian Teaching,” summarizes teaching with the words of Cicero: “To teach is a necessity, to please is a sweetness, to persuade is a victory.” Teaching is attentive to persuasion, a rhetoric dance where the professor "teaches, delights and moves," Augustine writes. While I could spend hours talking about the lessons I learned teaching in prison, I boiled things down to just three: contextualization, transformation and love. It cut through the dross, exposing some essential features of teaching. In a world where education modes and methods are changing rapidly, the prison forced me to think deeply about teaching pedagogy for seminary students. Walking into the prison brought back a flood of memories and reminded me of the many lessons I learned from teaching behind bars. Eventually, my academic journey led me elsewhere to other institutions and classes, but recently I returned to the same prison program and taught a course. I taught Bible study methods and survey courses on every book of the Bible. Like raising up Indigenous missionaries in a foreign country, these seminary graduates would remain incarcerated and help minister to the prison population.įor four years, spanning 2011-2015, I was in the prison multiple times per week teaching courses. This initiative, launched by the Heart of Texas prison ministry, offered seminary training for convicted felons serving life in prison. I was hired to teach at a seminary extension site with a course load that included several classes in a newly formed prison seminary program. Instead, in the Lord’s kindness, what I got was so much better. I imagined strolling the grounds of some seminary or university campus with my students discussing the deep thoughts of Augustine or Calvin. Andrews, I hoped to land a tenured-track teaching position. After I graduated with my doctorate in divinity from the University of St. (OPINION) As the iron gate slammed behind me, I read the sign “Inmates taking hostages will not be allowed beyond this point.” It was an ominous beginning to a life of teaching. ![]()
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