2019. 5. 15.

Faith statement - Google Docs

I grew up in a missionary family. Since I was very young, going to church and believing

in Christ as Lord and saviour was a normal to me. I also attended a Christian international school

from 3rd grade until 12th grade. I had lots of opportunities to be in and surrounded by the

Christian community at school. The teachings I got from my home community, school, and

church were like a routine for me. I felt the Christian teachings were like homework and rules

that I had to do and follow every day. It was in my Junior year when I finally figured out how

important Christian faith was to my life. I met a teacher who was very passionate about both

Christian faith and teaching. He made numerous connections between his pedagogy and faith,

and it was evident that as I learned the subject, I could see his Christian views intertwines with

his lessons as well. This helped me to think about the ways to connect my views and Christian

faith with the content, the conduct and the community around me.

The subject I am teaching is language arts especially nonfiction writing. Nonfiction is

writing based on true facts. When the students are learning about nonfiction, I would like to

connect the teaching with my Christian view of acceptance. It relates to how God

unconditionally loved all of us and decided to forgive our sins by sending his only son, Jesus, to

die for us. He had an ample amount of grace and mercy upon all the diverse people with all kinds

of culture, background, status, race, and ethnicity. He did not judge stories of the poor or the

criminals, but he accepted all that everyone had. As I am teaching the unit of nonfiction, I want

to connect the openness and the acceptance in each student. I want to let students know that not

everyone has a story like them. Some of them might have a very different story and stories that

are only unique to them. It is important to embrace each culture, background, and story that each

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student is writing in their nonfiction writing to share with the class. In addition, I want to connect

it with my values of being patient and being a discerning listener. Jesus was a great teacher, but

he was also a very good listener. Whenever sick people or people with worries came to him, he

sat with them to listen to their stories. He had patients and empathized with each one of them. In

my teaching, I want to implement this pedagogy. I want the students to be able to pair up and

listen to each other’s stories or ideas and give them feedback. I am going to emphasize on the

collaborating and listening components as I am teaching my lessons. The students will learn how

to empathize with each other and be able to find ways to help each other by giving them

supportive and helpful feedback. Students will learn from the feedback that they gain from their

peers and teachers. They will know which areas to improve and which areas they are strong at.

Being able to know their strengths and weaknesses would give them a great advantage to

develop not only in their writings but help their overall learning in all different subject areas.

The traditional teaching in the past focused a lot on individualism. When learning about

types of writing, their work would be mostly going to their seats and write about a topic. It was

mostly done in silence with less communicating and cooperating. The writing alone was more

emphasized than collaboration, but I believe that collaboration is as important as individual

writing work. Jesus taught that being able to cooperate and work with others was an essential

component. In Roman 12:4-6, it states, “For as in one body we have many members, and the

members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and

individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us,

let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith” (Bible Gateway 2019). Jesus knew that

each people had different strengths and weaknesses. He wanted all of the people to care for each

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other and cooperate with one and another. Using this pedagogy, I want lots of collaboration and

communication between the students to learn about the nonfiction unit. I also hope that from this

collaboration, the students would be able to find and reflect on their values where succeeding

alone is not the main focus, but being able to lead their peers and others into success and

improvement with them is important.

Even though I can not directly speak about my Christian faith or values in a public

school, it is essential to find methods to influence the Christian faith in teachings. In addition, to

let the students know that they are special and to accept them as who they are. I believe that my

faith and values need to be shown through my pedagogies and actions in the classroom which

would lead the students to reflect and influence their own values and views.

Source:
BibleGateway. (2019). Retrieved March 1, 2019, from https://www.biblegateway.com/
passage/?search=Romans 12:4-6&version=NIV

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