..and I'm racking my brain as to why I did a search on "successful missionary". It was something to do with the language I'd been using to describe what I'm trying to achieve in my job, maybe the sheepdog, shepherd imagery...that made me tap it into google....
...I feel really troubled making this kind of analogy. A couple of my close relatives were, and maybe still are, missionaries and even when I was 10 years old, they seemed to me to be an extremely misguided, dodgy, controlling, and self-deceiving pair. Then there were the bible groups at university who preyed on homesick freshers. It gave me an extremely strong distaste and mistrust of religion.
The idea of inflitrating a society in order to move it towards your own ways seems manipulative. And there's way too much drama and authority and control in the idea of spreading the "The Word". Illusions of grandeur.
But nevertheless, here it is - an overview, written in 1967, which really does seem to reflect the approach I have been working my way towards in my blog, when it comes to my instructive practice. (if you remove the word missionary and replace with instructor).
http://www.urbana.org/_articles.cfm?RecordId=1003
Never in a million years did I think that reflecting on my teaching and learning practice would draw me into an uncomfortable conversation about my religious attitude...why should these methods, that have been used for religious conversion be any better when used for other kinds of change? And is there any difference between this and what I'm trying to do?
...I feel really troubled making this kind of analogy. A couple of my close relatives were, and maybe still are, missionaries and even when I was 10 years old, they seemed to me to be an extremely misguided, dodgy, controlling, and self-deceiving pair. Then there were the bible groups at university who preyed on homesick freshers. It gave me an extremely strong distaste and mistrust of religion.
The idea of inflitrating a society in order to move it towards your own ways seems manipulative. And there's way too much drama and authority and control in the idea of spreading the "The Word". Illusions of grandeur.
But nevertheless, here it is - an overview, written in 1967, which really does seem to reflect the approach I have been working my way towards in my blog, when it comes to my instructive practice. (if you remove the word missionary and replace with instructor).
http://www.urbana.org/_articles.cfm?RecordId=1003
Never in a million years did I think that reflecting on my teaching and learning practice would draw me into an uncomfortable conversation about my religious attitude...why should these methods, that have been used for religious conversion be any better when used for other kinds of change? And is there any difference between this and what I'm trying to do?
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