Leavening the learning process in academic life

Clarissa Campbell Orr

Most of our learning, whether formal or informal, takes place in a social context. So the general mental climate of a school or college always plays a significant part in what a person learns. Obviously, in society's search for progress, many of the problems humanity faces will require specialized knowledge for their solutions. Yet isn't such knowledge by itself inert, unless it is put to work in a spirit of cooperation and willingness to transcend vested interests? Otherwise it is, sadly, all too possible for education to reinforce cultural divisions or serve individual self-interest.

As educators and students know, it is often one thing to wish or plan that schools and colleges exemplify a progressive and charitable spirit and quite another to achieve this. What can seem endemic to the learning process is the factionalization of opinion, rivalry between different schools of thought, and a fair amount of competitive antagonism! A change of heart seldom emerges from mere good intentions.

Central to all Christian teaching, however, is this very concept of a change of heart: a move away from materialistic selfishness to a warmer sense of the whole family of man as the offspring of one divine Parent. A vivid example of this change of heart and mind is the transformation of the Jewish zealot Saul. Saul had been a man with a very rigid, inhumane concept of right. Yet through the action of Christ, Truth, he became the steadfast, courageous, and humane Apostle Paul, who, in the course of his wide ministry, dealt with all sorts and conditions of people with invariable kindness. Paul even came to describe his role as being "all things to all men."^{I Cor. 9:22.} His vision of the world was that "ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."^{Gal. 3:26.}