How Expressing Faith in Students Can Help Them Be More Open to Learning

     You may or may not realize that in order to be a successful learner, it's necessary to be vulnerable. Vulnerability within an academic context occurs when a student sees through his doubts and fears related to learning or school-related activities and opens himself up to learning or better understanding others or himself. Within the academic realm, a student's ability to make himself vulnerable directly correlates with his degree of self-confidence and some elements of his psychological state. While it is important that students allow themselves to become vulnerable in the pursuit of knowledge to ensure openness and greater absorption or internalization of information, it's equally noteworthy that teachers should be cognizant of students' self-imposed vulnerability, in fact encouraging it when possible. One method through which this can be accomplished is through teachers having faith in students, and continually reinforcing this faith in multiple ways.

      Though teachers can express faith in students, the degree to which this can improve a classroom environment, inspiring more openness, productivity, and critical thinking, has not been experimentally proven. This faith strategy also does not entail the expectation that all students, even students with weak, struggling self-confidence levels, will respond positively.

Some individuals believe that faith in students
involves allowing students greater freedom
but ensuring consistent feedback

      Nonetheless, many individuals do believe that demonstrating faith in students can be a method through which teachers can encourage students to make themselves more vulnerable, thus creating an atmosphere of openness and positivity that can be conducive to more yielding, critical discussions. A teacher at the Hult International Business School, for example, discusses in a recent article how teachers can allow themselves to believe in their students and how this can benefit the students. His tactic for asserting confidence in students is allowing them more space, independence, and freedom, which he believes will eventually inspire most students to be more creative and productive than they would have been in a normally structured learning environment.

      His approach also calls for honest, consistent teacher feedback related to how the students made use of the freedom they were given and the ideas they generated while working. This approach at first seems unreliable, as it anticipates that students will learn what they need to from decreased teacher intervention. Decreased direct intervention could prevent teachers from pinpointing and tackling the issues of struggling students, for example, instead placing most of that responsibility on the struggling students themselves. This general increased insistence on responsibility could facilitate increased maturity among more confident, independent students, but could also be a pitfall for students without the understanding or ability to speak up for themselves.

      In a related article written by public school teacher Julia G. Thompson, she expresses her belief that teachers can inspire faith in students through working within a more traditionally structured academic setting rather than simply allowing for greater freedom and independence in the classroom. Throughout her article entitled "28 Ways to Build Persistent & Confident Students", she outlines many specific strategies for inspiring self-confidence, a handful of which are directly related to teachers' expression of faith. These strategies include teaching students perfect work isn't the only acceptable work, frequently praising students, encouraging students to work independently for as long as possible, and helping students focus on their strengths. These manifestations of faith in students can allow students to become more confident in their own abilities to think independently, can be conducive to a more positive, productive learning environment, and can assist students in overcoming or managing fears or doubts generated by perfectionist tendencies. These tips, however, are probably more useful for younger children than high school juniors, for example, but adaptations of these strategies certainly have the potential to yield positive results.

     In review, many individuals believe that teachers' expressed faith in students has the ability to encourage students to be more vulnerable, open-minded, confident, independent and responsible, though these effects still rest unproven. Some of those who believe teachers should assume a role in which they express their confidence in students believe that teachers should primarily allow students more freedom and independence to accomplish that, while others believe that faith in students can be more strategically manifested within a structured academic environment. As a student I am inexperienced in the teaching field, however, I stress that this post is solely an objective look at educational matters.

If you were/are a teacher, would you/do you put a lot of emphasis on showing students you're confident and faithful in their abilities, or would you be/are you more withholding of your expression of faith in students?

Faith and Football: Why They Are So Commonly Intertwined

Many football players over the years have attested
to the interconnectedness of their faith and their game

Athletics necessitates a wide range of skills, both physical and psychological. Physical skills important to sports may include general fitness in addition to specialized abilities. On the other hand, psychological skills imperative for athletes range from the ability to manage stress and focus to having confidence. In the intense, volatile world of football, where being tackled by a 300-pound man is commonplace, psychology has always played a unique role in the study of the game. Many football players over the last several decades have attested to having a degree of religious faith, ranging from talented ex-QB Terry Bradshaw to the freshly retired Ray Lewis. But how does religious faith exactly fit into their view of the game? Why do they need it?

Commenting on his recent Super Bowl win, Ray Lewis said, "it’s simple: when God is for you, who can be against you?" Here, Lewis is commenting on what he feels is the inherent importance in maintaining faith in a game where an incessant battle for possession of a ball is ensuing: faith brings resilience. When one imagines the game of professional football in the eyes of an athlete, a feeling of an almost "supernatural" resilience is an almost necessary factor in high performance and continued effort during difficult games. In addition to confidence--faith in oneself--religious faith intertwined with sport, especially football, seems to award the player who has it with an almost calming, reinforcing sense of being supported, of being chosen, of being powerful, and of being very resilient.

For ex-QB Terry Bradshaw, religion
was reinforcing

Other players over the years, like star ex-quarterback Terry Bradshaw, have believed that the path they were following through becoming involved in football was inherently chosen for them by a supreme deity. Bradshaw once said, "God has a calling for everyone. If you truly believe in your calling, no matter what it is, you can be a success." While Bradshaw was playing, then, did he feel a compelling, reinforcing feeling that he was indeed "responding" to his supreme calling and fulfilling the larger purpose in his life? It is likely, but something also of value is examining the reasons behind this type of thinking. Doubt is a powerful vehicle for weakness in modern day humans, and especially in sports it is important to maintain a rigid support for the sport and be without second-thoughts that could potentially undermine the focus that one brings to the field.

Nonetheless, there are still outliers in the world of football--among them, former Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow, who made "Tebowing" famous--and those agnostics and atheists for whom the game has no supernatural connotations or relations. Last year, Broncos linebacker Wesley Woodyard explained that before a very important game, Tebow "came to me and said, 'Don’t worry about a thing,' because God has spoken to him." This implication of Tebow's personal conversation with God is unlike many testaments of NFL and former NFL players about their religious experiences. For Tebow, though he does subscribe to a very antiquated type of Protestantism, his exchanges with God reflect the potent power of his religious perspective. Nonetheless, faith played an important role in his athletic ability: the "personal reinforcement" he received from God or from his conception of God gave him hope and confidence. That hope and confidence has its origins not only in his staunch religious perspective and upbringing, but also in his likely need for assurance before a very challenging game. Thus, faith in religious athletes, especially football athletes, should be seen as being not only resulting from a faithful background or perspective but also from a need for reassurance, stability, and confidence in the face of challenges.