I love to argue; my parents always told me I would become a lawyer, yet it was not the path for me. Regardless, I somehow found myself in a role as Dean of Students, which provided several opportunities for spirited discussion about what someone may, or may not have done. Despite those moments, when I have the opportunity to teach a course, I enjoy creating involved discussions with my students, challenging them to think critically from new perspectives they would not typically subscribe to or entertain.
However, I have noticed in recent years that students have become more and more timid to voice their opinions in class. When presented with in-class discussions, debates, or opportunities to choose their own topics, they often shy away. Responses include, “You choose the topic for us,” “You choose which side I am on.” They do not want to take responsibility for the choice, nor have the voice attributed to their own beliefs.
The Reasons for Resistance
In one-on-one conversations with these students in an attempt to understand the reasons behind this, a common throughline emerged. Many students spoke to the idea that much of their timidity came from the fragility of their relationships with their peers and their lack of comfort with the way discussion and debate have been modeled for them through social media and polarized reporting.
Anyone who has braved social media has seen someone post their opinion on a hot-button topic, only to have others respond in ways that would make our mothers blush. We live for the “hot take,” though most students will preface it to acknowledge they know the view is controversial. However, many times online, there is little accountability for one’s words. If you do not like what someone has to say, simply unfollow them.
That action in itself creates unintended consequences— once an individual unfollows enough people, everything they see will be reflections of themselves— creating an echo chamber reinforcing their own beliefs and opinions. Further, creating a monster that is validated, that their way is truth, and anyone else is a moron for thinking differently.
To recap, throw together polarized topics, a loudspeaker, little accountability, and many times an echo chamber… sounds like a recipe for success.
On top of all of that, students have formed and maintained most of their relationships through social media, creating vast networks, but networks that are devoid of any real substantive depth or roots. Their relationships are fragile and cannot stand up to disagreements. And even though they know their relationships are lacking, because it is the norm and deep relationships take time, effort, and the possibility of rejection, they avoid forming anything of substance, though they long for something more. This makes the fear of rejection much worse, and worth avoiding at all costs, for they cannot afford to lose the relationships they have. Thus, relegating students to the consensus of safe opinions, with little trepidation towards learning something new.
Parker Palmer, in his book To Know as We Are Known, states,
“Some students resist thinking [because] they live in a world where relationships are often quite fragile. They are desperate for more community, not less, so when thinking is presented to them as a way of disconnecting themselves from each other and from the world, they want nothing of it.”
Creating a Successful Challenge Culture
So how can we, as university faculty, staff, and fellow students, encourage one another towards better telos? First, I think it takes modeling grace. Students need to see two things from us:
- Development of deep, meaningful relationships that seek to truly know and love those around us. The depth of these are seen in the Greek words ginosko and agape—speaking to the depth and completeness of our knowledge and love. Students need to see what it means to be in a community that is invested deeply in the care and development of one another.
Much of what made my own college experience enjoyable was the relationships I formed with faculty and staff that cared for me, not just as a student, but deeply as a human being created in the image of God. This all took place because we got to know one another on a personal level.
I had faculty who asked me to join them in devotions before class and cared about my personal spiritual well-being. Relationships like these taught me the importance of asking about the lunch lady’s grandchildren, checking on their health, instead of seeing them as an end in themselves. Relationships drove me, and hopefully them as well, towards human flourishing.
- Students need modeling of healthy discussion that is not focused on winning a debate but rather growing in our understanding of how we more fully bear the image of Christ that we have been charged to bear.
Once, while in a cross-cultural context grappling with demands placed on me with the overwhelming need surrounding us, I had a mentor tell me, “If you are unable to keep up with the unyielding demand, the goal is to be able to tell someone no but continue to smile and make them feel known and cared for.”
These words have stuck with me over the years, and I try to model that very grace in my daily interactions. I cannot meet every expectation of me, but that does not entitle me to rudeness or the action of writing someone off. Rather it is an opportunity to see that individual through the lens of Christ, as the image-bearer they are—and respond in love and grace, love and grace that comes not from ourselves, but from a relationship with God, who is the true model of what it means to love.
Gregory Boyle speaks to this idea in his book, Tattoos on the Heart, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to demonize people you know. If we know people deeply, if we grow with them, developing roots in our relationship, we begin to care for them. If we want to care for people well, we learn to show grace, to “smile and make them feel known and cared for.” It is because of this grace, which often comes outside of ourselves, from God alone, that we can model healthy discussion and disagreements. To put our opinions and emotions second to the relationship we wish to foster.
In college, there was a certain student who was put constantly in my path that was hard to love. They were socially unaware, caused my friends of the opposite sex to be continually uncomfortable, and generally were unpleasant to be around. At first, I felt the need to be “protector of the innocent” as I made myself the deflector of the individual, running interference for my friends. But overtime I became convicted of my approach.
While I felt I was caring for my friends, I realized I was not caring for this individual well. I reflected on the fact I was in need of God’s grace and therefore needed to extend it to this individual also. I had not been showing Christ grace nor love nor acknowledging this student’s image in Christ. I began to pray, pray for God to let me see this student as Christ saw him, His child, made in His image, and remarkably over time, He did. I began to care for this, in my mind, “unlovable” student. I began to treat him with grace and patience that did not emanate from me.
In responding to others, we must not only remember each person is an image bearer of God, but also that they are God’s children. Another mentor of mine taught me this idea as “Sonship.” While there are many roots of this in Scripture, the main idea is that we are no longer orphans, lost in our sin, but that we are full daughters and sons through Christ.
We have gained the full title as children of God. This is not dependent on anything we did—we couldn’t earn it; we definitely did not deserve it (only we know the true depths of our own sinful nature), but yet we have been fully given a title of “child” that we cannot lose. How does this differ from the fragile relationships we see today? If we recognize others as made in God’s image, and as worth a relationship that cannot be lost in response to our opinions or actions, our relationships with them take a depth that our world often cannot fathom. Not only that, but our redemption and restoration now inspire in us a confidence of how we can then love the fallen world around us, becoming partners in the redemptive narrative.
Once we have learned to model a depth of knowledge and love, ginosko and agape, and our care for others as image bearers and children of God. We can begin to mentor them along their own paths. Taking the role of the teacher and developing the telos within the student and aligning it in ways that lead towards human flourishing.
