In this second half of our interview with Ruth Watson, a secondary math teacher, Ruth continues to unpack her quest to answer the question, "What if the most important reason to study maths is to worship God – what would this look like?" 

Ruth shares where she is on in the journey of unit development, how she is linking God, humanity and creation to mathematical ideas, and how we can help students join in real work for real need in math classes.   Ruth shares the importance of unit planning to help her resist falling into dualism, as well as sharing very practical advice on how to frame conversations during parent-teacher interviews.

Ruth concludes by leaving math teachers a very practical 'next step' as they continue on their journey of teaching math in a way that helps us to worship God.

This episode is for you if you have ever wondered:

Should I include my Transformational Goals in real assessment pieces?

How can I guard myself against dualism in my teaching?

How can I teach mathematics in a God honouring way?

Ruth is a secondary math teacher at Marrara Christian College, curriculum advisor for NT Christian Schools.  She is married with three nearly adult children and loves going for long walks on the Darwin beaches at sunrise and sunset.

In this episode, Ruth Watson, a secondary math teacher, shares her quest to answer the question, "What if the most important reason to study maths is to worship God – what would this look like?" 

Ruth has recently written a booklet, Worshipful practices: What if the most basic reason to learn maths is to worship God? What would this look like? to share how maths, far from being a neutral subject of drills facts and rules, actually enables us to worship our creator God.  Ruth shares how routines in a math's classroom may be tweaked and reframed to assist in the worship of God. 

She also shares how she uses math's curriculum to directly feed into formational (life-long) learning outcomes that enable her students to worship God, serve in their communities and steward his world with their whole being (head, heart and hands).

Ruth is a secondary math teacher for Marrara Christian College, curriculum advisor for NT Christian Schools.  She is married with three nearly adult children and loves going for long walks on the Darwin beaches at sunrise and sunset.

This episode is for you if you have ever wondered:

How can I teach math in a way that brings glory to God?

How can I develop worshipful pedagogical practice, rhythms and routines in my math class?

How can I be cover the content of the mandated curriculum and still be faithful to the transformational goals I have for my students?

In this episode, Alistair Coffey, a passionate upper primary teacher, shares how his pedagogical strategy, Shapes of Learning https://shapesoflearning.com reflect his journey moving from enforcing uncritical structures of control and power to enabling responsive discipleship and effective learning.  His profound self-reflection ability invites us all to question why we are so attached to our classroom practices and structures.  This conversation moves seamlessly between philosophical reflections and everyday classroom practice. Alistair's ability to link classroom practices (often as mundane and ubiquitous as desks facing the front of the room) with the roots and fruits of these practices is both challenging and inspiring. 

Alistair has been a teacher for 12 years in both the UK and Australia. He is a husband, father and passionate Christian educator and ongoing student, continually learning and growing in the outworking of his calling.

In this episode, Anna White, a trained teacher and passionate homeschooler, shares some advice about educating from home.  This podcast will be most useful for teachers in the earlier years of schooling.  Knowing what it is like educating at home, Anna provides practical tips for us as teachers so we can best serve our students and parents during these times.   Anna reminds us of the freedom we have to embed learning in everyday living as well as reminding us of the importance of relationships.  We are so blessed to listen to Anna share the freedom we have in teaching and the reminder about keeping the main thing the main thing.

In this episode, David Gleeson, the inspirationally genuine principal at Melton Christian College, discusses the importance of intentionally honouring and caring for the community.  He shares how new staff members are inducted into the school community to pass on the importance of authentic Christian education.  In sharing his desire to build community in a collegial way with accountability, David gives us three tactical questions he uses to enable him to evoke genuine, real answers and allow him to listen deeply.  He also identifies three levels of accountability and calls us to collegial accountability, recognising we are all equally important irrespective of our role.

I was so blessed to listen to David’s self-reflection, wisdom and passion for his learning community.

This episode is for you if you have ever wondered:

How can I assist in the building of a real community in my school?

How can I develop accountability structures which support collegiality rather than power and critique?

Is leading by example enough?

Mentioned in this podcast

Melton Christian College

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In this episode, Kristie Barber provides inspiring examples of classroom practice which bring down to earth the important but sometimes theoretical concepts o justice and community. She suggests if we say that student’s voices matter, we must provide the practice that demonstrates that this is actually true in our daily rhythms. While focused particularly in the final years of high-school, she challenges and inspires us to reconsider our role of teachers in light of being part of a true learning community.

In this episode, Dr Rod Thompson evokes a deep yearning to be immersed in the Scripture. He suggests that the Bible doesn't exercise its authority by giving us answers to questions, so much as by inviting us to live in a certain kind of way and go out with God in our community and work out how to be faithful and wise. He invites us to explore the problematic, unknown sections and to help our students fall in love with and engage with this text. He suggests terms such as Christ-centred education and Biblical worldview may be problematic and explores other terms which may be more helpful.

In this episode, Darryl DeBoer suggests that we are not merely preparing our students for the future.  He unpacks the three core practices of Teaching for Transformation.  Firstly, he shares why it is crucial to articulate a Deep Hope for our teaching – this alone will change the way you think and ‘do’ planning.  He then introduces the practice of Storyline to locate our education inside God’s big story.   Thirdly, Darryl discusses Biblical Throughlines (the inspiration for Threads which have been referred to in previous episodes).  Darryl finishes with the challenge that our classes must provide real,  authentic work for real people to meet a real need (TfT).

We were so blessed and encouraged to be part of this conversation and can’t wait to share it with you.

Darryl is a Senior Fellow for the Center of the Advancement of Christian Education (CACE) at Dordt University and the K-12 Director of Learning at Surrey Christian Schools.

In this episode, Chris Garner, a secondary HASS teacher, shares his passion for transformational education.  Chris uses the phrase, ‘breaking their hearts’ to describe the way he invites students to view learning not in a ‘safe’ academic way, but one that shapes their hearts. Students are invited to respond to issues of injustice in profoundly personal and transforming ways.  In this episode, Chris walks us through his process of unit planning using a ‘backward design’ planning approach so that threads are intentionally incorporated.

Dr Lindsay Graieg, a secondary English teacher, shares how he uses movies and text to help students identify deeper worldview stories.  Lindsay’s unique insight into education is informed by his work in academia while being grounded as a classroom teacher.  In an informative and wide-ranging conversation, Lindsay invites us to question the impact of fragmentation, the myth of progress and the focus of Year 12 achievement and invites us to reimagine.  At the end of the podcast, Lindsay invites educators to remember the astounding impact and profound influence we have as teachers.