The 4th ATA Deans Seminar (Day Two 20th May 2008)

Day Two was started with worship led by Dr Varghese from Jubilee Light Bible College. This was followed by the meditation on "Pastoral Leadership of the Dean to the Faculty" by Dr Fritz Deininger.


Dr Peter Theron lead a session entitled "External Environmental Trends" where he brought attention to some of these changes as well as provided us with a framework within which to view changes. Peter, your godzilla slide must be the best one so far!

This was followed by Dr Theresa Lua's interactive session on "Forces affecting the Church: Implications for Theological Education."

In the afternoon, we had Dr Sukwant Bhatia present to us a talk on Faculty Building. I found the information in this session very helpful even if the session was a little long with those in the front having to cope with a dimly lit situation (Ah - the trade-off that comes with dimming the lights (and the prof at the same time) in order to see what's on screen a little better!) Makes me wonder who or what we value more?

The final session was one presented by Dr Calvin Chong who provided us with reasons why academic deans need to pay attention to the teaching learning processes found seminaries. For most part, there is a default stance and posture which does not take into consideration effectiveness of learning and the experiences of students who are at the receiving end of this teaching posture. The encouragement in the session was thus for deans to help faculty to develop a great repertoire of teaching strategies to achieve the educational goals in their classes and for their institutions. Below is a quote from Dr Phillip's Koh PhD dissertation "Active Learning and Intellectual Excellence in Theological Education in Southeast Asia” where he tried to describe teaching learning practices in South East Asian seminaries:

In general, the educational practice in Southeast Asian seminaries has been deeply influenced by cultural beliefs and values. These influences originate from two cultural streams. The first one is the Confucian ethical system which has enculturated Asian countries with a substantial Chinese population, and also countries such as Korea and Japan. The other cultural stream is the British educational system which has left an enduring legacy in Asian countries which were former British colonies. While the Confucian ethical system elevates the position of the teacher above the students, the British educational system elevates the lecture as the primary mode of instruction. The consequences of a cultural understanding of the position of the teacher, for example, is it affects not only the attitudes of teachers toward students, but also toward the teaching and learning process in theological education in Southeast Asia. (Koh 1998, 223-224)

I think most of us were very grateful for the evening off. The day was very intense and wearying to the mind!