Teaching/Education/Life Can’t be Done Outside Your Worldview

This is a very definitive statement and there are some nuisances around it, however, it is an idea I do hold as truth.?

I do believe in ultimate truth, as well as right and wrong. Some principles govern our world; the physical, intellectual and spiritual (faith) space. This is not a directly or exclusively religion-based faith. It’s a belief in something greater than you.?

As a Christ follower, my foundation is found in the Word of God. My faith, not religion, my belief in a creator God who placed us here on this earth, in this time, with others in the same situation for a specific purpose. If this is true then we have a greater calling than just existing we are here and now on purpose, for a a purpose.?

The lens through which you view everything, therefore, must be impacted by this perspective.?

Now I hear many people shuffle in their seats, ready to scroll on, be tempted to stop reading and see this as one-sided. Do yourself a favour and sit in this discomfort for at least the time it takes to read this article.?

My point is not to convince you that my faith is in the right place, to convince you to believe in the God I glorify, no! It’s to have you deeply consider your personal perspective and become fully aware how that perspective shapes everything you do, everything you say, everything you read, everyone you choose to associate with. It even determines how you spend, waste or invest your time and money.?

Your perspective impacts EVERYTHING!

To then go and say that we can go and teach or live outside our worldview, outside personal perspective or outside your faith is challenging, to say the least.?

Don’t hear that you can’t share and explore other perspectives. We as humans can empathise with others and try to understand and feel how others perceive the world or an experience. But you must realise that the lens isn’t fully removed, there is just another set of lenses placed in front of your vision. It’s like putting on a pair of sunglasses on a sunny day. The world around you is still seen, just with less glare. If those lenses are coloured in some way then the world can change a bit but the same core fundamentals are still the same.?

Imagine you are 10 years old. You are at school, you are in your classroom and you are writing notes from the board. You are getting the learning done like you are expected to and most of your peers are too. Most! Someone starts a little cough or a squeak noise and it spreads like a wave through the classroom until most of the students are making some sort of noise. The consequence is swift, the whole class, with no exceptions, is staying in during lunchtime. The teacher has laid out consequences based on how they believe the world works best. The student's day carries on and you all head home. The way that experience is shared around the table with families that evening will be shaped by a number of factors. How would you have shared that experience? What would you have focused on??

The largest impact will come from how you view the world. Does the world happen to you or for you? Where does this mindset come from? For the 10-year-old in the story, like you today if you have not changed the operating system, it comes from your family. Our parents who raise us. These are the foundations of what makes our identity.?

James Sire, a modern theologian, writes that our worldview is “A commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true, or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic construction of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being” (122). In his book Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a concept, Sire unpacks this idea. However, to draw a line from his work to the statement I first made, everything you do, whether you know it or not, is shaped first by your thoughts and beliefs which are shaped by how you view the world.?

For some, this is a revelation, for some a fact you have not made time to explore for others a known fact. However you came across this article, like with everything you experience, this thinking has now shaped you.?

What will you do next? How does this shift some things in your thinking?

You have every chance to let this impact you from here on. To help you be aware of the bias, the lens and the thought process that shapes your thoughts, your actions and your habits and therefore your life.?

Your eyes are now looking for evidence to either prove this statement wrong or to see if it may be accurate.?

Maybe we need to explore this through the perspective of skill set, can a skill set be taught without influence from a worldview?

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