James Cornwell

The Value of the Open Classroom

James Cornwell, Ph.D., Director of Research, Associate Professor of Psychology

The value of the open classroom—the classroom as a place where opposing ideas can be freely exchanged—is often exalted, particularly in secular contexts, for reasons outlined by J. S. Mill in On Liberty: We allow for the exchange of ideas so that, being tested in the marketplace against opposing ideas, we can be more confident that the correct point of view will win out.[1] But this seems to assume that the classroom is a place that is merely in-formative, rather than formative more generally. Why should a Christian institution—an institution like Wheaton College with its doctrinal affirmations and goals for the trajectory of students’ souls—want to foster this kind of open intellectual exchange in the classroom? This is a particularly important question when it comes to issues of justice that divide our country today.

Our unwillingness to share our views openly with one another seems to resonate with the fear inherent in the I-Thou problem.[2] I, as a subjective self, am trying to make sense of Thee, as an object, in the terms of my own subjectivity, while Thou, as a subject, simultaneously try to make sense of Me, as an object, in the terms of Thy subjectivity. When issues of justice arise, I and Thou each resist this process because it has the possibility of erasure—I may lose my self at the hands of your intellectual rationale for why injustice exists and vice versa. Those with minority identities may resist seeing the world simply in terms of perfect intradisciplinary meritocracy, because such a view assumes that those who are few or invisible in this framework simply haven’t made the cut—the implication being, “People like you probably don’t deserve to be here.” On the other hand, those with majority status may resist the perspectives that reframe the context into one based primarily on identity, because the implication is that those who built those disciplines did so largely by historical accident, and indeed the structural privileges that drove this process are the primary reason for the demographic makeup of the very classroom in which students sit—again, the implication is, “People like you probably don’t deserve to be here.”

There is a fear then, that sharing too much of one’s deeply held beliefs risks having those beliefs (and, by implication, their believer) explained away. In my own discipline of social psychology, the meaning of an utterance or a gesture is revealed through the kinds of utterances or gestures that it evokes in others, particularly others with authority.[3] What if the meaning of my own experiences, revealed in the response to their sharing, is that they—as well as the self that I thought I knew—are entirely illusory, wicked, repulsive? What if, in fact, I don’t belong here, and I ought to be erased? Why should any student take such a risk?

The theologian Robert Jenson, in his Systematic Theology, argued that the I-Thou problem is solved in the Trinity.[4] The Holy Spirit liberates the Father and the Son to freely love one another, because a third person is loving them both and willing them to love one another. Thus, the mutual subjection of Father and Son is grounded in the loving subjection by the Spirit to both. If we take the Trinity as our model, the role of the professor in the classroom is one that moves in and out of the particulars of students’ I-Thou exchanges, responding to the utterances and gestures with signs of love. By modeling this love—a love that says, “It is good that you exist;[5] it is good that you are here!”—as the response to their sharing, our hearts are formed for a future in which “my truth” and “your truth” will pass away in the Person who is the Truth.

Love therefore seems to be the object of the open classroom, not because the open classroom creates it, but because it stands as a sign that love is truly present. We can share ourselves with one another without fear, because the love that casts out fear[6] stands personified athwart all of our exchanges, willing each of us to love one another through being lovingly subject to all. In the next life, perhaps our differences—like the wounds of Christ—will remain, but they will no longer be deadly. Instead, they will be a perpetual sign of the redemptive power by which the days of our ideologies are numbered, and the days of our friendships are not.

[1] Mill, J. S. (1859/1978). On Liberty. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.

[2] I have in mind primarily the dynamic in the “lord-bondsman dialectic” of Hegel, G. W. F., trans. A. W. Miller (1977). Phenomenology of Spirit. New York: Oxford University Press. However, the dynamics of this relation have taken on a life of their own in theology and philosophy since then.

[3] Mead, G. H. (1934/2015). Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[4] Jenson, R. W. (1997). Systematic Theology: Volume 1: The Triune God. New York: Oxford University Press.

[5] Pieper, J., trans. Winston, R. & Winston, C. (1997). Faith, Hope, and Love. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

[6] 1 John 4:18