Words for the moment
Giving words to the moment is the thought that comes to mind when I consider this week’s readings from Jan H. F. Meyer and Ray Land’s works Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practicing within the disciplines, and Threshold concepts in practice. For the past few years, I have been going through a process of deconstruction. This word, deconstruction, has become a word that is loaded and often considered as someone to define walking away from their faith, but I am not deconstructing in the sense that I am trying to deconstruct from my faith but rather going through the process of deconstructing those things that have attached themselves to my faith that are not part of it. It is as if I am going through the process of cleaning my lens for the first time to see what I can see for myself instead of what I have been told is out there. I am doing this in order to reconstruct something more beautiful in its place. Something more pure, honest, hopeful and imaginative. I have been searching for words to describe what it feels like to go through this process. Then in this week’s readings, I came across these words “As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept there may thus be a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view. This transformation may be sudden or it may be protracted over a considerable period, with the transition to understanding proving troublesome. Such a transformed view or landscape may represent how people’ think’ in a particular discipline, or how they perceive, apprehend, or experience particular phenomena within that discipline (or more generally).[1]” and it was like a lightbulb went off. What I have been trying to find words for is this idea of threshold concepts. These past few years, I have felt as if I have hit a wall whenever I come up against something that I have questioned about what I believe. Why has it been hard to cross this wall? Then I realized this week that it isn’t a wall; it is in fact, a threshold. As Jan H. F. Meyer and Ray Land put it in their works, I have been faced with what they call a “threshold concept.” A threshold concept is something that is
- transformative
- irreversible
- integrative
- possibly bounded
- potentially troublesome
Crossing this particular threshold has been transformative in the fact that once you cross this threshold (or any threshold), it has the potential to transform your perspective and you. Once crossed, you can’t cross that way again. You can’t unknow what you know. Your entire mindset has been changed and Myer and Land state that ‘the change of perspective occasioned by acquisition of a threshold concept is unlikely to be forgotten, or will be unlearned only by considerable effort.[2]” Crossing the threshold of deconstructing my faith has taken years, and it isn’t easy to overcome because it shifts my way of seeing the world from one lens to another. It removes me from the comforts of knowing into the space of limbo. In our video this week the presenter Robert Coven said that “it is better questions that will get us to our destination of learning,[3]” but if I’m honest, this experience of threshold crossing has been uncomfortable and will result in some resistance. I know for me it has been very troublesome to deconstruct from the norms of my faith community and embrace the wild imaginative unknown, but as Robert said towards the end of the video, “I took up the challenge, and I ventured through another threshold.[4]”
[1] Jan F.H. Meyer and Ray Land, eds., Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. (New York, Routledge, 2003), pg. 1
[2] Jan F.H. Meyer, Ray Land and Michael T. Flannigan eds., Threshold concepts in practice. (New York, Routledge, 2006), pg. 163
[3] TEDxTalks. (2018, November 28). Breaking through: Threshold concepts as a key to understanding | robert coven | tedxcaryacademy. YouTube. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCPYSKSFky4
[4] TEDxTalks. (2018, November 28). Breaking through: Threshold concepts as a key to understanding | robert coven | tedxcaryacademy. YouTube. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCPYSKSFky4
5 responses to “Words for the moment”
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Daron,
Powerful words. Deconstruction. I’m right there with you on this journey. The Lord is certainly leading you and many who have taken up the challenge to unlearn ‘bad’, toxic, traditional, and at times diseased theology.
The pure, honest, hopeful, and imaginative – think on these things. I’m curious if you are receiving pushback from any in your circle?
Audrey,
I have received some pushback from those in my community but not as much as I anticipated. The hardest thing for them to wrap their mind around is the fact that I am not deconstructing to destroy something but in order to rebuild to something better.
Amen.
Daron,
Thank you for connecting threshold concepts with deconstruction. This is causing me to think of deconstruction in a new and better way. This is certainly a “troublesome” journey. For you are leaving the world in which you once inhabited with its mental models – models that no longer work or are problematic – and walking through the portal into something new. This can be unnerving. And some people choose to ignore the invitation into this uncomfortable journey. Thank you for your honesty in this post. If you don’t mind me asking, what are some of the ideas you are deconstructing from in order to build something better?
David,
Thanks for the question. The thing that has become evident to me while I have been going through this “troublesome” deconstruction is how much shame I held on to and how some of the things that I have been shameful about are not actually sinful things just things I have been taught should be shameful.