Statement of Faith-based Teaching and Learning

A paradise in the isolated wilderness; my home was bursting with exotic species of

birds and insects, graceful clouds filled the blue skies and beautiful stars of the Milky Way

scattered across the universe. Bounded by the majesty of Nature, I found peace within the

cypress trees and fell in love with the golden red sunset over the valley. I was born in South

Korea but when I was nine, my family moved to Kenya to a Christian international school in

the mountains of Great Rift Valley in Kenya where I found the beauty of nature.

While I was there, I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. The school required

a mandatory Bible class for the students to learn about Christian theology and how to be a

good steward of His Creation. The education guided me to have a Christian worldview and

taught me how to interact with others. Since of a young age, God has placed in my heart a

passion for learning social studies.

Growing up in a diverse community, I was fascinated by various cultures and history

of humanity. I wanted to know why certain people lived that way, and why people behaved

differently because of their religion, culture, and tradition. This curiosity led me to study

world history, American history, Korean history, Modern European history, African cultures,

microeconomics, psychology, political science, and current world issues. I chose these

specific areas to study during my four years of high school.

However, I never knew environmental science as a subject within social studies. I did

not learn environmental science except during AP Biology, in which I highly disliked. I was

not a science student, but when I came to Calvin, environmental science was one of the class

I needed to take to graduate. I had a difficult time understanding what the class was about. I

was barely getting by each day. I hoped that I would not teach this in a classroom.

Now, I am in a 6th-grade classroom, and I must hypothetically come up with a unit on

environmental science. I had a difficult time gathering information and relearn some of the

concepts. However, this time, I had a different approach to this subject. Through the

environmental science and world geography classes at Calvin, my eyes were opened to see

the injustice of how many innocent lives were dying because of deforestation, desertification,

acidification, pollution, extinction of animals, wasting of food and water, famine,

overexploitation and so much more destruction to the earth.

The injustice of the climate change caused me to use examples of extraction of natural

resources, and poverty in Africa caused by egocentric people from the America, Europe, and

Asia to gain as many natural resources. As I was planning for the lessons, I was dumbfounded

by the complexity of the environmental issue. I was faced with sleepless nights trying to

bring justice into the picture for the students to see.

Interestingly, before going to the school, I participated in Faith and International

Development Conference. There I heard a speaker named Jason Fileta who shared about

Micah Challenge, which focuses on how to live justly in the face of adversity. He shared the

verse in Micah 6:8, He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord

require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. As he

shared, my dislike of environmental science began to transform. The true shift of my mind

came when he quoted, Climate Change is a human rights issue now. There, I was opened to

see how living justly also required me to love the nature, the very creation of God. In all this,

I must humbly walk with God to bring a small change in the world that is dying and

suffering.

My goal in life is to be more like Jesus Christ in everything I do and say. As His child,

I want to share the love of Jesus Christ with my students through how I act and speak. One

way in which I can act and speak the truth is by sharing with my students how climate change
is human rights issue and God is weeping as He sees His creation utterly eradicate before

Him. As a teacher, I am called to show my students that they are responsible for bringing

justice and love in the face of adversity and death. The students must realize that they can do

something to bring a change in the world God has created.