3.1. Newman on apprehension and assent, both real and notional

Regarding religious truth claims, Newman focuses great attention in the Grammar on the need for assent and even certitude. Before addressing certitude, it is important to clarify his terminology (in brief). For Newman, religious truth is presented to the mind in propositional form. ‘Jesus Christ is the Son of God’ and ‘He was crucified under Pontius Pilate’ are both examples of what he has in mind. Moreover, participation in certain religious practices or sacraments can be conceived of propositionally. For example, confessing prior to one’s reception of the Eucharist upholds a number of propositions about one’s sinfulness, the call to repentance/holiness, and the Real Presence in the transubstantiated Body and Blood of the Lord. Despite acknowledging the possibility of formalism regarding proposition, Newman is clear about their necessity in matters of religion and contrary to popular sentiment:

Here one sees Newman’s attempt to uphold the value of propositions and knowledge, generally, together with the imaginative and affective dimensions of human knowing in religious matters. They are requirements for our own knowing and dialogue with others. Such objects or realities of religion come before believers, who either assent to them or reject them.

By assent, Newman means ‘the absolute acceptance of a proposition without any condition’, which ‘presupposes … some concomitant apprehension of its terms’,Footnote ²² because ‘We cannot assent to a proposition, without some intelligent apprehension of it.’Footnote ²³ Newman is clear that ‘some intelligent apprehension’ of a proposition does not mean full understanding or mastery, but rather the ability to impose ‘sense on the terms of which [propositions] are composed’.Footnote ²⁴ In other words, while apprehension might not involve academic mastery of a subject, it certainly amounts to more than repeating what one has heard (i.e., parroting).Footnote ²⁵ Catechesis, even in early stages of development (e.g., First Communion preparation or asking parents questions about faith), can yield apprehension and assent.

Regarding both apprehension and assent, Newman distinguishes ‘real’ from ‘notional’. Generally speaking, when he refers to the real, Newman means that which is concrete, or actual things. When he refers to that which is notional, he means our own mental creations that are abstracted or derived from real objects and experiences. One can think here of the difference between contemplating a person you know (i.e., a real image) and reflecting on each person as an instance of human nature (i.e., a notional image). In some sense, our minds contemplate, through the faculty of imagination, images stemming from both real objects and our own abstractions, but the former are possessed of greater force. He argues,

That which is perceived as concrete exerts an influence upon the mind and imagination that mere notions cannot, despite any excellence the latter might possess. ‘An act of assent, it seems, is the most perfect and highest of its kind, when it is exercised on propositions, which are apprehended as experiences and images, that is, which stand for things.’Footnote ²⁷ As Pope Leo’s letter intimated above, Newman remains cognizant of the affective and imaginative dimensions of the person. He notes how certain genres, for example engaging historical narratives and poetry, convey impressions to those who read and contemplate them, and who are thus able to apprehend more vivid images of characters and scenes than perhaps from more theoretical prose.Footnote ²⁸ Religion likewise involves realities and concrete objects that prove influential in one’s life, reaching the head and the heart. ‘The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us.’Footnote ²⁹ Such means impress believers, who generate images that can be apprehended as realities in a manner distinct from more abstract ideas.

For example, one might consider an adult catechumen contemplating the propositional belief, or image, of the Trinity. The liturgical setting of the Easter Vigil suffused with biblical imagery and participation in the sacrament of baptism yields an assent to belief in the triune God that likely differs from assent to, say, the idiomata, or distinguishing characteristics of the three divine Persons (i.e., unbegotten, begotten, processing) treated in prior Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) sessions.Footnote ³⁰ Thus, narratives of the Lord’s own baptism, biblical imagery of the triune God, and the liturgical experience of a sacrament of initiation coalesce in an assent that indirectly leads to the changing of one’s entire life.Footnote ³¹ Newman does qualify that one’s assents can convert from notional to real and vice versa; our ongoing development and experiences are determinative in this regard.Footnote ³² Should the convert to Catholicism quickly cease attending Mass, studying scripture, praying, and doing works of mercy, the real assent might become more notional before fading away altogether.

3.2. Imagination and certitude: detecting the real

The analysis above has mentioned the faculty or power of imagination, which requires further elucidation.Footnote ³³ For Newman, the imagination is where realities, through various media, leave impressions on us and where images are apprehended by the mind; these images can be our own creations or abstractions.Footnote ³⁴ Images apprehended in the imagination stem from experience and/or are called forth via memory, which itself ‘consists in a present imagination of things that are past’, including things referred to by propositions.Footnote ³⁵ Imagination does not itself cause action, but finds ‘a means of stimulating those motive powers’, such as ‘hope and fear, likes and dislikes, appetite, passion, affection’, and so forth.Footnote ³⁶ It is connected to practice, albeit indirectly. However, its value for growth in religious knowledge and assent is essential.

It is through imagination that one can process what one directly experiences, on the one hand, and what one hears secondhand, on the other. Regarding religious instruction, one might easily connect certain lessons with experiences of the Mass, sacraments, biblical stories, and conversations with loved ones. When it comes to content and realities not experienced, Newman describes a related ‘faculty of composition’. This ‘inventive faculty’ allows us ‘to follow the descriptions of things which have never come before us, and to form, out of such passive impressions as experience has heretofore left on our minds, new images, which, though mental creations, are in no sense abstractions, and though ideal, are not notional’.Footnote ³⁷ In other words, our imaginations can generate new images using the images we already possess and can access via memory, and these are not necessarily abstract or notional. He gives the example of an exotic piece of fruit that one has never seen before, but which nevertheless may be imagined quite vividly following secondhand accounts, even to the point of conditioning the likely recognition of the fruit if ever encountered.Footnote ³⁸ A student might also glean an impression of historical figures and classic authors from teachers and secondary sources. However, Newman notes the limitations of the faculty of composition, because secondhand accounts, say, of Cicero cannot compare to reading the author himself.Footnote ³⁹ This faculty is also limited by the ‘various images of our memory’; in other words, the individual has the ability to invent images, but these are fashioned out of the repository of images he/she already possesses in memory and via experience.Footnote ⁴⁰

For Newman, religion – especially scripture – is concerned with realities more than notions, and he identifies ways that one can engage the imagination to facilitate the apprehension of and assent to such realities.Footnote ⁴¹ In fact, the totality of life is connected to the development of the image of God in one’s imagination, and he notes the following means for its cultivation: ‘education, social intercourse, experience, and literature’.Footnote ⁴² In Newman’s earlier, related work on religious epistemology, namely his Oxford University Sermons, he describes ‘The secondary and intelligible means by which we receive the impression of Divine Verities’.Footnote ⁴³ Several such means are noted: ‘the habitual and devout perusal of Scripture … the gradual influence of intercourse with those who are in themselves in possession of the sacred ideas … the study of Dogmatic Theology … [and] a continual round of devotion’. Newman further notes the utility of being able to formulate religious ideas into creeds – that is, connected propositions of faith – which facilitate the perpetuation of impressions made in the distant past by real objects.

Regarding one’s engagement with the Bible, while it is possible to read scripture and apprehend its content in a notional manner, a ‘devout and spiritual’ reader tends to encounter realities. Newman identifies a potential danger, however, for maintaining vivid apprehensions over time, and he suggests meditation as a remedy.

Newman here highlights the potential value of meditation and the way one immerses oneself in scripture, precisely to maintain a vivid apprehension of such realities to which one assents. The person engaging in this meditation thus activates the imagination to bring facts before the mind as real objects. The work inside, so to speak, might also be appropriated by faith and find practical, outward expression.

Newman also emphasizes the transition from notional assents to real assents, and his argument has further implications for catechesis and the subject of this article.Footnote ⁴⁵ He draws attention to the common experience of re-reading an important work later in life when one has the benefit of more experience – including suffering – which allows the reality and power of the text (finally) to strike the person. What was general or abstract at an earlier stage of life is thus later apprehended as real. Newman uses the biblical example of Job, whose faith through great affliction and struggle yielded a real apprehension of and assent to the Lord: ‘By hearsay I had heard of you, but now my eye has seen you. Therefore I disown what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes’ (Job 42:5-6, NABRE).

Regarding struggle and conflict within education and learning, Newman’s epistemology is particularly valuable in its treatment of certitude, which to some extent goes beyond assent.Footnote ⁴⁶ Newman acknowledges a spectrum of assent, with various strengths and characteristics. For example, some assents are, practically speaking, exercised almost unconsciously and perhaps stem from stronger assents to other propositions.Footnote ⁴⁷ Newman calls these simple assents. For instance, one might assent simply to the goodness of creation because of a conscious, deliberate, and stronger assent to the doctrine of the Incarnation, on which one meditates consistently. This latter assent would constitute complex assent for Newman, which relates to the notion of certitude. However, certitude he conceives as the state of mind featuring not mere knowing, but ‘the consciousness of having that knowledge’.Footnote ⁴⁸ One knows that one knows. Moreover, certitude involves the ‘triumphant repose of the mind after a struggle’, yielding a particular pleasure distinct from, but connected to, prior exertion and searching.Footnote ⁴⁹ Certitudes therefore persist in ways not necessarily equaled by assents, which can and do change in the course of life. For this reason, Newman argues that ‘religion demands more than an assent to its truth; it requires a certitude’, or the ability to convert an assent into a certitude if needed.Footnote ⁵⁰ Ultimately, it is the individual’s efforts and struggle that precipitate the recognition and sure acceptance of that which is real.

To shed light on these categories while integrating prior examples, let us suppose that a convert to Catholicism initially resisted the faith given a distinct aversion to the idea of God becoming human, despite an abiding and intense longing for an experience of – or even communion with – God. Such an aversion might have stemmed from notional assents to an overly negative anthropology and cynical view of history, including the history of the church viewed as an earthly institution. These, in turn, might flow from a keen sense of and real assent to one’s own real or perceived shortcomings, legitimate struggles, and concomitant difficulties with self-love. However, this person decided to attend Mass, participate in OCIA sessions, study scripture and history, ask Catholics about their faith, pray for assistance, and squarely face internal struggles. Consequently, and over time, the person developed a distinct apprehension of the notion of the Incarnation, which nevertheless remained somewhat abstract. However, this notional apprehension began to convert to a real apprehension given the coalescing of various factors: the continuing study of scripture and history, the increasing sense of the language and grammar of faith, the ongoing witness of believers, and an emerging (even unexpected) desire to participate in the Eucharist. What was an abstract concept in the imagination came to refer instead to something real, an object encountered through experience and communicated by those in whom it already lives. The person was then able to apprehend in Jesus Christ the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, but in an unexpected and extraordinary way, wherein God’s very life and love are shared with believers.

Newman would describe such a process as the operation of the illative sense, similar to the Aristotelian concept of phronesis, or practical wisdom and prudence regarding action.Footnote ⁵¹ In contradistinction, say, to a mathematical proof, the illative sense involves the coalescing of various threads in one’s life, habits, and experience. These threads coalesce into a definite judgment regarding faith. Each thread, on its own, might not be overly impressive and can bear but a light burden; however, when combined, the threads have the strength of a solid cable that can support one’s belief.Footnote ⁵² Continuing the supposition from above, the person eventually assented to belief in the Incarnation and was ready to convert and receive the sacraments of initiation at the Easter Vigil. The peace of certitude could emerge only when the reality of the Incarnation and God’s love for humanity in its condition – for example, in John 1:1-14 and 3:16-17 – had impressed the new believer’s imagination in a manner that resonated with his/her very life.Footnote ⁵³ The Incarnation, as a sign of God’s charitable love for all the world, in the end struck a fatal blow to the source of the person’s struggle. Yet, that peace was the fruit of significant labor, in which numerous factors came together in overcoming the last obstacles to belief.

In the final chapter of the Grammar, Newman takes a somewhat historical turn, with history and conflict in mind, and the prose is more reminiscent of earlier works like his Essay on Development.Footnote ⁵⁴ In a work focusing on the nature and rationality of religious belief, this latter part of the Grammar aims at a significant impediment to belief, namely ‘the contrast between the rest and peace which they said [Christ] was to introduce, and the Church’s actual history’.Footnote ⁵⁵ This history includes ‘the conflicts of opinion which have raged within its pale, the violent acts and unworthy lives of many of its rulers, and the moral degradation of great masses of its people’. Newman’s purpose in writing is as follows:

Importantly, Newman does not seek to suppress the contrasts and conflicts discoverable in Christian history that adversaries of the faith like to highlight. Rather, he emphasizes and attempts to reconcile Jewish messianic expectations with God’s revelation in Christ, while identifying sober New Testament prophecies concerning the trials and tribulations of the church to come.Footnote ⁵⁷ Similar to the way Newman hoped the Essay on Development would turn a vulnerability on the question of continuity into a true strength,Footnote ⁵⁸ the Grammar here provides believers with a way to account for conflicts and abuses observed in the long history of the church, which does have a ‘dark side’.Footnote ⁵⁹ When one need not censor every such abuse, one is in fact liberated to draw attention to the (even greater) abundant good and extraordinary success that Christianity exhibits throughout time and space, and which is not reducible, in Newman’s view, to any earthly cause.Footnote ⁶⁰ Newman’s view in this regard would undergo further development, particularly following the definition of infallibility at the First Vatican Council and the historical-theological repercussions. Newman would thus expend a great deal of energy in the 1870s constructively negotiating the doctrinal claims of the church, on the one hand, and historical (counter)evidence, on the other, as scholars like Edward J. Miller, Ryan Marr, and I have argued.Footnote ⁶¹

This section has shown Newman’s careful attention to the process of apprehending and assenting to religious truth via the imagination. Propositions of a more notional and real character both have their own value and excellence. Yet, as far as possible, Newman claims that real assent is preferable to notional, precisely because religion involves real objects and facts intended to move the person. Consequently, one can argue that his religious epistemology favors the establishment of connections between authentic religious objects and one’s faculties of knowing: rational and imaginative. Establishing and maintaining such connections involve one’s behavior (study, exertion, meditation, etc.) and influences (i.e., intellectual and moral, especially from other people). In addition, Newman’s epistemology suggests the ability to stoke the creative powers of others who do not yet possess sufficient experience through the (limited) faculty of composition. Furthermore, he proposes that religion calls for certitude, which is the fruit of a process involving inquiry and struggle, both of which fall away when sufficient threads coalesce in a sure conviction of knowing. The peace of certitude arises following struggle because the process and ordeal have yielded real ‘intellectual moorings’ to orient one’s very life.Footnote ⁶² Finally, Newman’s extensive efforts to delineate the process of religious assent were undertaken to show not merely the legitimacy of religious knowledge, but to underline its suitability within God’s providential ordering of reality and in the light of God’s revelation. In fact, the church’s conflicts and trials were foreseen by the Lord from the beginning – acknowledging such indeed frees one to apprehend the greater sweep of history, in which the church’s work and contributions are not reducible to merely earthly causes.

Even though the Grammar does not directly treat the content and methods of catechesis, it does shed valuable light on one’s growth in religion knowledge and how imagination, personal struggle, and the ability to provide lucid accounts of the church – doctrinally and historically – are critically important to that end. This investigation is now in a position to turn to the cognate disciplines and how their treatment of conflict and struggle might prove illuminating for the field of Catholic education.

4.1. People, not idols: struggle and student interest(s)

The use of struggle stories in natural-sciences classrooms has been shown to improve student learning and perceived connections to course content. One particularly helpful study was conducted by Xiadong Lin-Siegler, Janet N. Ahn, Jondou Chen, F. Anny Fang, and M. Luna-Lucero, whose research shed light on the way beliefs influence learning.Footnote ⁶³ ‘Students’ beliefs that success in science depends on exceptional talent negatively impact their motivation to learn.’Footnote ⁶⁴ In other words, when students believe that science is driven by exceptionally talented scientists, while engaging course content that attends merely to the achievements of such figures, the result is diminished student interest and motivation. The research instead ‘tested a novel story-based instruction that models how scientists achieve through failures and struggles’.Footnote ⁶⁵

Three groups were tested, highlighting different aspects related to the lives of Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Michael Faraday: intellectual struggles including the overcoming of mistakes; personal struggles including family issues and lack of support; and the great discoveries achieved by the scientists (i.e., a control group).Footnote ⁶⁶ The first two groups saw statistically significant gains in student performance – particularly in typically low-performing students – and perceived connections to course content.Footnote ⁶⁷ The study did not target a change in beliefs themselves, but rather modeled ‘the message that effort can grow intelligence and ability’ through struggles and repeated failures.Footnote ⁶⁸ Students, therefore, had to draw inferences from approaches involving struggle toward a ‘growth mindset’, and they did so with some success. For example, if students learn merely about Einstein’s exceptional intellect and discoveries, they acknowledge these, but often feel disconnected given their own perceived or real limitations and might even sense that science is not a legitimate field for them. However, if students learn about Einstein’s personal struggles and doubts (in school and beyond), family financial difficulties and moves, and efforts to rewrite papers and answer critics throughout his career, his achievements are more likely to be understood in a different light, and students become more engaged, experiencing greater connection to his story. Ultimately, the research suggests that the ‘use of struggle stories provides a promising and implementable instructional approach that can improve student motivation and academic performance and perhaps other subjects as well’.Footnote ⁶⁹

A connected, yet distinct theme in the field of religious education appears in a study by Jonathan W. Peters on teaching history in a time of ‘cancel culture’.Footnote ⁷⁰ Peters notes the desire to offer students an honest portrayal of past figures, but also examples to imitate in living a Christian life. He acknowledges the possibility of discerning common grace in many historical figures, but upholds the necessity of saving grace given humanity’s ongoing iniquity through sin.Footnote ⁷¹ This distinction allows Peters to affirm that there are legitimate heroes of the faith, particularly as recorded in the Bible, but also to some extent later in Christian history.Footnote ⁷² Using this Reformed theological approach, Peters emphasizes a biblical lens for engaging the past, one that explicitly seeks to avoid two pitfalls: idolization and demonization. The former is more directly relevant to this investigation.

By idolization, he means granting heroes ‘a god-like status (contra Ex. 20:3)’, an error he believes that ‘Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy have done with their veneration of saints.’Footnote ⁷³ Notwithstanding this unsubstantiated criticism, Peters more helpfully reflects on how idolization,

According to Peters, then, idolization sets a person up for despondency toward the self in the light of one’s own perceived failures. This idea thus connects fairly well with depressed levels of student interest in figures treated in the natural sciences as indicated in prior analysis. Peters suggests two further dangers of idolization. First, if one eventually reckons with unfortunate historical facts about an exemplar in the faith, one might in the end be tempted to reject the entirety of his/her legacy, potentially losing something precious in consequence.Footnote ⁷⁵ This trajectory differs from the prior scenario in that it indicates a period of idolization – perhaps attributable to hagiographical instruction – that is ultimately undermined through historical revelation of an idol’s faults, rather than an initial sense of one’s own unworthiness relative to the idolized figure. Second, idolization also can support an unhealthy divisiveness among Christians drawn to the cult of a particular figure, something the Bible warns the faithful against (e.g., 1 Cor. 1:12).Footnote ⁷⁶ Such divisions cause people to lose sight of the greater truth to which their fidelity belongs. It seems that many disciplines are struggling in an age of historical consciousness with the ambiguous legacies of eminent luminaries, legacies on which their own work clearly rests.

Regarding the other pitfall of demonization, Peters emphasizes several reasons for avoiding it, while also distilling a more balanced approach based on prior analysis. By demonization, he means ‘that deadly disease which scorns the saints by belaboring their infirmities and downplaying their godly virtues’.Footnote ⁷⁷ One should avoid demonization because it: (i) leads ‘teachers and students to become resentful and malicious towards flawed heroes’; (ii) ‘tends to deaden a person’s ability to perceive his own sin’ and thus undermines a growth in wisdom; (iii) can lead ‘young people to replace godly heroes with ungodly ones’, possibly idolizing them; (iv) ‘causes students to ignore God’s verdict of the godly’, instead relying on some other, worldly logic; and lastly – and relatedly – (v) rests on the notion that one merits salvation or leads one to embrace a view of ‘sinless perfectionism’ in the present life, both of which are false teaching.Footnote ⁷⁸ In the end, Peters recommends a ‘balanced approach’ that respectfully addresses egregious sins, while also highlighting the good and godly virtues of past figures.Footnote ⁷⁹ Such an approach does not exclusively dwell on vices, facilitating harsh judgment. Rather, it highlights how Christians today legitimately stand on the shoulders of their forebears who struggled, yet did so in the faith, persevering and contributing richly to what has been received. This balanced approach connects well with Newman’s own theological views treated above in Section 2.

These studies, within religious studies and the natural sciences, both suggest that student engagement and performance might suffer when eminent figures are treated in a manner that highlights merely their achievements, casting them as supra-human luminaries. The failure to incorporate struggle when treating finite, fallible, and fellow human beings comes with numerous potential drawbacks, and the use of balanced struggle stories can serve to increase student engagement and connection. But what of teaching methods that precipitate a form of struggling in the students themselves?

4.2. Manageable confusion

In this sub-section, analysis focuses on the introduction of struggle not necessarily in the lives of historical figures treated in course content, but rather in students themselves. More precisely, numerous studies have suggested that educators can benefit students by facilitating their exposure to manageable confusion. Such confusion ultimately aims to increase participation, responsibility for learning, and both skill acquisition and conceptual understanding, and it is to be distinguished from any approach that overwhelms students or leaves them without a productive recourse and/or guidance from instructors.

In ‘Evoking Students’ Curiosity and Complicating Their Historical Thinking through Manageable, Engaging Confusion’, J. H. Bickford III and M. S. Bickford analyze profitable ways to incorporate confusion in the history classroom.Footnote ⁸⁰ Their point of departure is the importance of historical thinking and civic involvement, as well as the fundamental insight that the ‘antecedent to discovery’ is confusion, which ‘sparks the motivation to explore and solve mysteries’.Footnote ⁸¹ They ‘view a social studies unit as a metaphorical puzzle, with age-appropriate primary and secondary sources as the pieces necessary for assembly’.Footnote ⁸² However, students do not receive all the requisite pieces, but enough to stoke curiosity that begets further inquiry and assembly. The particular topic they analyzed was the Civil Rights Movement in primary education (through grade 8).

The Bickfords describe the success of a method stoking, but guiding confusion, wherein students negotiate both primary and secondary sources in course content. The students began with multiple secondary sources eventually described as ‘a non-witness’s’ evaluation of an event.Footnote ⁸³ Instruction as well as small-group work allowed students to grasp main points, while detecting differences in the secondary sources, which elicited confusion, questioning, and curiosity. Students then spent several days engaging primary sources; however, the first day involved the most limited set of such sources, with more pieces added daily.Footnote ⁸⁴ The instructor ensured that the materials were age-appropriate and that the ‘revelation’ of additional pieces helped students realize how important each piece of the puzzle is for full comprehension, as well as raised questions about why certain sources retain or omit information or seem to be merely partial accounts. In other words, the instructor began to cultivate students’ abilities to scrutinize content and detect nuances not immediately available when reading only for comprehension. The instructor guided students throughout their confusion, alleviating it periodically through larger class discussions. ‘Confusion evoked engagement and compelled interpretation’, both of which are understood as a means to a greater end: ‘Synthesis, evaluation, and creation … [the] top three tiers in the pyramid of criticality’.Footnote ⁸⁵ Regarding synthesis, the educators decided to ask students to create their own timelines of events from scrutinizing the evidence, despite the fact that such timelines are readily available.Footnote ⁸⁶ Students thus had to interrogate and synthesize – individually and collectively – divergent material and perspectives. In terms of evaluation, students were able to demonstrate a critical appraisal (i.e., by giving clear examples) of how secondary sources utilized primary sources.Footnote ⁸⁷ Finally, creation entails the generation of new understandings based on the critical work undertaken.Footnote ⁸⁸

Nancy Quam-Wickham’s study on reconceiving the college introductory US History course suggests the importance of designing a course that does not merely convey content, but – in line with core-curriculum goals – cultivates citizens.Footnote ⁸⁹ She describes redesigning a course so that students ‘do history’ and take responsibility for the content and themes being engaged.Footnote ⁹⁰ For this objective and approach to work, Quam-Wickham and colleagues at California State University (Long Beach) assigned intensive group projects featuring individual and collective responsibility and based around key words and themes discovered by the students themselves, as well as questions posed (and answered) by the students on the basis of their investigations. Moreover, these projects were to be utilized in a local high school history class with at-risk students, raising the stakes of students’ work, so to speak.Footnote ⁹¹ Quam-Wickham acted as a guide throughout the process, consistently questioning students: ‘Pushing students to refine their projects was essential.’Footnote ⁹² The method and assessments involved in this redesigned course, therefore, challenge students and require their taking responsibility for course content, introducing manageable confusion.Footnote ⁹³ In an end-of-term, five-page reflective essay, Quam-Wickham ‘challenged students to explain … what they had learned about American History, citizenship, liberty’, and so forth, and they all responded, with most using their projects as evidence.Footnote ⁹⁴

Both of these historical studies (by Bickford/Bickford and Quam-Wickham) involve challenging students, guiding them through manageable levels of confusion, and asking them to take responsibility for the content being engaged. While the potential relevance of historical pedagogy for catechetical pedagogy might seem clear given the similarity of some course content and methods, other more empirical disciplines, such as mathematics, have also registered the value of manageable confusion and increasing responsibility for students’ growth. In fact, there is evidence that integrating these aspects into math courses is helpful for skills development and conceptual understanding.

A brief overview of the notion of ‘productive struggle’ in two such studies on mathematical pedagogy is helpful for demonstrating the interdisciplinary value of precipitating struggle and introducing manageable confusion in students.Footnote ⁹⁵ In their landmark study, James Hiebert and Douglas A. Grouws treat the value of struggle in the classroom. They have in mind struggle that involves ‘solving problems that are within reach and grappling with key mathematical ideas that are comprehendible but not yet well formed’, as opposed to ‘needless frustration or extreme levels of challenge created by nonsense or overly difficult problems’.Footnote ⁹⁶ They contend that ‘engagement of students in struggling or wrestling with important mathematical ideas’ is a critical factor for teaching that ‘consistently facilitates students’ conceptual understanding’.Footnote ⁹⁷ The reason being that the struggle – individual and collective – by which students persevere through mathematical problems requires the students to relate mathematical facts and build upon prior knowledge. Struggle, therefore, ‘results in restructuring one’s mental connections in more powerful ways’, the result being greater and deeper understanding and knowledge.Footnote ⁹⁸ Previous ideas and skills are reinforced, connected, and applied in new ways. For this approach to be effective, students have to be challenged ‘within reason’, not overwhelmed, and they ‘must feel a need to resolve a problematic situation and then be allowed “to muddle through”’.Footnote ⁹⁹ In Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All (2014), the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics advises teachers to ‘support productive struggle’ in classrooms by adhering to several guidelines.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ These involve anticipating lessons in which students are likely to struggle, as well as giving them the time to struggle. Here, teachers are to ask questions designed to help students scaffold their thinking and existing knowledge, but not simply provide answers. Teachers also should sustain their students’ efforts by reminding them that struggling, ‘confusion and errors are a natural part of learning’, while ‘facilitating discussions on mistakes, misconceptions and struggles’, and praising them as they persevere through problems, growing in understanding.Footnote ¹⁰¹ A maxim encapsulating this approach is, ‘it is okay to struggle, but not to give up’. Teachers and fellow students are encouraged to provide helpful direction, but once again not the answers.

A final study by Evi Wusk on adult learners in Lutheran Confirmation classes utilized quantitative and qualitative measures in looking at ways to increase student engagement.Footnote ¹⁰² The article incorporates ideas connected to productive struggle and giving students responsibility for learning. While Wusk identifies five themes for increasing engagement, two are especially apropos here. The first involves providing students time and space for asking questions, build on the widely shared sense that ‘a time of intense questioning’ was key to learning one’s faith, an idea perhaps connected Newman’s notions of certainty through struggle.Footnote ¹⁰³ While this theme did enhance student engagement, Wusk highlights the need for caution, since such spaces can lead a session into uncharted waters outside of the strict control of the instructor, who also needs to be mindful of factors such as class size. For instance, such spaces, when cultivated in small groups, might be very helpful for a class of 15 students, which can then come together for a larger classroom discussion. However, the realization of this theme might need to look very different in a class of 150 students. Instructors must know themselves and the students to some degree.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ The second theme is leadership, and it involves tasking students with leadership positions and responsibilities for course content for which the students often feel inadequate and/or unprepared.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ This theme can manifest in one’s service as a group leader or presenter to one’s peers or outside groups. The task itself often precipitates struggle and uncertainty, but with support and perseverance, students related that their engagement increased significantly.

This section featured two main lines of inquiry. The first analyzed the importance of balanced approaches to historical figures, especially those who have had a significant influence on the field or subject of inquiry. Research suggests that an excessive focus on such figures’ accomplishments and a failure to incorporate their struggles and humanity ultimately depress student engagement and performance. One of the causal factors here is background beliefs by students regarding such ‘heroes’ and their own feelings of inadequacy. So, while students might positively appraise such figures, they feel disconnected from them given their own experience. The second sub-section looked at the potential value of precipitating manageable confusion and productive struggle in students, in view of increasing their responsibility for engaging and understanding course content. Studies from several cognate disciplines highlight the value of introducing confusion and struggle precisely to generate curiosity. With age-appropriate content, peer collaboration, and instructor guidance, students can individually and collectively augment their existing knowledge, synthesize new content, critically evaluate varied content, and even generate new understanding. These approaches are not without risks, and teachers must be clear-sighted about the abilities of their students, as well as their own. Nevertheless, such interdisciplinary accord and connections regarding struggle bode well for the potential fruitful engagement of this topic in the realm of catechesis and religious education.