Discipleship and the Transfer of Knowledge

Can knowledge be transferred from one setting to another? There are three schools of thought regarding this idea of knowledge transfer.

First, there are those that maintain that students can acquire abstract general thinking skills that allow transfer to take place outside of specific subject-matter domains.

Second, there are those who believe that transfer of general skills is impossible due to that the fact that these skills are bound to, and must be taught, according to precise contexts of processes.

Third, there are still others who believe that the transfer of knowledge is dependent on the individual and the disposition of that individual. C. Brell calls this disposition the "critical spirit" and elaborates on it:

"A concept of critical thinking as transfer... [implies] that teaching for transfer is less a
matter of transmitting knowledge, skills, strategies and principles of thinking... thank of
fostering in students from the start an inquiring disposition, by which I mean a "readiness"
to consider the bearing of apparently discrete frames of reference on one another and
toward the construction of a more integrated world view."

Dewey too wrote of this idea although not in the language of Brell. Both realized that this critical spirit/disposition had to be valued to be effective and impacting.

I agree that this idea of knowledge transfer is heavily dependent on this critical spirit, but where I begin to differ is where this critical spirit dwells. I believe that knowledge can be transferred in various ways depending on the knowledge. And for time and space, I will not go into that aspect at this time, but what I will go into is where this critical spirit dwells for I believe for the transfer of knowledge to be at its highest optimal level this critical spirit must dwell both in the teacher and in the student. How do we achieve that? Well, we achieve that through... discipleship!

When both teacher and student enter the education process with a critical spirit both already value the process both are about the engage. Certainly, the student is at one end of the process and the teacher at the other, but in a properly conducted classroom where discipleship is taking place both should meet each other in the middle of the process. This is true discipleship and true discipleship does not take away from the educational process one bit. As a matter of fact, it enhances it and puts it in the proper position for maximum optimal knowledge transfer.

As is always the case, sincere, honest, excellent research leads us to the truth of God. This is just one more example of that wonderful truth. Blessings!