“We all have stories of those wonderful teachers that came alongside us and changed our lives.”

Dr. Lisa Devall-Martin, associate professor of education at Redeemer, radiates her passion and enthusiasm to walk alongside B.Ed. teacher candidates, preparing them to enter their classrooms with strength and resilience. She recognizes the significant calling and impact these future educators will have in the lives of their students. 

Drawing on her extensive experience in teaching and school administration, she also understands the challenges faced by teachers. 

“The classroom is just highly demanding,” Devall-Martin says. “You walk through those doors and you are on from the moment you walk in to the moment you leave.” 

The present day classroom is highly complex, she says, and teachers need to possess more than pedagogical and technical skill. She notes that educators must be trauma-informed to support a classroom full of students coming from diverse backgrounds and experiences. To truly care for these students and nurture their growth, she describes that it is foundational for teacher candidates to begin with their own inner wellbeing and spirituality. Because their work in the classroom flows from the heart, she emphasizes, “We teach who we are.”

“Jesus repeatedly steps out of the urgency and noise and demand in order to be rooted in the Father’s will. That’s the way I would say he sees people clearly in order to act with compassion.”

With the average Ontario teacher only remaining in the teaching field for five years, Devall-Martin sees it as a vital mission to foster the mental health and wellbeing of her teaching candidates by integrating faith-informed practices into the Professional Teaching Seminar and Reflective Practice course. She describes that growth in teaching does not happen through the busyness of activity but often in quieter spaces. Devall-Martin intentionally creates those quieter spaces to foster greater self-awareness in her students. 

By being guided in pausing and reflective practices, teacher candidates experience transformational learning. They are equipped to enter their classrooms with confidence and a healthy heart and mind–a necessity when difficult classroom incidents can act as a litmus test for teachers, impacting their self-efficacy and how they view themselves. 

But how can candidates be equipped to courageously move beyond these stressors and connect with God in the heat of the moment? Devall-Martin illustrates that Jesus is the perfect teacher of this and his example grounds her teaching and research.

“Jesus repeatedly steps out of the urgency and noise and demand in order to be rooted in the Father’s will. That’s the way I would say he sees people clearly in order to act with compassion … If we can press pause and enter into reflection, prayer and self-awareness, then I think that creates space for the Holy Spirit to do the work. And then there’s this great celebration, not about me, but Christ in me, doing the work.”

Devall-Martin has personally experienced the profound benefits of tending to the inner spiritual landscape of life and this is core to her research. She holds a certificate in spiritual formation, and was on a path to becoming a spiritual director before coming to Redeemer five years ago. Having experienced the joy, fruitfulness and connection found in quieter spaces of solitude, silence and prayer, she is deeply passionate about empowering her students and journeying with them as they integrate faith-informed practices into their own teaching. She explores this work in a recent co-publication with Michelle C. Hughes, “A Collaboration: Exploring, Discussing, and Practicing the Pause.”

In this research, preservice teacher candidates were invited to cultivate one of the dispositions of empathy, adaptability, gratitude or hope through creative pausing and spiritual disciplines. Students engaged in various practices such as journaling, going for walks, sabbath, prayer and reading the Bible–activities to help them create space and consider the disposition.

The course provides them with a safe environment to be honest about disorienting dilemmas in the classroom–those difficult incidents that challenge their expectations can serve as a catalyst for transformational learning. Students documented their self-discovery as they cultivated their disposition.

She describes that the results were transformative. Devall-Martin saw her students experiencing meaningful growth, leading to deeper self-awareness and spiritual attentiveness. Her research revealed how these specific dispositions impact the life of a teacher.

As students cultivate the disposition of adaptability, this helped them handle the uncertainty of changing classroom realities, fostering a sense of trust. As they cultivated the disposition of empathy through listening and stillness, this enabled them to be more present and attune more attentively to their students. By nurturing the disposition of gratitude, this increased their self-awareness and helped teachers notice ordinary graces or small wins, which is so important for the classroom. And hope in essence connected all the dispositions, helping to keep students grounded and forward looking,  even when teaching felt difficult.

Devall-Martin describes that through spiritual formation, humility and compassion are nurtured and this “opens that space for noticing God in your life because God is working.” 

She reflects that, “graduation is the pinnacle. The calling to be able to shake their hands and hug them and know they’re different from when they come in to when they graduate. They’ve grown. They’ve learned. They’ve been molded and shaped. You’re equipping them for the classroom and every aspect of life.”

In the works for Devall-Martin and Dr. Melanie East is a book entitled, Divine Design in the Classroom: The role of imago Dei in shaping educational praxis. The book is a compilation of authors in various disciplines who frame their classroom design through the doctrine of imago Dei with students being God-imagers in their learning. 

Graduation is the pinnacle. The calling to be able to shake their hands and hug them and know they’re different from when they come in to when they graduate. They’ve grown. They’ve learned. They’ve been molded and shaped. You’re equipping them for the classroom and every aspect of life.”

As Redeemer prepares to welcome the first cohort of master of education (M.Ed.) students this week, Dr. Devall-Martin is absolutely thrilled to be designing and teaching in the M.Ed. program. One of the courses she is designing and teaching to be transformative is EDU 520: Self-awareness for Educational Service, which is framed by Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

Grounded in the doctrine of Imago Dei, the course will explore how all humanity is created in the image of God with a unique divine thumbprint, and how this doctrine, when core to our living, transforms classroom engagement. The course will integrate spiritual disciplines, such as pausing, contemplating and examining integrative redemptive praxis; “going beyond the ethical by doing the redemptive thing.” Teachers and educational professionals will be encouraged to lead from a posture of humility and sacrifice in order to bless others. 

Devall-Martin describes transformative work as “supernatural and beautiful” and she hopes and prays that this M.Ed. program will create “an extending of self and a greater compassion for the world, because it is not just about us, but about what he does in us for the sake of others.”