La Tonia Winston
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ES 9750: Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education
BIOGRAPHY:
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Born June 10, 1936, in Anderson, IN
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1996-married Edward P. Wimberly
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African-American researcher, scholar, professor, and advocate for Black youth
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Christian educator rooted in the United Methodist Church
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97% evangelical Christian, according to Dr. Jack Seymour
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1993-MTS Church History, Garrett-Evangelical Theological
Seminary(GETS), Evanston, IL (represented a shift in focus to theological education) o Master’s thesis led to best-selling book, Soul Stories: African American Christian Education
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1981- PhD Educational Leadership; concentration: curriculum and instruction; and cognate in social
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 gerontology, Georgia State
1965- M.A. Music, Boston University, served as doctoral teaching fellow
1957- B.S. Education, major: Music education and applied piano, Ohio State University
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1968-2008- Professor at Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta (ITC), GA (ITC) o Currently, Professor Emerita of Christian Education o Directs ITC’s “Youth Hope Builders Academy” – connecting education and justice o Coordinates The Youth and Family Convocations
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Member of ITC’s Environmental Justice Initiative; developed an environmental justice curriculum for use at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) (Smith)
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First African-American president of the Association of Professors and Researchers in Religious Education and the second African American president of the Religious Education Association, now the Religious Education
Association
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Founding member of Pan African Scholars in Religious Education and the Black Experience Task Force. She has encouraged the organization to focus on issues of ethnicity, religion, class, and poverty (Smith)
EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY
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A prolific writer and researcher, she has authored dozens of books, chapters in books, articles, and designed denominational curriculum; and is also a popular lecturer and conference speaker o Topics: Christian education (primarily African-American), spirituality, narrative learning and pedagogy, ecology, family ministry, and youth and older adult ministry o Focus: models of Christian education grounded in the African-American experience; oriented toward asking “big questions of life” regarding meaning and purpose in light of the generating theme of hope; and employing modes of exploration using empirical and ethnographic research (Smith)
 o Axiology: focus on hope, faith, wholeness, liberation, wisdom, and story o “The goal of Christian education is liberation.” –Dr. Jack Seymour (GETS), mentoring professor
Inspired by gerontology professor Dr. Barbara Pittard Payne. She wrote a dissertation entitled “A Conceptual
Model for Older Adult Curriculum Planning Processes Based on Normalization and Liberation”
 “‘Relational Pedagogy,’ —
a teaching/learning approach that draws upon the relational and communal nature
 of story sharing…for Wimberly, educational ministry cannot be confined to the classroom.” (Smith)
Influences: o GETS professors, Rosemary Keller and Jack Seymour encouraged Wimberly to publish Soul Stories and to join the Religious Education Association o Scholars and practitioners such as Charles Foster, Ethel Johnson, and James Michael Lee o Mentors: Dr. Jonathan Jackson, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Christian Education, author, and former
Director of the Faith and the City Project at ITC, whose motto was “Christian education is that ministry which undergirds all the other ministries of the church” (Smith) o Dr. Grant Sneed Shockley, Christian education and former president of ITC and Philander Smith
College. His “groundbreaking work on African American Christian education inspired a new
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La Tonia Winston
1.27.16 generation of African American Christian educators; and Mrs. Doris Shockley, a pioneering librarian who contributed to the advancement of African Americans in the profession.” (Smith)
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Also, deeply influenced by her family’s tradition of storytelling and the power of story in consideration of her faith, and those shared in Sunday schools. Wimberly saw the importance of hearing the stories of others, and they have become central to her scholarship and teaching (Smith)
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“Wimberly encouraged her students to share their stories, believing that every child was created and loved by
God and had a unique story that needed to be told. Under her tutelage, students learned to reflect on their stories and to explore ways not only to celebrate the positive aspects of their stories, but also to identify ways the negative aspects could be transformed” (Smith)
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Through her story-linking process (linking personal/family, faith-heritage, and Christian stories), Wimberly invites people to explore themes of liberation, vocation, and ethical decision making in order to consciously move toward personal and communal liberation toward wholeness (Wimberly 1994; Smith)
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Story-linking used in African-American Christian education reclaims the African practice of storytelling as an important for Christian education. It is a process of connecting personal/family life stories, biblical stories, and faith heritage stories from the perspective of the African-American tradition. She states it “can help us open ourselves to God’s call to act in ways that are liberating for us and others (Smith; Wimberly 1994).
cross generations)
Engaging Christian
Faith Story in Bible
Engaging the
Everyday Story
(focus on
Engaging Christian Faith
Stories from African-
American Heritage
Engaging in Christian
Ethical Decision-Making
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Know one ’s life as gift – a valued human being
Ability to maintain basic necessities of life
To be equal partners and beneficiaries in lifebuilding processes of nation
To be treated justly and respectfully
Able to see possibilities & breaking out of restricted ways of thinking and acting
Share stories with self and others
To be changed by God in Jesus Christ
Aware of other ’s needs and willing to respond
(Seymour 2013)
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Like many theological educators teaching today, Wimberly has experienced an increase in students from different ethnicities. She celebrates this diversity of ethnicities through a relational pedagogical model.
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Two major components of Wimberly’s relational pedagogical model: hospitable kinship and gift exchange , o Hospitable kinship
—
“teaching and learning take place in an environment where a communal partnership exists both between teacher and students and among the students based on the conviction that we are all made in the image of God” (Wimberly 2007; Wimberly 2004) o Gift exchange
—
“the act of giving, receiving, and daring to struggle reciprocally with often challenging ideas, thoughts, learning, and stories that surface in the teaching and learning experience within and beyond the classroom (Wimberly, 2007, p. 381). Hospitality is essential to gift exchange as
 the two must work in harmony to create an atmosphere of hospitable kinship.” (Smith)
“Teaching philosophy engages:
Teacher/learner relationship, Arrangement of space, Positionality, Ritual, and
Inviting personal narratives
— through this model case studies and story sharing are central to her teaching o Giving students voice while inviting careful listening and inspiring interest in other stories, new learnings, and opportunities to practice compassionate responses to others o Valuing the life experiences students bring to the teaching/learning process o Allowing students to make personal connections with academic materials (Smith)
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REFERENCES
Grant Shockley & Anne Wimberly , 2013. Dr. Jack Seymour, former chair and professor of Religious Studies at
Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary, Class Presentation.
Smith, Yolanda. (Undetermined). Anne Streaty Wimberly. Talbot School of Theology, Biola University-20 th
Century Christian Educators . http://www.talbot.edu/ce20/educators/protestant/Anne_Streaty_Wimberly
Wimberly, A. S. 2007. The privilege of teaching. Religious Education , 102 : 4, 380-385.
_____________ 2004. Hospitable kinship in theological education: Cross-cultural perspectives on teaching and learning as gift exchange. Teaching Theology and Religion , 7 : 1, 3-12.
_____________ Hospitable Kinship in Theological Education: Cross ‐ Cultural Perspectives on
Teaching and Learning as Gift Exchange. Teaching Theology & Religion 7, no. 1 (2004): 3-12.
_____________ 2003. Daring to lead with hope: association of professors and researchers in religious education presidential address November 3, 2002.
______and Evelyn L. Parker. In search of wisdom: Faith formation in the black church . Abingdon Press,
2002.
_____________ 1996. An African ‐ American Pathway to Hope: Relief Formation through uses of Narrative in
Christian Education. Religious Education 91, no. 3: 316-33.
_____________ 1994. Soul Stories: African American Christian Education . Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press.
Wimberly, Edward P., and Anne Streaty Wimberly. Liberation & human wholeness: The conversion experiences of
Black people in slavery and freedom . Abingdon Press, 1986. https://www.garrett.edu/distinguished-alums/distinguished-alums-2009, Anne Streaty Wimberly , Distinguished
Alum
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