Bringing Learning by Refraction to Europe: Fr Johnny Go SJ concludes four-nation roadshow on Ignatian Pedagogy

Fr Johnny Go SJ, Dean of Ateneo de Manila University's Gokongwei Brothers School of Education and Learning Design, recently returned from a trip to Europe where he promoted the book Learning by Refraction and held conversations with local educators on Ignatian Pedagogy.

The trip was a response to a number of invitations to introduce Learning by Refraction, which he co-authored with the Ateneo Teacher Center Director, Ms Rita J Atienza, and published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press in 2018. The book has since then been translated into six languages—Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Thai, Chinese, Polish, and Dutch—with four more editions in the works.

Fr Go first stopped in Birkirkara, Malta. Here, Fr Go met with over 100 faculty members of St Aloysius College on 19 April 2024.

In addition to talking about the Learning by Refraction approach to Ignatian Pedagogy, Fr Go also discussed the implications that technologies such as social media and GenAI have on learning and teaching. 

These issues were also highlighted in Fr Go's next stop in Nowy Sącz, Poland, where he met with faculty from the Jezuickie Centrum Edukacji on 11 May 2024. Here, Fr Go also got to meet Fr Pawel Broźyniak SJ, Jezuickie Centrum Edukacji School Director, who was instrumental in translating Learning by Refraction into Polish; as well as Ms Agnieszka Baran, the Director of the Jesuit Education Committee for Secondary Education and her team.

The third stop was in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he met with faculty from the Niels Steensens Gymnasium on 21 May 2024. Teachers from both the primary and secondary schools of the Danish Jesuit school joined in a conversation with Fr Go and reflected on how Ignatian Pedagogy might help them teach more effectively given today’s challenges.

At this meeting, Fr Go stated that he found the level of engagement and enthusiasm manifested by those who attended the session inspiring.

Fr Go's final stop was in Delft, in the Netherlands. Here he met with the school leaders from the St Stanislass network of six schools during their annual Spiritual Day, where the Learning by Refraction approach to Ignatian Pedagogy was the focus.

As the featured speaker for Spiritual Day, Fr Go offered the leaders an overview of the book's practical approach to Ignatian Pedagogy. In addition, the faculty had already had a day to reflect on the book, allowing them to share their own learnings from it with each other.

In all these talks, Fr Go explained that Ignatian Pedagogy, understood and practiced correctly, could be a valuable help when dealing with the challenges technologies like social media and generative AI pose to educators, illustrating the continuing relevance of using this Ignatian brand of learning and teaching in the classroom.

According to him, the Learning by Refraction approach offers Ignatian educators a toolbox to address these challenges in concrete ways, especially in shifting educators' focus away from the customary prioritization of content (knowledge, facts,, and concepts) toward the actual learning process itself. In short, Ignatian Pedagogy invites teachers to pay attention to designing the learning process over simply teaching content–a crucial educational shift in the age of digital and GenAI technology.

The European roadshow was just one of the many trips Fr Go has undertaken to discuss Learning by Refraction and its take on Ignatian Pedagogy abroad. From 6 to 8 March 2024, he conducted the Jesuits West Province Colloquium at the Archbishop Brunett Retreat Center at the Palisades where he also discussed the book, its approach to Ignatian Pedagogy, and concrete ways of implementing it. In November of last year, Fr Go was also in Auckland, New Zealand, to introduce the Learning by Refraction framework to the faculty of a brand new Ignatian school, St Ignatius of Loyola Catholic School, that opened in January of this year.

Ms Rita Atienza, Fr Go’s co-author, has also been conducting a series of online and onsite trainers’ training under the auspices of GBSEALD’s Ignatian Initiative for Teacher Excellence (IGNITE).

“We never expected this kind of global reception,” she said. “But we are grateful for this opportunity to make some kind of contribution. After all, the book is borne out of our conversations with educator-practitioners—looking closely at best practices, challenges, questions of those teachers in the trenches, so to speak, those who spend each day working on the frontlines with students, parents, fellow teachers, and administrators. These conversations continue to take place to this day through the workshops we conduct for Ignatian educators in different parts of the world as organized by the different Jesuit K-12 school networks worldwide."