PFO2GO Teacher Track
Presenter
Susan Allen
Susan Allen grew up as a missionary kid in Southeast Asia and attended Christian schools from PK-12. Before she and her family moved overseas to work as missionaries, she spent several years teaching in Christian schools in the United States. When God led their family to Penang, Malaysia, Susan worked at Dalat International School for 9 years, where she oversaw high school curriculum and instruction and was Chair of the Bible Department.
From Susan’s experience as a Bible teacher and student mentor, she could see a disturbing trend of disconnection between professed Christian beliefs and real-life practices. She worked with a team at Dalat to lead the school through a multi-year process of research, development, and innovation in the area of biblical instruction and spiritual formation, and the results were transformational. Through these experiences at Dalat, Susan began to speak at conferences and consult with Christian schools around the world related to spiritual formation and biblical instruction.
Susan facilitated ACSI”s international Forums on Biblical Instruction and Spiritual Formation and is recognized as a thought-leader in the area of spiritual formation in the context of international, Christian schools. The Allens recently relocated to Northern California to help care for Susan’s mother, and Susan has just completed a master’s degree in Christian Spiritual Formation and Leadership while continuing her consulting and training work with Christian schools around the world. Susan is passionate about raising up the next generation to know and love God.
Teacher Track Session 1: A House of Learning
Description: In this session, Susan will introduce a Christian philosophy of education in the overseas school setting. She will unpack three typical ways that good-intentioned Christian teachers sometimes fail to effectively incorporate their faith into their subject. She will end the session with an exciting invitation to build a House of Learning or a “Paedagogium.”
Teacher Track Session 2: A Biblical View of Learning
Description: In this session, Susan shares four foundational principles of a biblical view of learning. These principles will guide you as you build your paedagogium where your students love to learn, come to know more of who God is and how he created the world.
Teacher Track Session 3: Building your Paedagogium
Description: In this session, Susan helps you think how to build a Paedagogium, a House of Learning, that leads you and your students to know God better, love your subject matter more, and create a place of joy and wonder and connection.
Teacher Track Session 4: Bringing God into the Classroom
Description: In this session, Susan will encourage you to think about how to bring God into the international school classroom. She will give you some guidance that will help you do this in a way that feels natural, full of joy, and connected to our teaching.
Inspirational Video: ACSI Global
Description: This video will give you an overview of the work of ACSI Global around the world.