Abstract

Teaching involves a number of hospitable encounters where teachers welcome and create learning spaces for their students. Derrida differentiates between two types of hospitality that he calls the law of hospitality and the laws of hospitality. The law of hospitality is a limitless and unconditional hospitality where all are welcome without regard for who they are or where they have come from. It is an aspirational, yet impossible type of hospitality because hosts always hold the power in hospitality relationships. The laws of hospitality reflect the way that we actually do hospitality. They are conditional and limited and provide both guests and hosts with roles and obligations. Hosts welcome their guests to cross the threshold and provide the guidance for how the guest should behave. Hospitality can also be understood through a Christian lens by considering how God offers hospitality to his people. In addition, hospitality has been used as a metaphor for understanding the pedagogical decisions that teachers make as they welcome their students. Drawing on two qualitative research studies on Christian teachers’ experience of being hosts and guests in the classroom, this chapter examines the nature of Christian hospitality in light of Derrida’s theories, Biblical hospitality and classroom hospitality. Four themes emerge from these studies, namely, hospitality takes risk and effort, hospitality is different in different teaching contexts, there is a relationship between hospitality and the hospitality God offers to his people and hospitality matters because it provides space for deep learning and offers an approach to teacher reflection.