Teaching Experiences - Second Guessing

This past week I had one of those classes that make you reflect on teaching. Teaching is a task that, if you allow yourself, you can constantly second guess yourself. There are classes where you have to be instinctual and go with your gut. You can plan only so much in teaching and sometimes all the planning in the world won’t produce or avoid certain exchanges in the classroom. In the middle of a discussion you make choices and it is difficult to know if you’ve made the right one at least in the moment. In retrospect I think I would have handled the situation differently, although it is hard to know for sure.

If I look at the results of the discussion, it appears to have had an affect on most of the class. First we had a number of students very angry. Two students actually got up and left the classroom because they were frustrated by particular responses from other classmates. There was a sizable group of students that were disengaged from the discussion altogether—probably a third to two-thirds. I don’t think this meant that they were not listening, but as one person from that group admitted at the end she simply did not know enough to even begin to offer an opinion. Finally there was the one student who was both vocal and contrarian. This student ended up dominating the discussion, as it became something of a debate between them and me. In retrospect I probably should have conceded that they would not accept the approach I was advocating and move on. Instead I engaged them in an attempt to show the student why I had come to the conclusions I had. At least with this student in the classroom, my engagement really didn’t get me anywhere.

Let me provide some context. We had read Pamela Eisenbaum’s Paul was Not a Christian and we were concluding with a discussion of our thoughts on the book. I had students read the book using a series of questions that assisted them in evaluating the author’s arguments. I intended for us to talk about what students thought were the strengths and weaknesses of the book. However I began with a general question: “What did you think of the book?”—We never got past that question.

A vocal group of more conservative students hated the book. Among other things, they felt that Eisenbaum caricatured Christians negatively—Eisenbaum is Jewish. After one person stated this a chorus of others agreed save one student. One of the students, our vocal-contrarian, disagreed and offered a very affirmative view of the book. She found convincing the universalism with which Eisenbaum concluded her book.

What ensued was a debate not so much about the book, but about universalism vs exclusivism and relativism, is any one interpretation better than another? These topics arose from the book of course—Eisenbaum concludes that Paul was a universalist and maintains a “two-ways” soteriology; further, she claims that Jesus saves only Gentiles—but the conversation hovered over the book at about 30,000 feet in a debate about abstract ideas. For my part, I decided to continue the conversation thinking that a conversation about critical thinking and critical realism would be beneficial for the entire class. I'm not so sure that was the best tack to take. I should report that in post-class correspondence there is a continuing engagement via email. One never knows.

I take solace in the fact that we’ll have another shot at it this week. What a wonderfully humbling profession we have.

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BTW: Paul was not a Christian is a challenging book written in polemical style.

I would say some of the strengths are:
1. A historically contextual reading of Paul
2. The stress on the ambiguity of several of Paul's key phrases (e.g. pistis christou and ek ergo nomou)
3. The emphasis on ethnic distinctions in Paul

The weaknesses are significant:
1. The christology in the book is wanting- there's just no way Paul thinks that Jesus is Messiah only for Gentiles
2. The two-ways salvation and universalism in Paul is highly suspect; it could only be asserted by means of a contorted reading of Pauline texts.
3. The optimistic Pauline anthropology advocated is improbable

Developing as an Undergraduate Teacher

I am up for a promotion this year and I have been working on my portfolio to present to the University. Basically I have to convince them why they should promote me. Here I reflect over my development as an undergraduate teacher at North Park. Perhaps you can relate or learn from my mistakes.

Over the course of the last three years, as I begin now my fourth year at North Park University, I have developed and improved my teaching effectiveness with each semester. I will be the first to admit that I committed all of the sins of a “freshly minted-Ph.D.” teacher. My first classes will attest that I had far too high of expectations for my undergrads. In that first semester for one of my classes I must have submitted over 4 syllabus revisions as I was undergoing “on-the-job-training”. Those early classes of students were so accommodating, as I would again announce a syllabus change. Many of those students have since graduated and we laugh together over the memory and to my gratitude they tell me they learned a good deal notwithstanding. Funny they never complained as I was eliminating assignments.

Admittedly I had much to learn in spite of some prior teaching experience and my passion for the subject and for students. One of my strengths, which is also a weakness as it was in this case, is my stubbornness and drive when I feel passionately about something. The end result of such a character is the proverbial truth of “learning the hard way”. This was evident in the way I went about teaching the Paul course at first. My colleagues, especially Scot McKnight, advised me that a certain methodology that I was quite sure was essential had proved ineffective for him in teaching undergrads at earlier stage of his teaching career and I should abandon it. Stubborn as I was, I thought to myself, “I can do this!” I will passionately communicate the importance of the practice and they will learn to love it as they make discoveries for themselves. Invariably, Scot was right; he usually is. Although there were a number of students who benefited from the approach, most were left frustrated and disinterested. I found myself constantly needing to coach and inspire in the use of method instead of teaching the Pauline ideas.

My initial reaction to the circumstance was to try harder. I attempted to use even more convincing rhetoric, better materials, and enlisted tutors to give further assistance outside of class. When this too did not work, then I became bitter toward my students: “They just weren’t trying hard enough” was the kind of thought I had.

Soon I awoke to the harsh reality. My approach wasn’t working. The problem was not the students or a lack of effort on my part; it was simply the wrong approach for the situational context of my teaching. While I would still strongly advocate the methodology I was attempting to incorporate in my class for biblical interpretation, I had yet to fully grasp the context of my teaching: to appreciate the appropriateness within the unique context of NPU. I did not adequately comprehended “the whom” of my teaching. What’s more, I had not fully inculcated the role I was to be playing in the larger University GE curriculum.

Over the course of the last year these two realizations have functioned significantly in revising my course strategies and intended outcomes. While I believed that I was approaching the students holistically, I have realized I had not fully comprehended the situation within which I was teaching. In other words, it has taken me three years to grapple fully with the context of my teaching. Last semester I performed a significant overhaul of two of my GE courses in response to these realizations. As the student evaluations attest, this has greatly increased my teaching effectiveness. To put it bluntly and somewhat embarrassingly, I think for the first two years I was teaching toward only a small percentage of our undergrad population. Now my courses, while still quite rigorous, are much more widely accessible.

Do you want to know the methodology? Sentence Diagramming and Discourse Analysis Scott Hafemann style.

Student's Say the Darnest Things!

My students have given me much comic relief in class in recent days. Here are three examples:

1. Why attractive actors should not play Jesus.

While watching the Gospel of John on DVD in class one of my female students mutters another student, "I have trouble watching this when Jesus looks so cute". This created much amusement, shock, and laughter and was good evidence of why the iconoclasts were probably right. During the scene from John 13 when Jesus disrobes to wash his disciples feet the female student was warned "Don't get too excited now!".

2. Q &A.

Lecturer: What is allegory?
Student: Wasn't he the former Vice-President of America?

3. Satan and Scotland.

Student: Where does Satan come from?
Lecturer: I don't know. Paisley perhaps?
Student: The place or the person?

(Paisley is a city near Glasgow known for its high crime rate and Ian Paisley is the head of the Northern Irish government and is known, more in former times than now, for his intense dislike of Catholics).

The Teacher-al Tension

This week in my Paul course we are discussing Paul's eschatological tension. This post is rather like a therapy session as I feel the pressure of the end of the semester and the concomitant grading task and what I will call "the teacher-al tension".

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While I am only teaching three courses, and this is a light load for some university profs, I have a total of about a 100 students. I have chosen to offer mostly essay based exams, because I think that these type of exams provide a better indication of the level of comprehension than do standardized type exams (e.g. Scantron). I do use the latter, but less often. This philosophy however creates a tremendous amount of work for me especially during the end of the semester when these are combined with grading research papers.

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I find myself feeling the pressure of writing projects that can't be touched to say nothing of contributing to the blog. I sat this morning and wrote in my journal about the handful of smallish things I have going that are forced to the the back burner because of my teaching responsibilities. This is a constant tension for me and I am sure that I'm not alone. With a young family there is only so much time left for work and as our semester draws to a close in just a couple of weeks, I find that all my time is taken grading research papers and exams.

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It is very difficult task indeed to live in the tension of teaching and writing. Still, it is a gift from God to even have the tension. Thanks be to God!

The New Testament Scholar and the Importance of Teaching

Have you had the experience of reading a book and finding that the author discusses an issue that you would have never expected given the subject of the book, but that in the end was itself worth the price of the book? I had that experience again today as I was rereading Luke Timothy Johnson’s book The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels.

I am preparing a series of talks for an upcoming church retreat on Jesus for high school students and I was rereading Johnson's book The Real Jesus, one of my favorite books on the historical Jesus. The first time I read it I must have either skimmed this part or overlooked its profundity. In a chapter titled “Cultural Confusion and Collusion”, Johnson describes the crisis in the academic discipline of biblical and theological studies for contemporary relevance or cultural significance as he labels it. He observes that many professors of the Bible who were trained in the historical critical method in American university religious studies programs have a difficult time connecting to the needs of contemporary undergrad students. Johnson reflects on the fact that most of the professors’ training in this context was based on an assumption that historical scholarship was the answer to church tradition. Thus the job of a professor was to move students who were brought up within the traditions of a church a more critical and therefore better apprehension of Christianity through the historical critical study of the Bible. This paradigm requires that students have a pre-formed and “uncritical” tradition which they bring the classroom. It doesn’t take too much time in a contemporary classroom to realize that the target of which this paradigm is based is a mirage, a figment of imagination. Undergrads today have little to know prior biblical knowledge of which to be disabused. Even those students who come from strong evangelical homes are not all that more prepared to critically reflect on their knowledge. Johnson has hit his proverbal spot when he opines, “The pressing need of such students is to have the tradition transmitted in the first place” (1996:74, emphasis mine).

Johnson offers a way through the crisis of cultural significance by asserting that academics must “rediscover” the truth that the “finest expression of scholarship is in teaching”. He states that scholars must again become effective educators. He avers that scholars need “no other forum than the one already generously placed at their disposal by society, the classroom”. Finally he makes a strong suggestion that New Testament scholars "must above all develop models for studying the New Testament that, while lacking nothing in critical acumen, do not flatten the rich possibilities of those texts to the thin and distorted ‘history’ that has too often been made the representative of biblical scholarship” (1996:76).

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To these thoughts I say a hearty "Amen!"

The Start of a New Semester

I love the beginning of a new semester and I suppose this is because I love teaching so much. There are few things more exciting for me than a room full of undergrads who have expectations about learning. Of course there are varying degrees of interest among students in my classes. Some are majoring in Biblical Studies others are taking the course because they're required to do so to graduate. Nonetheless the opportunity each semester a teacher has to challenge conventional ideas, present new ideas and engender passion for the Bible and for learning is not only a privilege, but a thrill.

Each new semester reminds me why I love what I do. I was reflecting with Karla recently about my career and I told her that I wouldn't change a thing about my life if I were to inherit millions of dollars (by the way, that will never happen!). While I would certainly change some things like where we live (our two-bedroom condo has already been outgrown), I can't imaging doing anything else -- OK besides playing the outfield at Yankee Stadium in pinstripes. I am doing exactly what I want to do with my life. I am living my vocational dream and I am thankful to God that he has given me the opportunity to be about what I love.

I know some students of mine and some folks early in their preparation for careers read the blog and I want to encourage you especially to follow the dreams you have. Live your life pursuing your passions and the dreams so long as you have in mind the values of the Gospel and an eternal perspective.

This idea is reflective of one of Jonathan Edward's Resolutions. Many years ago I came across these Resolutions which are essentially commitments he had made early in his life and which he rehearsed daily. Here is a particular one that I have found useful in this regard:

Resolved, to live my life, at all times, as I think best in my most devout frames, and when I have the clearest notions of the things of the gospel and eternity.

This is a solid life perspective to follow.

My Coach Taylor Moment

One of my favorite TV shows these days--besides 24--is called Friday Night Lights. An aspect of this week's episode involved an interaction between Coach Taylor and Smash. Smash is a very talented running back for the Dillon Panthers who had dabbled in performance enhancing drugs. After finding this out Coach Taylor decided not to expose Smash but to keep it "in house" and just discipline him--had he reported it Smash would have lost his opportunity for college scholarships; his football days would have been over. Well, the discipline was severe. So severe that it was taking Smash's spirit (one aspect of it was Coach bench him during final and most crucial game of the season). Coach Taylor's wife confronts him on his harsh disciple of Smash (I love this show in part because that kind of think always happens to me--Karla will tell me I am doing something wrong and she is so often right). Well in one of the final scenes of the show, Coach Taylor goes to Smash's house and apologizes for how harsh he had treated Smash and they go play some touch football with neighborhood children.

Well, this is my Coach Taylor moment this week. Today in class I went off on my students in my Gospel of John class for their lack of participation in the discussion. So, like Coach Taylor, I had to apologize. I realized only after class that the majority of my students were just trying to get the 153 pages of reading done for the last topic so you could turn in the reading report today. and hadn't even begun to prepare for today's topic. I also realized that they hadn't been asked to interact with me and the material in such a confrontational manner up to that point in the class. So my expectations of them were not clear.

For the class to work and to have a vibrant and lively experience, I believe it requires that the class together creates a space within which we can think about John's Gospel together. This requires that participants come prepared for our class sessions having read the Gospel passage and the secondary literature related to it. I don't like to "lecture" through a biblical book and I personally don't feel that it is the best teaching method for a book study. I have reams of notes and outlines of lectures on biblical books from college and seminary that are completely useless to me now. The best we can do is get students to think about the text for themselves with the help of good commentaries and our nudging.

I hope you have a great weekend and cheer on the Chicago, BEARS in the Superbowl. Mike you know the superbowl don't you??