THREE THOUGHTS ON TEACHING

First thought: The best way to learn anything is to teach it. This one I have discovered by long experience. Whenever I have taught anything, whether at church or at a university or a seminary, I have learned more about the subject. It’s one thing to know something, but another thing entirely to know it well enough to teach it to other people. There is another side to this, of course. No mater how well you know something, if you want to be able to teach it you have to know how to teach it. I have run into a good many experts who are masters of a subject, but haven’t a clue how to teach it. I first discovered this when some one tried to teach me how to play the card game euchre. They began, “now you have your right and left bower. . . “ and I was lost. You have to start by explaining the object of the game. I have seen brilliant physicists who are so deadly boring they can’t teach anything. I have experienced talented musicians who can’t help anyone perform. So there is a value in leaning how to teach. But it is absolutely necessary that you have mastery of a subject so that you have something worth teaching. That’s where the learning comes in. Thinking through how to teach something helps you to learn it better.

Second thought: A teacher always has to be open to questions. I was in third grade, I think, when I got a teacher who would always say, “No questions. I’ve explained everything.” Maybe she’s explained everything, but I didn’t always understand everything. Fortunately, a week later I was transferred to another teacher who actually invited questions. I flourished.

Some question is quite simple–missing factual information or procedural instructions. But sometime asking questions explores a subject in a different way. I could teach a Bible story, Jesus casting out a unclean spirit (Mark 1:22-24) and cover every thing. What would be better would be to leave a few things unsaid until a student asks a question like, “Why does Jesus tell the spirit to “be quiet’? That question shows great insight into the story because it observes a small detail that might otherwise be missed and in being missed a major theme of the Gospel would be lost. Asking questions helps a student to unlock secrets.

Third thought. The teacher should always be open to learning from the student. Many of the bad teachers I have experienced were not open to contributions from their students.  I can think of two examples from my elementary school years. One was a teacher who insisted that the people in England ate so many fish because they were Catholic. That was just dumb. I knew that the people in England by the end of the 16th century were Anglican, not Roman Catholic. And besides, it was obvious to anyone with eyes to read a map that England was on an island, so there was plenty of places to catch fish.  The second example was an eighth grade teacher who insisted that Martin Luther started the Reformation because he wanted worship services in German instead of Latin. Even at 13 I knew that wasn’t true. The issues that lead to the reformation had to do with theology and abuses in the church. Language of worship was a concern well after the Reformation had started and besides, Luther continued to conduct Latin services as well German. (From what I can tell, the use of Latin didn’t die out completely in the Lutheran Church until sometime in the middle of the eighteenth century.) The teacher didn’t want to hear about that, so she remained in ignorance and so did her students.

This point brings me to my Sunday morning adult discussion group. We were talking about everything but the announced subject. In the process I heard some interesting ideas that I immediately wrote down because I thought they were worth sharing.  Here they are:

1. It is possible to dig yourself into a hole so deep that you can’t get out. You need help. Don’t be afraid to ask for it.

2. If you find you have dug yourself into a hole, the first rule is “stop digging.”

3. If you’re tightfisted in giving to others, remember that a closed fist can’t receive anything either.

See, you learn from your students.

Whether you’ve learned anything or not, may the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.





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MLK Special Edition

On this day when we remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., renewer of society and martyr, I would like to share this excerpt from a speech of his that appeared today in the Ocala Star Banner, Its message is a fresh and relevant as it was half a century ago. The drawing of Dr. King is by an elementary school student published in the Poughkeepsie Journal.

In recognition of the Rev. Martin Luther King Day, we offer the following, an excerpt from a sermon called "Rediscovering Lost Values" that King delivered in February 1954 in Detroit:

I want you to think with me this morning from the subject: rediscovering lost values. Rediscovering lost values. There is something wrong with our world, something fundamentally and basically wrong. I don't think we have to look too far to see that. I'm sure that most of you would agree with me in making that assertion. And when we stop to analyze the cause of our world's ills, many things come to mind.

We begin to wonder if it is due to the fact that we don't know enough. But it can't be that. Because in terms of accumulated knowledge, we know more today than men have known in any period of human history. We have the facts at our disposal. We know more about mathematics, about science, about social science and philosophy, than we've ever known in any period of the world's history. So it can't be because we don't know enough.

And then we wonder if it is due to the fact that our scientific genius lags behind. .... Well then, it can't be that. For our scientific progress over the past years has been amazing. Man through his scientific genius has been able to warp distance and place time in chains, so that today it's possible to eat breakfast in New York City and supper in London, England. ... It can't be because man is stagnant in his scientific progress. Man's scientific genius has been amazing.I think we have to look much deeper than that if we are to find the real cause of man's problems and the real cause of the world's ills today. If we are to really find it, I think we will have to look in the hearts and souls of men.

The trouble isn't so much that we don't know enough, but it's as if we aren't good enough. The trouble isn't so much that our scientific genius lags behind, but our moral genius lags behind. The great problem facing modern man is that, the means by which we live have outdistanced the spiritual ends for which we live. So we find ourselves caught in a messed-up world. The problem is with man himself and man's soul.

We haven't learned how to be just and honest and kind and true and loving. And that is the basis of our problem. The real problem is that, through our scientific genius, we've made of the world a neighborhood, but, through our moral and spiritual genius, we've failed to make of it a brotherhood. And the great danger facing us today is not so much the atomic bomb ... that you can put in an aeroplane and drop on the heads of hundreds and thousands of people ... But the real danger confronting civilization today is that atomic bomb which lies in the hearts and souls of men, capable of exploding into the vilest of hate and into the most damaging selfishness. That's the atomic bomb that we've got to fear today; the problem is with the men. Within the heart and the souls of men. That is the real basis of our problem.

 

AMEN!

May the Lord bless you on your journey, and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne







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RANT!

Time for a rant. This won’t be of interest to most people, but it’s bugging me.

First, I want to make it clear that I am doing well financially, better than 99.99% of the world’s population. I work for a church, and am satisfied with my salary and benefits. I hope to retire in a few years, although I have had to put off the anticipated date twice. All the clergy in our denomination participate in 403(b) pension programs which means our pension is tied to investments in the stock and bond markets. Of course that means all of us took a big hit in 2008. That’s life. You take the downs with the ups.

My concern is with those who are already retired, clergy, other church employees, and their spouses. Many of the retired clergy annuitized their pension accumulation when they retired. Most assumed (wrongly) that they had a guaranteed income throughout their retirement. Indeed, the information about the annuity was that there was an extremely low possibility of short term loss. 2008 proved to be that “extremely low” possibility. The retirees have been informed that their pension will be reduced 9% each year for the next three years. That’s their reward for faithful service. The head office sent out a sympathetic letter to retirees.

Recently a letter went out to retirees of our publishing house. They are under a different pension plan. They have been informed that they will receive no pension at all after March. Sorry, but there isn’t enough money to pay the pension. The head office made it clear it has no legal obligations for the publishing house pensions.

My discomfort is two-fold. First, I am aware that other denominations have not had this disaster befall their pensions. How did we get such bad financial advice? Second, I have yet to hear one word from the head office about what they are going to do to help the people who will wind up in a terrible financial bind as a result of these pension disasters. Now my congregation will be taking a special offering to help provide minimum pensions for some of the church employee retirees, but I am unaware of any concerted effort to do anything. The silence is deafening.

My denomination is very good at issuing all sorts of proclamations about issues of justice, but when it comes to dealing fairly with its own people, that seems to be another story. I thought we were supposed to lead by example. I must have gotten that wrong. “Do as I say, not as I do,” seems to be the message.

And we wonder why people don’t trust institutionalized religion.

Here endeth the rant for the day.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne



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Stille Nacht, Heilege Nacht

At Christmas, my sisters and I

learned to sing carols in German:

Grandpa would give us a quarter

apiece for performing, though

only Carol could carry a tune.

After the start of the War

Father forbade us to practice,

and when Grandpa asked for his songs

we told him they weren't allowed.

You are German, he shouted. Sing!

Singt, mein kinder, für mich!

We stood mute, unhappy, ashamed,

between father and son locking eyes

while the U-boats were nosing the currents

and propellers coughed in the skies

like angels clearing their throats.

"Stille Nacht, Heilege Nacht" by Peter Meinke, from Liquid Paper: New and Selected Poems. © University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992.

This poem appeared on Garison Keilor’s “The Writer’s Almanac” a brief daily radio program that is transcribed and emailed to me. There is a truly painful emotion displayed here between the immigrant German Grandpa and the first generation born in this country son. How that generation tried to erase its roots, especially when it was tied to the enemy as in the World Wars. I suspect it is no different with newer waves of immigrants.

There is a saying, however, that touches on the other relationship in the poem. The second generation tries to remember what the first generation tried to forget. Yeah, I get that.

I am frequently aware of my German roots. I am curious about where we come from. I am curious about the family I never knew. There are only a few people still alive who knew my Father’s grandparents. There are a good deal more who knew my mother’s grandparents–including me. I knew my great-grandma Angner even though she couldn’t speak English, and I as a toddler could do no more than count in German.

I sometimes wonder how much a people’s ancestral culture shapes them. I remember an experiment we did in college. We took tests to discover whether we were left brained (the rational part of the brain if a person is right handed) or right brained (the emotional-imaginative part of the brain.) Curiously, all three of the most left-brained people were of German descent.

Am I the way I am at least partly because of my ancestry? We weren’t overtly German in the sense of having German flags around the house or portraits of Bismark although I did have portraits of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. That was because they were great composers who happened to be German. (Or were they great composers because they were German?) And yet, there was an awareness that we were of German background. There were certain traits among us–hard work, thrift, suspicion of outsiders–that might have had cultural roots. But maybe not.

Enough musing about imponderables.

Although it’s a little late, Happy New Year to everyone.

May the Lord bless you on your journey through this new year and beyond, and may he welcome you at your final arriving.

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