The Joy and Challenge of Teaching

Well, I have now completed another term of adjunct work in the Religion department at Rochester College. To date, I have taught four courses, one for the traditional and three CEL. I have covered Paul's Prison Letters, Luke-Acts (twice), and designed and co-taught (with Rex Hamilton and Rubel Shelly) a course on the theology of social justice.

Last fall was my first run with the traditional students. The class was small, only five students. I didn't take it too badly since it was my first run at teaching the trads (and since I was listed as "Prof. Staff" in the course schedule bulletin). So, we were able to have a fairly informal, conversational/dialogical class, diving together into the world of Philippians, Philemon, Colossians, and Ephesians.

This fall I am teaching course one of Pauline Letters. We will be covering Galatians and 1 & 2 Thessalonians. I was a little curious as to how this whole scheduling thing would work out. I am around the campus more and have a slightly wider influence with the students, so it was time to see if the students liked me enough to endure a semester sitting at my feet....

Today I got word that my class is already full. I have 24 students in my class, a pretty serious change from my 5 student varietal last fall. This is going to force me to do some serious evaluating over the summer on how to teach a group of this size in a way that encourages participation, personal and communal engagement with the biblical text, and dialogue on how the world imagined in these letters intersects the world today (particularly in contemporary media). That's not to mention all of that extra grading! (I tend to be a pretty demanding prof.)

So, this summer I get to sort all of this out. Teaching is both a great joy and a challenge. I hope to give these students something that will be intellectually stimulating, while also personally transformative. I think that is what learning should do: train students to be philosophers, "lovers of wisdom." It should be about helping students gain insight that causes them to live differently, to live virtuously. If knowledge is learned simply for knowledge's sake, then it is a worthless enterprise. I want my students to be changed by what they learn. If I can do that, then I will be able to look at back on a class and feel like I have done something worthwhile.
Now I just have to find a way to do that for 24 students!