My Teaching Philosophy

In May 2011 I retired from teaching in the department of history, politics, and philosophy at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, ending a career of forty-two years.  Two of these years were at Charleston High School in Charleston, Arkansas; fifteen were at Wichita Collegiate School in Wichita, Kansas; and the final twenty-five at Lipscomb.  Additionally, I have spent over fifty years in Christian ministry.  Although I still teach classes and give lectures for Lipscomb, my church, and other organizations, I am no longer employed as a teacher and have joined the ranks of the retired.

Shortly before retirement as I was discussing my career with some students, one of them suggested I write down and make available my teaching philosophy.  That sounded like a good idea, as I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in the classroom, my interaction with students and colleagues, and the thrill of learning so much myself in order to equip myself to convey history to my students.  I have been deeply encouraged by kind remarks that former students make in reference to their experience in my classes and in our personal interaction.  So I now set down these thoughts with three objectives: first, to express my gratitude to all those who have been my students or colleagues; and second, to state how blessed I have been to have had these wonderful opportunities to do for a living what is really such a joy (as my former department chair said: “They pay us as work for what we consider as play”…I would add serious but exhilarating play); and third, to offer some advice that might be profitable to those who see teaching as their calling.

My initial calling was to ministry, but I confess that teaching was a passion from childhood.  When I was in elementary school I would assemble my little sister and my stuffed animals and hold class in my playroom in the basement of our home in Springfield, Missouri.  There I got to be the teacher.  I doubt that my class profited any, with the possible exception of my sister.  However, in college years I gravitated increasingly toward ministry (which involves teaching in itself), and found myself a newly-wed called to be the preacher of a small church in Charleston, Arkansas.  When the local high school needed someone to teach English classes, they asked me, and for two years I was thrust into trying to teach a classical curriculum to students who were only a few years younger than I and not usually interested in what I had to say.  At that time the faculty had the dubious distinction of being the youngest in the state with a median age in the lower twenties.  I had made very good grades in college, but I muddled through those two years without any real teaching skills or guiding template for teaching.  I was required to take some education courses at the University of Arkansas to maintain my certificate, but when I tried to implement what I learned, chaos resulted.  I hold to the belief that it is far better to be qualified on one’s subject area than to trust what one learns in an education course.  One can only learn how to teach by teaching, as I would find out. 

The itch for the academic world was still with me, and after a three years’ preaching in the eastern part of the state and then a move to Wichita, Kansas to fill the pulpit of a small church there, I availed myself of the opportunity to pursue graduate studies at Wichita State University.  My undergraduate B.A. degree was in English, but I had taken several history and language courses in college.  I enjoyed my history classes at Drury College and wanted to try my hand at history teaching at Charleston High School, but I was told that history teaching was reserved for the football coach.  Still the desire to focus on history increasingly took root, and I enrolled in classes in Greek, Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation history.  It was this experience at W.S.U. with three professors in particular that truly shaped my philosophy of teaching.  I saw in these men a demonstration of how to teach and what the dimensions of a good teacher should be.  

My classics professor was Dr. Richard Todd.  He was quiet and methodical, yet he conveyed subdued but evident joy and enthusiasm for the subject.  By putting historical figures in their context, considering problems arising in interpreting their lives and contributions, and by assigning research into the most interesting specific areas of their lives, Dr. Todd made these people come alive to me.  He employed the technique of historical problems, and different students would sign up to research and report on different problems.  I remember especially the seminars I had under him, in particular one on the Roman Revolution.  All of us were assigned papers to write about certain key figures in that century-long conflict.  Before we presented the papers in a seminar session, Dr. Todd would set the stage by a short background of the context that would tie them together into a meaningful storyline.  When we finished, I felt I knew those people and that whole event.  I learned from Dr. Todd the value of research in reliable sources, the importance of telling the bigger story and then focusing on the specific people and events, the importance of questioning sources and causes and asking the relevant questions, and realizing that there were no simple answers to complex human events.

For medieval studies my professor was Philip D. Thomas.  Dr. Thomas was about my age, at that point twenty-five, but he already had a medical degree, two master’s degrees, and a doctorate to compare with my baccalaureate degree.  Dr. Thomas talked fast during his lectures and allowed no questions.  He brought his medical training with all its skill and demanding professionalism and transposed it into the teaching of history.  He left his students with the impression that it was as important for a history professor to practice his skill in the classroom as it was for a doctor to do so in his examining room or the hospital.  It was as important to him to be accurately informed with the facts of history as it was for a doctor to be informed about diagnosing illness and knowing how to proceed with treatment that would lead to the recovery of the patient.  

Dr. Thomas’ regimented, medically-oriented discipline was reflected not only in his impeccable preparation and professional presentation, but in the same way that one would expect a doctor to communicate information to his patient, so Dr. Thomas made it a principle to return examinations and research papers the very next class session.  Knowing how I appreciated that practice, I made it my procedure to do the same for my students.  

Finally, I would mention Dr. J. Kelley Sowards under whose teaching I was exposed to the two greatest minds of the sixteenth century: Erasmus of Rotterdam and Martin Luther.  I had the privilege of working under his guidance for fifteen years while I pursued my doctorate in a rather off-and-on fashion.  I wrote both my master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation under his direction.  I witnessed his personal knowledge of sources, his passion for his subject, and his penetrating insights into the minds of great persons of the time.  I also witnessed his ability and insistence to set these key players in their historical context.  His period was one that would accentuate intellectual history, yet he made sure that we understood the world in which these thinkers operated and the forces that came to bear on their ideas. 

Dr. Sowards demonstrated with certainty that he cared about his students.  He would spend any amount of time necessary with us.  He made himself available in his study carrel at the library, and I spent many hours with him there and in his house as he helped me work on the drafts for the thesis and later the dissertation.  He would walk from classroom to library with me to help me find a book.   On two occasions he drove me to Lawrence, Kansas, to meet with my doctoral committee.  He joined the faculty of the University of Kansas so that he could guide me through my dissertation as K.U. had no one of his credentials in Erasmian studies.  

Although all three of these men possessed different lecture styles, personalities, and specific methodologies, all three had in common the characteristics of demanding of both themselves and their students thorough research, questioning of sources, and analyzing historical figures both internally and externally as they were positioned in their historical contexts.  All three conveyed intense enthusiasm for their subjects.  All three showed respect for students and were personally invested in enabling them to learn the material.  They graded examinations and papers carefully and thoughtfully, with well-written comments giving students advice on how to improve and showing them where they erred.  All three demonstrated in every class session not only that they had mastered the facts and material, but also that they knew personally and intimately the people about whom they were lecturing.

There is no question that when I finished my master’s work at Wichita State University that I had been shaped as a teacher by the powerful influence and example of these three professors.  I not only was equipped with the facts and understanding of the scope of early European history, but I also had a forceful example of how to teach those subjects.  But there remained the knowledge of how actually to implement these examples in a classroom.  I lacked on-site mentoring and the practical skills of effective teaching in a real classroom with real students.

That opportunity came in 1971 when, just as I finished my M.A. program at Wichita State University,  I was offered the opportunity to join the faculty of Wichita Collegiate School, an independent college-preparatory school that had been founded only eight years earlier.  I well remember the headmaster, Randall Storms, taking me into the faculty office to introduce me to teachers who would become close friends and colleagues for the next fifteen years: Jim Graf who had also studied under Dr. Sowards and was the Latin instructor, Luisa Gonzales from Cuba who taught Spanish, Harold Kruger who had been head over Mennonite schools in the old Belgian Congo and was head of the foreign language department and taught French, Rick Koch who taught math, Henry Hildebrandt who was head of the history and economics department and the economics instructor, Hildegard Podrebarac who was from Germany and taught the language, Jean Vant Zelfde who taught science, and Diane Rauh who taught English and humanities and served as chair of that department.  I shall never forget Mr. Storms, when introducing me to Diane, telling me that she was “as tough as nails.”  I would soon come to understand what he meant.

All these members of the Collegiate Upper School faculty exuded a welcoming, friendly spirit, but at the same time a willing and joyful dedication to professionalism.  They would be, as I would immediately find out, well qualified in their areas of expertise, dedicated and devoted to the task of academic excellence, and determined that they would produce students who would exemplify the school’s motto: proba te dignum (“worthiness challenges you.”)  The school graduated only students who had pre-registered in a college, usually giving them guidance in what colleges to select.  Students who required extra help in mastering the class material were offered after-school tutorials, and all members of the faculty were required to spend as much time as necessary with them in these tutorials.  Failure was not an option.  I really felt I was in my environment: a place where teaching, the learning process, the excitement and enthusiasm of opening the world to young minds, and the appreciation for academic excellence were all honored and practiced.

However, if there was any one person who became my mentor, it was Diane Rauh.  Equipped as I was with the example from my three excellent professors at W.S.U., I still needed to learn how to put it all into practice in the day-to-day, nitty-gritty world of the classroom.  I needed to learn how to apply and implement what I had learned in a way modeled by my professors.  I was in a world of young people from ages twelve to eighteen, seventh to twelfth grades, who would become my world, my catalyst for the maturation of what it meant for me to be a teacher.  It would shape and determine the direction of my teaching career for forty years.  In one way it still does as I continue to teach in varied venues.  I needed my own “probation” in the crucible of the middle and high school classroom.  I needed to know what would work and how to make it work.  Diane became the mechanism to impart those skills to me both in example and counseling.

When I began my tenure as a teacher at Collegiate, I was assigned a class load of one half English, one quarter theology, and one quarter history.  In later years, as the school grew, Diane asked me to choose one area, and because of my graduate preparation, I narrowed the field to history.  I must say the choice was made somewhat reluctantly as I loved both literature and theology.  In later years, with theology becoming my passion and church history increasingly an area of focus in teaching, I would reclaim one of those surrendered areas.  Every now and then the interest in literature also surfaces.

Diane was not only head of the English department but instructor of the humanities class which was required of all seniors.  This class was the flagship of the Collegiate curriculum, and I was honored to be asked to co-teach it with Diane.  I could not believe the syllabus when she showed it to me as we met to plan the class for the upcoming year.  The lectures were rich and varied, covering literature, history, theology, music, and art.  We contacted guest lecturers to come to our campus and share their expertise so that numerous instructors were eventually involved while Diane and I did the bulk of the teaching.  She taught the literature component and I took the history and theology.  The reading list was impressive, to say the least; perhaps the better word is overawing.  Classics, critical thinking, research and writing, and synthesis of ideas were emphasized.

From Diane Rauh I learned the importance of implementing what I had seen demonstrated in my professors at Wichita State: that when I came into the classroom, I did so thoroughly prepared, having mastered my material….that I would demonstrate genuine enthusiasm about that material…that I would manifest personal concern for each and every student and his/her eventual mastery of that material.  

Additionally she taught me that I must demand excellence of my students and accept nothing less.  I must raise the level of expectation and, rather than compromise in lowering it, put forth all the necessary effort to help students reach that level.  The demands I make on my students I must also make on myself, and excellence would characterize everything I did in the classroom and outside it in interacting with students.  

I had a superlative example from professors Todd, Thomas and Sowards, but I was enabled, mentored, directed, forced, and taught by word and example through my being co-teacher with Diane and a member of her department.  She would often discuss her teaching methods, and she would not hesitate to take me aside and rebuke me in no uncertain terms for my failings.  She demanded from me that I take my work, the reading lists, the syllabus, and the curriculum, my challenge in the classroom, my own preparedness, and the desired end product of our efforts all with utmost seriousness.  I recall one time when she called into question my giving a student an A on a paper when the student used a run-on sentence!  

She taught me what it meant to be enthusiastic about teaching.  I shall never forget how she described the way she would teach a work of literature.  She said, “I may come flying into the classroom,” and then she demonstrated what that meant as she expounded a line from a book with tremendous expression.  I suppose it made an impression on me, because in my evaluations from Lipscomb students through the years, I always got high marks on enthusiasm no matter what they didn’t like otherwise about me. 

It was this philosophy, as it developed and matured in the fifteen years I was at Collegiate, that enabled me to pursue a successful teaching career at the university level.  Initially I had to lower the academic demands on my college students as contrasted with the demands I made on Collegiate students, but as I worked with these university students and gained my bearings, I was able to bring up the level of expectation and performance.  I earned the reputation of being a tough teacher, but I also was able to work with hundreds of students through lower division basic courses into upper intensive ones to enable them to master material and gain a love of this subject and an understanding of the great people who have made the world what it is today.