Currently I'm teaching two classes, one on Wednesday nights and one at noon on Thursdays. I enjoy teaching, especially when the class is animated, and I find it very rewarding.
My favorite method of teaching a class is to engage the members of the class with questions and discussion topics that provoke lots of interchange. When the topic is framed in a way that gets everybody involved, there's probably some learning going on.
Somewhere I read, "I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I participate and I learn." In other words, the more engaged a person is in the discussion, the more they'll get out of it. There's a time when lectures by the teacher are helpful and necessary - but it's best to keep them to a minimum.
Our Wednesday class is a four-part introduction to the Psalms. Because the Psalms are so fascinating and touch such deep emotions, there's plenty to work with. Last night we did a wonderful line-by-line exploration of the twenty-third Psalm. I hope everyone else benefited from it, because I sure did!
Our Thursday class is exploring the Commandments in the Bible. Sounds like a dull topic, but using Walter Brueggemann's book The Covenanted Self brings a lot of energy and spark to the discussion.
We've been having good attendance at these classes, which is very encouraging. I sense a spirit of togetherness as we spend these hours together.
When I come home, I tell Katy, "It sure takes a lot of work to teach a class." She says, "Duh! I'm a professor, you know!"
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