For the first time, I taught a class at Jordan University College, where our seminarians study Philosophy and Theology. I had resisted requests to teach for many reasons: it is a completely different system; it takes a tremendous amount of time; and I had no real desire to teach again after teaching for over 25 years.
I experienced a good deal of pressure to reconsider. One day, two of the senior theology professors came to our formation house and made a persuasive argument for me to teach. They told me about the critical need that they had for theology teachers. They also indicated that we send our men to this school without sending any teachers. If every religious community did this, how would the seminarians be taught? Guilt always seems to work on me. But I thought that they were correct.
They wanted me to teach three courses, but I said that I would teach one. So, in mid-October, I began to teach Synoptic Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles to 96 first-year theology students. There are a few diocesan students and two lay students, but the rest are religious from many different communities. I had two Resurrectionists in the class: Livinus Galeba and Valentino Chatanda.
There were many challenges for me. I had never taught such a large group before. English is not the first language of any of the students, so communication was always difficult. There were many administrative tasks about which I was usually kept in the dark until the last minute. Expectations about reading, grading, participating, and attending had to be negotiated and clarified as the semester progressed.
However, there were many joys as well. The class attendance and participation was high. We covered Mark, Matthew, Luke, and the Acts of the Apostles in a way that demonstrated that the students learned a good deal. Most importantly, they laughed at my jokes. (Or, at least, pretended to laugh at my jokes.)
We had a two-hour class on Wednesdays and a three-hour class on Thursdays. We had 20 quizzes over the course of the semester. The quizzes were on the material we covered in the previous class. Some were “practice” quizzes and some were “graded” quizzes. On the whole, students became more and more adept at answering well.
There were two short papers on the Gospel of Mark. One paper was about the possible authorship of this gospel, and another was about important themes in this gospel: the failure of the disciples, Jesus’ reversal of common sense, the identity of Jesus, and “fear” versus “faith.” There was also a longer exegetical paper on a particular passage from the Gospel of Luke, where students learned how to read and understand gospel commentaries. The passages were assigned individually to groups of sixteen: The Rejection at Nazareth, The Call of Simon, The Healing of the Paralytic, The Healing of the Man with the Withered Hand, The Transfiguration, and The Greatest Commandment (and Good Samaritan). As I write, we are in exam week, and we will have the final examination on Friday.
I tried to “break up” the lectures with group projects and discussions, which seemed to work well. This also gave me a chance to walk around and interact with people, giving me a better sense of what people were understanding or not understanding.
The Head of the Department (HOD) asked me to teach three courses next semester. I told him that I could not teach any because I need to go to Rome at the beginning of June and would miss the last 6 or 7 weeks of the semester. But he asked if I would be willing to “cram” the course into a shorter number of weeks. I did not think that this was possible, but it seemed like a creative solution. So, I will be teaching Sacraments to 88 third-year Theology students in a few weeks.
I had not taught Synoptic Gospels for years. It was a great deal of work to prepare these classes and to grade so many papers. Even though the Sacraments class will have its own challenges, I have taught Sacraments many times and have a good sense of how to help the seminarians understand the historical, liturgical, theological, and pastoral dimensions of each sacrament.
Teachers always think that “my” course is the most important in student learning, but what could be more important than teaching seminarians about the gospels for preaching and the sacraments for parish ministry?
We had some good laughs throughout the semester and made good use of some recurring jokes and phrases that came up in our study. The students brought a great deal of goodwill to the class.
We took an end-of-the-year photo which was a bit like herding cats…but we managed to capture people’s faces but also their “enthusiasm for learning.”
I told them that this was the best class that I had ever taught at Jordan University College. People clapped and then someone raised his hand and asked, “Did you teach here before?” I said, “No.” Then someone said that it was one of my jokes and then everyone laughed. That is kind of how my jokes go these days.
Seriously, it was a great deal of work, but I am glad that I was able to do this, and I look forward to teaching next semester. However, I also feel like I neglected some of my other responsibilities and feel a bit guilty about this. There are only so many hours in a day, right?
Technology is poor. I (sometimes) had a projector that I would connect with my laptop. That was it. I sent most materials electronically through an email list serve. There were a few students who would help me when the technology failed. I greatly appreciated that!
More to come on www.resurrectionists.ca
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