Posts Tagged: being asked to teach

“ON BEING ASKED TO TEACH SOME CLASSES AND BEING IN OVER MY HEAD”

Have you ever felt—at the same time—great joy and great fear?  If so, you will understand the following e mail that I just sent to my twelve-step sponsor.  It consists of a report (“No violations,” in this case) and my affirmation for the day (in bold print).

“Dear Bob,

No violations.

Today, by God’s grace and with God’s help, I am consistency in doing triage and doing what I can do, rather than the perfect stuff that I wish I could do.

The affirmation requires a bit of unpacking, I think.

This past Friday, I got an e mail from the dean at Cincinnati Christian, asking me if I would be interested in teaching some classes.  They involved helping students (master level and perhaps also undergrad) to understand a bit about Hebrew and Greek by means of software.  Of course, I was tremendously thrilled with this, and said of course.

I met with the dean yesterday, and while I am still thrilled, there are some problems, none of which are unsolvable.  However, in the interest of getting current (as well as in the interest of unpacking the affirmation), I will list them.  Then, I will solve them as best I can, one at a time.

  1.  The undergrad course begins on August 27 of this year!
  2.  I am using Accordance software applications, rather than BibleWorks.  I am fairly used to BibleWorks, but not Accordance.  However, I have downloaded Accordance onto my computer already, and am beginning the learn it.
  3.  There is a very rough draft a syllabus, but I’m going have to develop my own in a hurry.
  4. I have not read the only book that is required for the course.
  5. I’m scared.

This is the sort of class that I have dreamed about teaching.  I can do this, and do it well.  However, I need to be consistency—not just consistent, but consistency!

However, consistency is not perfection, and I need to do a good job of triage on what I can do in the length of time I have to do it, with my current understanding of the Bible and technology, and with the students I have.

Perhaps the fifth thing that I listed above is the most important: I’m scared.  I plan to let fear drive me in a good direction and at an appropriate pace, but only God is capable of leading me to be a really good instructor.  That is because God Himself is the most “teacherly” of teachers.”

(You might also want to read another post I wrote, “DTEB, “IN OVER MY HEAD”.  It would appear that I feel overwhelmed quite a bit of the time!)

 

 

 

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