This past week I finished my two sections of a Biblical
Interpretation class in the Saturday Ministerial Institute of Medellín (IMM)
program. This was the same course I taught last fall, though with some adjustments
for the new semester. The biggest challenge this time around was having a ton
of students (2 groups of 38, though a few students dropped out early on), which
made it hard to adequately respond to students’ questions. Apart from this,
though, it was a good experience.
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| One of the sections of the Biblical Interpretation course last week. |
I just got the results from the student evaluations back,
which are always something I greet with a mixture of excitement and dread. In
general, the results were quite positive, I saw a general trend of more
positive evaluation of my teaching and of the course compared with last
semester, and I heard a lot of personal positive feedback from students. A lot
of students said that the course helped them substantially in understanding how
to go about interpreting a biblical text; others commented on ways that
studying 1 Peter 2:4-12 for some of the assignments challenged them in their
own walk with God. One student, for instance, told me that doing the final
assignment, applying 1 Peter 2:4-12 to a contemporary church context,
challenged him to take more responsibility in his role as leader of
evangelistic outreach in his church. He started the assignment looking for ways
to apply the text to critique the shallow commitment to evangelism of the rest
of the people in his congregation and ended up realizing it was a message first
for himself.
On the flip side, as someone who struggles with perfectionism,
reading student evaluations shows me how far I still have to go in growing in humility.
Literally I sometimes have to stop and pray in the middle of reading something
to recenter myself on God and not take a comment too personally. The comment
that most hit home this time around was when a student commented that they
really shouldn’t have a foreigner teach this class because it requires a lot of
ability to explain subtle distinctions and that I just wasn’t able to do that
in Spanish. I realized through my reaction how easy it is for me to fall into
pride over my Spanish skills. A lot of times people comment that my Spanish is
really good for a missionary, especially one who hasn’t spent a long time in
Latin America. But, these students remind me that I still have my work cut out
for me and that I’m still far from a native speaker. I’ve noticed that
especially in this program, at a lower academic level where students have a
harder time grasping theoretical concepts, students seem to make more comments
like this and have a harder time grasping my explanations. This can be
frustrating, but it helps me identify areas to grow. Perhaps even more importantly it helps me see where I continue to need the gospel to
shape my identity more than putting my confidence in ministry in my own
competency. Resting in God’s love
and grace sounds so simple, but it is a long, ongoing process for me as a teacher.
Hi Kevin,
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post. I can relate to you in many ways, as I work in Santa Marta. I agree with you that teaching in a second language is a constant school in humility. I used to feel good when someone makes a comment about how good my Spanish was, but then I realized that the very comment implies something is lacking. I think the best attitude is to stay humble and give God all of the glory for the improvement he gives us in communication. In fact, the topics you're teaching aren't easy to teach in English either. I look forward to meeting you in September at the preaching conference.
Blessings,
Jonathan Boyd