04 June 2014

Teaching Philosophy

A few of you have asked in conversation about my new teaching position what I wrote about in my Statement of Teaching Philosophy. I mentioned in an earlier post about how the words just flowed out quickly and while I still don't think it is perfect, and it is certainly not polished, here is what I wrote. I was mercifully brief for once in my life:


Teaching Philosophy

I believe that all knowledge, wisdom, and truth emanates from the triune God. As such, all education, whether in mathematics or languages or literature is a striving to know our omniscient God in a deeper way. John Milton put it nicely in his educational tract, written in 1644 (I will colloquialize the language and spelling): “The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may be nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection.” Milton of course goes on to say how difficult of a process learning is, but that the end is to become like God and so to glorify Him.

I remember reading that passage for the first time in graduate school and thinking of how far my experience of education had been from what the old Puritan divine had in mind for the education of young minds. In my childhood education the subjects were so atomized. What hath Christ to do with Belial? What hath reading to do with science? But when all education and all knowledge and wisdom is under the umbrella of repairing the fall and learning to know God and the things he has revealed to us then it takes on new life again. Science is a way to praise God for his power in creation. Math is a way to marvel at his precision. Literature puts us in touch with the eternal.


For me this realization liberates education. Time spent learning is never time wasted. Given that we spend so much of our lives, especially our early lives, in educational situations this is extremely fantastic news. It is this that I want to impart to the students that I teach: that all knowledge testifies to Jesus. If, as Milton suggests, in our quest for knowledge we unite our studies to love of God and imitation of Christ we will have the type of knowledge that can build up and not the empty sort of knowledge that only puffs up our own egos. 

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Like I said, short and sweet, at least by my usual long-winded standards. And I mean everything that I wrote and if I had not been intentionally short-winded I would have elaborated on each point. And, of course I quoted Milton. Like I do. However, there is the bare-bones outline for my philosophy both of teaching and learning. The epiphanies I had about education in my mid-20s changed my life and I hope to encourage my students to avoid some of the angst Christians can feel about education as well as to avoid a sacred/secular divide in their views of the subjects. I don't want to create thinkers only, but worshipers who worship our Father in spirit and in truth. 

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