TEACHING MINDFULLY.(Brief Article)

Teaching with Authority "Every Sabbath day he went into the synagogue and taught the people. They were amazed at his teaching, for he taught as one who had real authority." (Mark 1:21 b-22)

After yet another discouraging class session during my first semester of full-time university teaching, a student approached me in the staff parking lot. I stopped next to my car and waited, bracing myself for the kind of mocking criticism I'd come to expect from members of this class of senior ministry majors. The student did indeed express frustration with me and with my class. I tried, as usual, to explain that my teaching style was modeled on Jesus - gentle, peaceful, non-resistant. "But Jesus taught with authority. Why don't you?" he challenged. He walked away exasperated, and I drove away angry.

That student's words continued to challenge me all year. Shouldn't I "turn the other cheek" to students' disrespectful classroom behavior, modeling Christian humility? Or should I teach with authority, pandering to student expectations of "teacher as expert"? My teaching style is relational, built on mentoring and facilitating students' own ability to learn. My aim is to connect them with the tools of research and critical thinking so that they know how to gather and analyze information, not to tell them what to think. I resisted being forced into the role of lecturer, disciplinarian, disengaged intellectual. Did my resistance to the role of lecturer, disciplinarian, and disengaged intellectual condemn me to being perceived as weak in the classroom?

The effectiveness of Jesus' teaching style can't be exclusively attributed to his audience's belief that he was fulfilling messianic prophecies. Even those hearing him for the first time asked excitedly, "What sort of new teaching is this? It has such authority!" (Mark ...