Hallway Conversations

Episode 078: Advice for Teaching the Bible - with Gayle Doornbos

This week, Abby was not able to join us for recording, and while we definitely missed her, we were grateful to have a good friend from the Theology Department join us, Dr. Gayle Doornbos, Associate Professor of Theology at Dordt University. Gayle teaches a course entitled “Teaching the Bible,” and knowing this, we invited her to join us for a conversation about teaching the Bible as an academic subject. As Matt and Dave both have had their own (mis)adventures in teaching Bible classes, we thought Gayle’s insight and experience would be worth sharing with our listeners, as we have learned a lot from her! Our conversation today covers a lot of ground–we discuss many parts of the joys and challenges of teaching Bible, from helping students develop a theological imagination, to the understanding the difference between knowing the facts of Bible stories with knowing the Big Story of Scripture, to the question of what should be included in the curriculum of biblical studies, to moralism in teaching the Bible, to whether “anyone can teach Bible” vs. whether we should have specially-trained Bible teachers in Christian schools. Gayle encourages us to think about studying the Bible as not just an academic exercise, but also as a formative experience for shaping students’ faith life–even though that is challenge! We hope that Gayle’s wise words will be an encouragement to anyone called to teach Bible in a Christian school setting.

Episode 077: Are the Kids All Right? Deep Hopes for Parent Teacher Conferences

Our question today came from our friend and colleague down the hall, Sheila. She shared with us that she had been listening to another podcast and it prompted a wondering from her: “The parents on the podcast said that it [the parent-teacher conference] was very academic and reporting of scores but they just wanted to know who their child was at school beyond the surface level–they talked about wanting to know the stories behind thee growth or the stories of growth in friendship or other skills. What’s the deep hope for parent-teacher conferences?” This prompted a lot of reflection for us on our experiences both as parents and as teachers about the role of parent-teacher conferences–the good, the bad, and the ugly. We hope this episode is an encouragement for parents and teachers alike!

Episode 076: Adventures in Reimagining Assessment

Thank you, loyal listeners, for joining us each week! You may have noticed that there was no episode in the queue last week. Never fear; we have no intention of giving up on the podcast! But with some changes to responsibilities for two of us this year, we are having a harder and harder time getting all three of us into the studio together to record a weekly episode. So we are planning to shift to an every-other-week schedule for the foreseeable future. We hope you’ll continue to join us for each new episode when they drop. We love recording and sharing our conversations with you all, and if our schedules ever line up better again, perhaps we’ll go back to every week–who knows? :-)

This week’s episode came from a swirl of several convergent streams–a quote from a book about assessment that Abby read, a question from a listener (thanks, Jess!) about assessment practices prompted by something she read on the CACE blog, and challenges we have faced in our own practices regarding assessment. With this kind of confluence, we felt a tug to think together around the topic of assessment, and share some of our experiences and adventures in reimagining what assessment is, and what it is for, and how we try to assess our students’ learning. It’s a ranging, rambling conversation, but we hope you’ll be encouraged and inspired to think through your own assessment practices by listening in.

• Here is the article from the CACE blog mentioned by our listener, Jess. We highly recommend you read it! Its title raises the key question it seeks to answer: “What If Assessment Was a Gift?” You can read it here: https://cace.org/what-if-assessment-was-a-gift/ 
• In this episode, we also discuss an article by Elaine Brouwer entitled “Assessment For Learning: A Blessing for Our Students,” which is available in this issue of Christian Educators Journal: https://www.cejonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/47-2.pdf 
• In the episode, Abby mentions an idea for engaging students in reflection even right before taking a test as a way of building community and reducing anxiety. The idea was in a video by math educator Howie Hua. You can view that video on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/howie_hua/status/1570194591227473921 

Episode 075: Uncomfortable Truths and Teacher Imagination

This week’s episode is inspired by a tweet from our friend, Darren Spyksma that has us thinking about things that are “uncomfortable truths” about education today…and things that we think really need to change about the way we do school. Through the conversation, we come to the idea that teachers and school leaders need to develop an imagination for what could be rather than just focusing on what is. 

• If you are on Twitter, you should really follow Darren Spyksma! You will find him inspiring and encouraging…and challenging for developing your teacher imagination. You can find him at @DSpyksma. 
• In this episode we referenced Kelly Kapic’s excellent book, You're Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God's Design and Why That's Good News. You can order a copy from Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Youre-Only-Human-Limits-Reflect/dp/1587435101/ 

Episode 074: A Conversation with Justin Bailey, part 2

This week, a continuation of our conversation with Dr. Justin Bailey about his new book, Interpreting Your World: Five Lenses for Engaging Theology and Culture. If you haven’t listened to our last episode yet, we would recommend starting there, because we’re going to be jumping into the middle of a conversation here.

While this isn’t a “teaching” book…it has plenty of wisdom for Christian educators, and lots of encouraging ideas for how to help children and young people make sense of the complex cultural setting we find ourselves living in. We hope you’ll find Justin’s wisdom on discerning issues of faith and culture both challenging and encouraging.

Interpreting Your World will be available soon, and we highly recommend it to you! You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.com/Interpreting-Your-World-Engaging-Theology/dp/1540965066/

Episode 073: A Conversation with Justin Bailey, part 1

It’s the beginning of the new academic year across North America, and we know that many of you listeners have already launched in, and some are very soon going to. We started classes this week too—lots of newness around! And…we are hoping to try a few new things this semester on the podcast as well. One new thing: we are hoping to regularly start sprinkling in interviews with people we would love for you to get to know. This episode is our first “interview” show. We started with our good friend and colleague, Dr. Justin Bailey.

Justin teaches in the Theology department at Dordt University, and he is one of the most popular professors on this campus—students love him! He recently wrote a new book entitled Interpreting Your World: Five Lenses for Engaging Theology and Culture. While it isn’t a “teaching” book…it has plenty of wisdom for Christian educators, and lots of encouraging ideas for thinking about how to help children and young people make sense of the complexity of the culture we find ourselves living in.

We enjoyed visiting with Justin so much, it was a long conversation! So we decided to split it into two episodes. The first half of the conversation is here for you, and we’ll have the second half coming out next week. We hope you’ll find Justin’s wisdom on discerning issues of faith and culture both challenging and encouraging.

Interpreting Your World will be available soon, and we highly recommend it to you! You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.com/Interpreting-Your-World-Engaging-Theology/dp/1540965066/

Episode 072: Back to School (and a Creaky Table)

It’s the beginning of the new academic year, and we are excited to begin again! In today’s wide-ranging conversation, we talk about the joys and stresses of first days, and we share some of the things we do at the beginning of the new academic year to foster a hospitable space and begin building community. We aren’t prescriptive here, but descriptive of some of the practices we have found to be successful and beneficial–both for us as teachers, as well as for our students. Here’s to new beginnings! (And our apologies for the creaky table noises throughout this episode–we’ll talk to Matt about not leaning so hard on the table next time.) :-)

Summer 2022 Bonus: ”Schooled”

BONUS EPISODE: Schooled!

In this episode we connect with some of our favorite Christian school podcast friends and have some fun drafting our ideal schools using peculiar pools to choose from.

In round 1 we draft our school's name and motto using 80’s bands and their songs.

In round 2 we draft our school's sports teams, colors and mascot using a current pro sports team.

In round 3 we draft our school’s framework using some of the options from the Christian Deeper Learning network.

In round 4 we draft our school's building type.

In round 5 we draft our school’s mode of transportation.

In round 6 we draft our school's principal using characters from the Bible.

In round 7 we draft our school's lead teacher using characters from a TV show.

 

This is a weird, weird, weird episode...but we hope you enjoy it! We'll be back soon with new (normal?) episodes.

Summer 2022 Replay: Failure

Greetings, loyal listeners! We have had a terrible time finding shared times for recording lately, but don't worry--more new episodes coming your way soon. For today, one from the archives. In this episode, Matt asks the question, “What’s up with all this talk of failure and what do we mean when we talk about ‘failure?’ Is failure truly essential to learning? And how do we reconcile failure when we live in a culture that can hyper-promote excellence and success?” We try to define what we actually mean by “failure,” and we discuss why some schools seem to hold up failure as a key component to learning. We grapple with some students’ tendency towards perfectionism, and explore the grace that might be present in embracing risk-taking and missteps--and the importance of feedback--as part of the learning process. (One other fun fact...this is the first episode where Abby joined us as a full-time part of the team, and completely elevated everything about a show that was previously two middle-aged dudes blathering into a microphone.) :-)

Summer 2022 Replay: Positivity

Greetings, loyal listeners! We have had a terrible time finding shared times for recording lately, but don't worry--more new episodes coming your way soon. For today, one from the archives. In this episode, Dave is wondering about positivity, which is typically one of his strengths, but questions whether positivity can sometimes become toxic. We begin by talking about potentially-problematic positivity in our personal lives before turning our attention to our work as educators. We talk about how teachers can model for students and demonstrate appropriate ways to communicate emotions. We briefly touch on what to do with negativity in the staff room, and spend a little time thinking through how educators might be able to embrace healthy positivity even when things are hard.