What Energizes You?

Kim Essenburg | February 2009

What energizes me when I'm wondering whether teaching is worth the effort? Finding out that students are learning significant things in my class. So, I arrange to get a big dose of encouragement every time I give a test.

The last question on every test is "What is something significant you learned this unit that you have not yet had an opportunity to show on this test?" It's worth 1-3 points, whatever I need to round out the score. I actually look forward with great anticipation to grading tests just to be able to read answers to this question!

And, asking this question is a pedagogically sound practice. By asking this question, I help my students understand that there are important things to learn in class that won't necessarily be on the test. By asking this question, I challenge them to make their own connections, applications, explorations even beyond what we talk about in class.

I celebrate this learning with students and with colleagues when I pass back the tests. How? By collecting some of the most insightful, articulate, original answers and sharing them - reading them aloud in class, and distributing them to colleagues by email or hard copy. Here's some of the learning I'm celebrating from my last test on the novel Cry, the Beloved Country:

  1. "I learned that there are so many things in the world that can easily break shalom ( = love, truth, loyalty, grace, justice, righteousness)... it is very important to make and be willing to make shalom happen, instead of being ignorant about it."

  2. "Learning a new language or speaking a language you're not that good at shows that you'd rather risk humiliation than avoid communicating and making unity."

  3. "There is no peace when there is fear. Fear can only be conquered by love, the one thing that has absolute power. Therefore, love brings peace."

  4. "Msimangu and James Jarvis both said that they were not saintly, God just used them."

  5. "... we need to help people because we really, actually WANT to help them, not because we pity them, think we should help them.... Because there is love, there is help among the people. Because there is help, there is change, so that the world (community) will be one."

  6. "Shalom is an ideal, and our group concluded that since humans have an ideal, there is a God. If there was no God, we wouldn't know or have an ideal."

  7. "I learned from Msimangu that love is the only thing that has ultimate power. I learned from Kumalo and Father Vincent that being positive and trusting God while there's suffering is really important."

  8. "I learned that God gives hope to those who have none. Because of the hope, some broken things can become new."

Kim Essenburg is an English 10 teacher at Christian Academy in Japan.