Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Teacher Tag: for Aristotle

I have overall tried to maintain a balance here in writing about both men and women, and writing about books by both men and women. Here are two of my favourite autobiographies, one by Archibald Fleming and the other by Wilfred Grenfell. I have written about some women whom I admire here, here and here.

In response to a request by Kurk to write about great teachers, I will write about some of the Christian men who have been my professors. It is ridiculous to even state that these men treated women as equals, there was no question of anything else.

But, just in case someone wanders on this site who is in danger of believing that egalitarians diminish manhood and womanhood let me say, these men are not diminished by their egalitarian views. Actually most of them don't even know what the word "egalitarian" exists because they have not been informed of the existence of "complementarianism," so I apologize to them in advance.

Here's to great men I have studied with:

Al Gleason an exceptional linguistics professor and a great storyteller. He taught me that the writing system is a worthy object of pure linguistic research.

Al Pietersma editor of the New English Translation of the Septuagint, an encourager and a friend. He taught me to translate without a crib.

R.T. Lutz who made introductory Hebrew truly enjoyable. He is a very patient man. He taught me that learning Hebrew does indeed open up a new understanding of the scriptures.

Richard Longenecker serious and funny at the same time.

Gordon Fee inspiring and constantly confused as to whether he is lecturing or preaching. Maybe he is offering you conspiratorial personal confidences, but to the whole lecture hall at once. Very personable.

Ellis Deibler Truly one of the nicest people I have ever met. But he still disapproves of students' not doing their homework.

Kurk's tag is for 13 teachers. This will have to do for now. I can't say anything profound about this except that I am fortunate to have known these men, and being a feminist does not mean that one does not appreciate men and learn from men.

Note: I think I may pass on elaborating on various members of my family in this meme for now. Of course, this would include many women, my mother, my aunts and sisters, and my beautiful daughter. There are many exceptional women teachers in my family.

1 comment:

J. K. Gayle said...

Thank you, Suzanne, for sharing with us Gleason, Pietersma, Lutz, Fee, Deibler, Fleming, Grenfell, Irwin, Booth, Sally Ironside, along with your mother, aunts, sisters, and daughter. Listing one's teachers is not easy to do for all kinds of reasons (as I learned in trying to follow Yancey's lead, who learned from Rogers). It's humbling to confess the many influences on me, and to name them publicly risks much for them (and for me). Thankfully, none of us is alone in our learning. And, as you show, great teachers do inspire, along the way from each of us, not only good learning but also significant teaching.