learning styles

In many of my seminary classes, things were presented in charts. Obviously, I needed to find a different way of handling this information; for though I am skilled at handling charts, most charts don't convert well to braille, and I didn't have ready access to braille in seminary. I spent a fair amount of time reformatting things so that I could access them via the computer. I often asked myself questions about relationships between pieces of information, the goals I had in putting things together in certain ways, etc. Did I need to understand material so that I could use it personally, or did I need to be able to present it visually to other people so that they could understand it? These questions stretched me and forced me to learn to understand other people's learning styles in comparison to my own.

To some people, the idea that I would work to understand other people's learning styles might seem amazing. For me, it is part of the natural process of adapting to life with blindness. During my early childhood years, my parents did not have many resources available to assist them in teaching me how to do things; so they used their own creativity. They explained things in the best way they knew how, helping me to understand their own point of view so that I could build my own. Because of this, learning to take the perspective of other people is m=normal for me.

I became a natural tutor during my later childhood years, helping a younger student who was beginning to learn braille. Much later, during my high school years, I offered help to classmates with algebra. In college, I studied elementary and special education for a time, spending one semester as an intern in a classroom for students with learning disabilities and another in a classroom for students learning English as a second language. I loved teaching, but I found the elementary school environment chaotic and confusing. I returned to my love of teaching later, when I was in seminary.

I have found that often sighted people assume that visual learning is the norm. However, I have met a number of sighted people who do not learn visually. I developed a great compassion for sighted people who could not process information from complex charts that were used to organize things that could often be presented in numerous other ways.

When I tutored Greek, I developed alternative presentations so that students could turn to individual verb paradigms instead of scanning across a page or piecing them together from stems and endings. In the professor's opinion, my alternative method was cumbersome; but for the students who were not visual learners, they were refreshing. The students had been attempting to copy notes word-for-word and had been struggling with disorganized messes of notes. Twenty-four pages of individual paradigms were better than a mess of disorganization.

about vocabulary and church history

One of my great fears about seminary was that I would not be able to comprehend the reading material. I have good grammar skills but a very small vocabulary. When I worked for a company that manufactured computer products for people with disabilities and the supervisor said that we needed to write help files as though sixth graders were going to be reading them, it made perfect sense to me. People could have perfectly good minds but not be good at using big words. I approached theology with the same attitude. It should be written with the idea that people were smart but did not have large theological vocabularies. Things either needed to be explained in a respectful manner, or the word should not be used at all.

My textbook authors were not so gracious. Even when the words were understandable, I sometimes felt as if I had started a movie in the middle of the story. I checked more books out of the library in order to fill in the holes in my knowledge base. Of course, that meant that I spent more time scanning and reading. I'm afraid I earned a reputation for being a nerd--and I still didn't feel like I really understood the scope of theology or church history.

In time, I began to put more and more pieces together. Of course, who can really condense thousands of years of history into one or two textbooks? There is a reason why people can get entire doctorate-level degrees in this field alone!

daily life in seminary

In order to get my seminary work done, I needed to scan my textbooks into the computer and then take time to read my assignments. I also scanned books from the library that I used for research assignments. In a given semester, I might scan as many as 10,000 pages. My scanning speed was affected by the amount of memory in my computer; so I found it necessary to upgrade my computer twice in the course of my seminary career in order to increase my efficiency in studying.

Even at peak efficiency, I often woke up very early in order to allow time for all this extra scanning as well as reading.

I walked to campus on days when weather and stamina allowed. I lived 1.5 miles from campus; and I hoped that the exercise would be good for me. In time, my plan didn't work so well. My dog guide began to slow due to the onset of arthritis; and the walk that first took 35 minutes eventually took an hour. My own health problems also began to interfere with walking; and I began to pay for transportation to campus. This allowed me to make better use of my time; but it was a tremendous financial sacrifice.

In order to minimize my need for transportation, I sometimes spend the entire day on campus when I had class in the morning and evening. I used the long break in between classes to study. Other students who commuted in from out of town did the same, and we often studied in the seminary lounge. I related more easily to the commuters than I did to the students who lived on campus. I wanted to participate in social events that took place during the evenings; but it was difficult to obtain transportation to these events even living so close to campus. The pseudo-commuter lifestyle frustrated md greatly.

getting my feet wet

When I began my courses in seminary, I had been out of school for seven years. I was advised by a friend to begin by taking one course in order to see how I did, learn to study again, etc. I didn't have the luxury of doing this. My financial aid providers all required me to take 12 hours. This confused me since nine hours is typically considered a full load at the graduate level. My friends in other graduate programs wondered at my ability to handle such a load. My answer was that I needed to do it in order to get financial aid which was vital to me; and I would find a way to manage the load. I did find a way; and in time I even took a couple of 15-hour semesters.

In order to prepare myself for such a shock to my days, I began to keep track of my activities and to measure my tolerance for an increasing amount of appointments, reading material, etc. I attended a training for small group leaders at my church and practiced my study skills by organizing the handouts in advance.

During my first week of classes, waves of fatigue and anxiety swept over me; and I wondered whether I had taken on far more than I could handle. Eventually, I slept deeply; and deep sleep altered my perspective. After a couple of weeks, I began to gain my footing.

During orientation sessions, a faculty member emphasized the importance of balancing various aspects of life while in seminary: work, devotional life, relationships, self-care, rest, and play... Another faculty member spoke about a concept that was completely new to me. He said, "Your four-word commission: you are God's beloved." I had always thought of "commission" in terms of action: "Go and make disciples." Throughout that first semester, I would begin to learn what it means to live as God's beloved; and this would revolutionize my understanding of the action-commission. It would also give me the fortitude that I needed to do what had to be done in order to succeed in a 12 or even 15-hour semester.

Welcome to seminary...

In approximately two weeks, I will begin what has become one of the most enjoyable activities in my life. I will be serving as a teaching assistant in an intensive first-year Greek course at Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana. In five weeks, students from the seminary and the undergraduate school will study a year's worth of Koine Greek. I took the course as a seminary student in 2008 and served as teaching assistant last summer after completing my second year of Greek, also in intensive study format.

Students often call this course "suicide Greek." I can certainly understand why. The class meets every day for four hours and generally covers one chapter every day, working through J. Gresham Machen's text, New Testament Greek for Beginners. The text is an old one and would not be my choice if I planned a Greek course from the start. It is, however, one of several textbooks which is available in braille; and this was advantageous to me as well as to another blind student who took our course last summer. This allowed me to learn a lot about teaching and about how different people learn--every person who is blind does not learn the way that I do.

Back to the concept of "suicide Greek..." Taking an intensive language course has its advantages and disadvantages. It allows a person to focus solely on learning the language, which can be useful if distraction is a problem. For some people, drawing learning out too slowly is as much of a problem as doing it too quickly. The intensive method forces them to stick with the process and build on what they have already learned, not allowing time for forgetting things. They move directly into second-year study, and by this time they have built a habit of reading in Greek to some degree and are more likely to pick it up several times throughout the week even when the class doesn't meet so often. Of course, not all students stay with Greek; but I didn't hear as much complaining from the group who went on to second year Greek as I thought I might in light of the things I had read from people on the B-Greek list.

For some students, the intensive Greek course is the first course they take upon starting seminary. I have heard some people say they are glad they did this. I began my seminary experience with a regular fall semester. For me, this was necessary. Since I am blind, my language studies required some special arrangements. I don't know whether intensive language study would have been daunting to me. Looking back on my early experiences, I suspect that starting with such an intensive study would have been unwise for me. I will discuss the reasons why in my next post and will also address the possibility of a middle ground in intensive language study...

To wind up this post, since it is the first post here, I want to address the purposes of this blog. It serves as a resource for seminary students, staff, and faculty alike. Using my own life experiences as background, I hope to accomplish three purposes:

1. to provide a starting point for reflection on the interaction of subjects in seminary education and spiritual formation;
2. to provoke discussion of factors that influence learning and spiritual formation of seminary students;
3. to encourage seminary faculty and staff to take steps to increase access to facilities and programs for people with special needs through recruitment, accommodations, and financial assistance.

I will link to resources I have found useful throughout my seminary journey, sites that may assist current students, etc. I welcome your comments and discussion threads. In fact, those are an integral part of this blog project. Please do not be silent. In sharing my experiences, I will inadvertently bring up things that will prompt you to ask questions that may make you wonder whether I will be offended. That is the nature of living with disability. Please take the risk of asking the questions. If the question is too personal, I will handle it with grace. That is the nature of relationships.

> Welcome to the journey that is seminary! It is a good journey to take!