When a product on the grocery store shelf grabs our attention by proclaiming that it now has “improved taste” we might walk away thinking, “Was it so bad that it needed to be improved?” When we talk about professional growth in terms of the faculty at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary (WLS) do our minds arrive at the same question? Do they need to grow? Is the teaching of such a quality that it needs to be improved?

On the one hand, the answer is “no.” The professors at the seminary have an impressive grasp of their respective content areas and have put in years of formal advanced study. They bring decades of experience from the parish ministry with them to the classroom. They possess a deep love for their
Savior, for God’s Word, and for their students. Those things are foundational to the quality education that future pastors receive here. And they show in the classroom every single day.

At the same time, though, the members of the faculty understand that they have been entrusted with the special and significant responsibility of training future pastors. With gratitude for this and all God’s gifts, we joyfully commit ourselves to the faithful stewardship of the teaching ministry.

With those things in mind, the answer to the earlier question is also “yes.” The quality of teaching here at the seminary always needs to be improving. Our faculty genuinely cares about communicating our lessons in ways that will help students to retain and use what they have learned when they graduate from WLS and go out to the churches they will pastor.

Because I teach education here, the seminary has asked me to be an encourager and a resource for my faculty brothers when it comes to teaching. In a typical week that might mean helping a colleague properly setup his course grade book electronically, leading a faculty-wide study on writing learning outcomes, or giving a fellow professor advice on how to better involve a quiet student in classroom conversation. Many faculty members invite me to visit their classrooms as part of our faculty’s yearly peer visitation program. As a means of regularly staying in touch, I send out a weekly email to our faculty that includes teaching tips and research summaries that can inform the methodological choices we make when teaching. To be able to share information that will enrich my colleagues, I, too, am required to be constantly reading and growing.

When you read more and more, you are constantly brought to the realization of just how much you don’t know. And I am a pastor, by trade, so I’m pretty sure that I don’t know education like a teacher who has been trained as such and who has many years of experience in a classroom. I’m always a little amazed that my faculty brothers are willing to have me give them advice about their classroom methods.

But perhaps it’s not so surprising that these teachers are so teachable. In one way or another, in one subject area or another, they have been learning their whole lives. And that learning does not stop when one becomes a professor at WLS. The professional growth of our faculty is a multi-pronged work in progress. Each professor recognizes his need to grow in his primary teaching area, his secondary teaching area, and his overall knowledge of God’s Word and God’s church. What an incredible blessing it is that, in addition to all those other responsibilities, our faculty is firmly intent on growing in their teaching abilities, as well. Pray that God would continue to give that growth!

Paul Waldschmidt serves as director of instruction and teaches education and Old Testament at the seminary.