Education

Not exactly a nerd, but just a half step above them, I spent much of my high school career building friendships with two types of people: people who needed me and adults; my teachers.

The latter of these two was particularly fascinating to me, especially with my English teacher. And although I never had him for a class, we would spend our mornings discussing various issues and topics before the angry bell shuffled us on to our responsibilities. It was a pretty amazing feeling, having a new college graduate ask me how I felt about this certain topic, or what my thoughts were about this issue.

I've never been able to figure out why he had such faith in me, but as a result of his encouragement, I found myself dual-enrolled in college my Senior year of high school for English, Psychology, Theology, and Math. Yes, I was indeed a busy Senior.

Our community college is "secular," so as a result I spent my time in my Junior-level Old Testament class debating with my peculiar old lady professor who had no cultural understanding of the OT, defending the necessity of having God in the picture when studying the Scriptures. By some miracle of testing, I found myself in an upper-level math class where I encountered the world's worst teacher. That's all we need to say about that one. My psychology classes were less of a battle, but still intriguing. The real fun, however, was found in my English classes where I learned from one of the best teachers I've had, to date.

Dionne taught in such a way that the only way you could not learn was to sleep through his class. Which, I might add, he allowed, unfazed. One of the first things Dionne did with us was determine where the majority of his class was "headed" in life, so that he could prepare us adequately for things we would face in the future. After discovering that he had a dual-enrolled student headed towards ministry, we talked after class. He explained to me that he had no concerns about whether I would do well or not, but I should prepare myself to be challenged.

The entire year I spent in his English classes we researched and argued for or against things like free will vs. determinism (which boils straight down to evolution vs. intelligent design), and we traced the development and influence of culture, art, and thought-movements. He even "took the Bible away" from us, preventing us from using a text that many in our debates would find archaic and pointless. Heavy stuff.

Dionne taught me a lot of things, but there's one lesson that continuously echos in my mind:

There are rules & you may break them, but if you break them, know why.

Language was never meant to be two-dimensional in nature. Emotions, moods, thoughts, can be felt if the writer knows what they are doing. This means "breaking the rules" from time to time. This lesson carries over to life and religion. Think about it.

I'm thankful for the faith a new college grad. had in me when I was just 17.

And for those curious, I'd much rather receive a "secular" education than a "Christian" one.