For many years Dale Shenk has been the one and only high school bible teacher. Then last year Dale interrupted CAM to tell us that this was going to change, after this year he would only be teaching the seniors bible.
Naturally, that led to some questions, what would this mean for existing classes? Who is going to teach the old ones? With a summer passed and classes started, some light was shed on the situation. we learned that Josh would be teaching the old classes. However, some questions remained:
To Dale Shenk:
What went into your decision about only teaching senior bible?
“well, I’ve been thinking about this for a bunch of years, so this hasn’t been a quick decision. I had asked Tim Lehman the principle, probably three years ago if I could cut back, maybe take a sabbatical and then come back maybe full time again. So I was sort of interested, [In time off] and I was 60 years old so I was starting to think that I was a little too old to teach high school kids, my brain is slowing down a little bit. And then a year ago I had a heart attack and had open-heart quadruple bypass surgery and was gone recovering for the first quarter and then taught the rest of the year. That Christmas Tim came to me and ask if I would be ready to take that time off and cut back and I was. I’ve been here at Bethany for 27 years and there is a kind of comfort to it, doing the same thing year after year after year. The routine can get draining, and I was ready to step back and take time off.”
What was the hardest part of your decision?
“The part of it that made it difficult was that I love my work, I love being a teacher here at Bethany and I love being the Bible teacher, it’s been my identity since 1993. I knew that when I quit I couldn’t get it back. The understanding is I may teach bible for longer than a couple of years but I’m never going to be teaching nine, ten, eleventh graders again. And so my Identity as the bible teacher at Bethany is gone, permanently. So to say I’m no longer that guy anymore was tough. The ninth graders won’t know who I am, to them I’m just some guy in the halls sometimes, but they won’t really know me the way you know me from class. I’m sad about that.”
What advice do you have for the students you won’t get to know in the same meaningful way you know us?
“live in the moment, even if the moment is painful. we talk about living in the moment like ‘having a good time’ and a ‘life is short’ kind of thing but what I’m talking about is to be present in every moment, like when you’re in class, to be in class; and when you’re with your friends, be with your friends; whatever it is, just be present in the moment. That’s something I say to my self too because I’m constantly looking for the next thing. I continue to work at trying to enjoy and be in the present.”
To Josh Weaver:
How much experience do you have teaching bible?
“I have a master’s in theological studies from the Mennonite seminary in Elkhart, I finished my seminary studies I think in 2011. One of the things I studied at seminary was church history, since seminary, I haven’t really taught the bible in an official capacity. I was an adult Sunday school teacher for three years. more relevant to teaching the bible here, I worked with MSC which is the Mennonite Schools Council, they were developing a school curriculum that would be Mennonite, anabaptist in its character for schools that would want to use that. So I’ve been writing bible curriculums over the summers along with Adam .”
What was the transition like, coming from math to bible?
“There is part of me that misses math, I like teaching math. Transitioning to bible which is a very different subject area, I’ve been teaching math my whole highschool career so I’m pretty accustomed to what content to emphasize and how to make that work, I can write a lesson pretty quickly because of that. Transitioning to bible, something I had not taught, it takes a lot more energy to figure out what to emphasize and how to approach things, now dale has been an immense help to me in that, he has left me hundreds of notes, I can call him up basically whenever I want and he has been very helpful. so I’m not starting from scratch, I have a mentor in dale who has been a great help to me in this transition, still, it is a challenging transition. But you know I’m excited.”
All answers were transcribed from an audio recording of Josh and Dale respectively. Some liberties were taken for the flow of the piece, for any further questions contact us at the sightline email.