Andy Newman
about the teacher
Although I have lived in Laramie, Wyoming; Irving, Texas; and Omaha, Nebraska, for short spells, I am a western Nebraskan, born and bred, and that is where I have resided for the majority of my life. Simply put, it is home and always will be. I have taught college, part-time and full-time, for nearly 20 years and high school for seven years. My experience is varied. I have worked as a reporter and assistant editor of a daily newspaper. As for degrees, I have collected master's degrees in history, English, and theology. Currently, I have finished my course work for the Ph.D. in the Humanities through Faulkner University and am beginning the dissertation. I am also a freelance writer and independent scholar.
Teaching Philosophy
If I were to use an analogy, I would say education is a journey and a teacher is the guide and coach. Journey? That might seem trite. Yet there is no truer way I know of to describe how students and teacher make their way through the territory of a novel, poem, philosophical or theological treatise, short story, or set of ideas. Teachers are guides; they know the terrain, though they may well learn something new along the way. As guides, teachers show and explain.
I also used the word coach. The educational journey is not simply sight-seeing. Students need a coach, someone to not only show, but to demonstrate the skills and approaches necessary to engage the material in front of them and to draw out of them what they as students already know, connecting the new and the old. That is why I consider an effective teacher a guide and a coach.
Fundamentally, I believe teaching is a vocation, and as a Christian practitioner of this vocation, I believe all education should be done Soli Deo Gloria. The teacher is the guide and coach; it is parents who are ultimately responsible for the education of their children.
Furthermore, I teach within the framework of "mere Christianity," acknowledging that there are both commonalities and real differences among those Christians who hold to the Nicene Creed and the inspired Scriptures. As a teacher at Kepler, I honor those differences and maintain that they are matters for parents and ministers, not the teacher.
Statement of Faith
A tonsured Reader in the Orthodox Christian Church, I serve Assumption parish in Bayard, Nebraska. I am on the parish council and in the process to be ordained to the priesthood. As an Orthodox Christian, I hold to the authority of the inspired and inerrant Scriptures; subscribe to the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds; affirm the teachings of the Seven Ecumenical Councils; deeply value the fathers, mothers, confessors, and martyrs of the Greek East and the Latin West of the first millennium; and uphold Biblical and historically Christian moral standards.
I am a firm believer in ecumenical, small-o orthodoxy, that is, ecumenicism based on the the common ground which evangelicals, classical Protestants, Roman Catholics,and Orthodox. This common ground can be found in the authority of Scripture, the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, the early Church fathers, traditional Biblical morality, and a love of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ. I also recognize that there are real differences among these Christians.