Kari Christophersen
about the teacher
I live in Moscow, Idaho, and come from a long line of University of Idaho professors and graduates. Learning to love language was something that started for me in elementary school when my parents took us to live in the tiny desert town of Bobo Dioulasso in what had just become Burkina Faso. My siblings and I, not knowing a word of French, were dropped off at the local French school to sink or swim in a new language, country, and culture. Eventually, I was learning all of my subjects in French—math, grammar, history, music and everything else, and reading voraciously in both languages.
I studied French and English at the University of Idaho, technical translation in France on a Rotary scholarship, and returned to the University of Idaho to complete my master’s degree in Teaching English as a Second Language. I went on to teach English in Japan for several years.
My three children and I love to read together, cook, sew, learn about electronics, practice karate, and seek to bring everything we do under the banner of Christ.
Teaching Philosophy
The bedrock of my educational philosophy is Jesus. “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). Because He is our Creator, we can count on such things as order and meaning, and we can assume that truth, beauty, and goodness exist, and we can aspire to them.
“It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter” (Proverbs 25:2). What we call an education is simply learning how to search out a matter. Learning is hard but not pointless work, although I don't think students need to see the point of everything they learn right away. We aren’t just teaching them for the final exam or to get a good job. Rather, we’re preparing our students to fulfill their calling as kings.
Statement of Faith
I grew up in a loving Christian home, which had the most consistent impact on my faith because we had to move every couple of years and find new churches along the way, discovering that the body of Christ is beautiful everywhere and that God is our loving and faithful Father no matter where we are. For the last 15 years or so, I have been an evangelical Reformed Christian. I’m a member of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, holding to the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Westminster Confession, among other confessions. Weekly communion, Biblical teaching, singing all the Psalms, and a godly, prayerful, hospitable, and Bible-reading community are a few of my favorite things about our church.