{"id":214,"date":"2005-08-21T20:17:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-21T20:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2005\/08\/my-teachers.html"},"modified":"2005-08-21T20:17:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-21T20:17:00","slug":"my-teachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/08\/my-teachers.html","title":{"rendered":"My Teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This week ends officially the summer break, and we head back to North Park University. Tuesday is our traditional Gathering Day — we have breakfast and then the President (which is now “three” as we continue our search for a new one) gives a “state of the union” address. But, I will miss Gathering Day as I will be doing the Faculty Retreat for Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

But, in thinking about going back to school, my mind is drawn to my teachers, and I want to talk about my two favorite junior high and high school teachers. Frau Meinders and Herr Kurr. These two German teachers, the first of whom I had in junior high and the second for four classes in high school, were simply wonderful influences in my life. They gave me a love for German and a foundation for understanding languages. They loved us and they were enthusiastic teachers. Of course, they occasionally wore the obligatory Dirndl and Lederhosen to give German culture a boost.<\/p>\n

I think of what they gave us all — and they built a great German program at our high school. Wasn’t it odd that my son’s high school German teacher in Libertyville, Frau Krupp, was a student of Herr Kurr, who taught Frau Krupp and me in Freeport, IL? I know why. He inspired us to love the culture and the language, to be fair and respectful to one another in class, and to have a load of fun doing it. Class was just as often breaking into laughing as it was being led into the depths of human miseries — good grief, in one year we read a bundle of those WW2 German existentialists like Thomas Mann, Berthold Brecht, and Gerhard Hauptmann — Bahnwaerter Thiel<\/span>. I remember reading Frank Kafka’s story about the fellow who turned into a turtle — or something like that. And we read and read and spoke and spoke.<\/p>\n

Herr Kurr’s class, and Frau Meinders cheering us all on, gave me the ability to speak German, and it stood me in good stead when I spent two summers in Austria (during college years) with Greater Europe Missions — I got to preach in German! And when I got to seminary I could read German commentaries — and I still read them — all because of Herr Kurr.<\/p>\n

I’ve seen both of them occasionally since, but they live with me, as all good teachers live with us.<\/p>\n

And I can still sing some of those crazy songs Herr Kurr taught us: “Auf die schwaebische Eisenbahn, gibt gar viele Haltstatione, Stuttgart, Ulm und Bieberach, Mecklesbeure Durlesbach …” or something like that.<\/p>\n

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