I believe that teaching can be accomplished in many different ways, and the variety of approaches my teachers took served me well as a student, as I became aware of how learning takes place through discussion, through lectures, and through student writing.

Generally, I believe my best teachers knew their audience well and could anticipate where there might be confusion, misreading, or the need for more clarification. Probably a good teacher never teaches a literary text in just the same way to different classes, because the personalities in each class and the input of particular students make the experience of teaching a text different each time. That is why I teach literature! A good teacher finds out where the class is as they start their reading, and takes them someplace else. Make sure the students get more out of their reading than they could get on their own, or it won't be worth their while.

Years of reading on Decorah's history gives me a strong admiration for earlier generations who lived in the houses I pass on my walks to and from campus on summer days, the people whose pictures I look at in old county atlases, in Winneshiek County Biographies, even in past issues of Decorah Journal.

When I walk downtown, I follow in their footsteps and pause to consider the gardens they have planted. The chill of autumn is in its way invigorating and inspiriting, reminding me of the new generation of students coming to Luther who will in turn inspire us to look toward the future with promise and hope. Nevertheless, I regret the loss of summer, the plangent sense of time and people who cannot be recovered, yet who are somehow evident in the very landscape, and in the claims of the heart they make on us.