{"id":4440,"date":"2019-05-05T10:17:14","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T10:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=4440"},"modified":"2021-03-18T06:44:38","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T06:44:38","slug":"discipleship-gratitude-and-the-faerie-queene-a-conversation-with-dr-jonathan-sircy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2019\/05\/05\/discipleship-gratitude-and-the-faerie-queene-a-conversation-with-dr-jonathan-sircy\/","title":{"rendered":"Discipleship, Gratitude, and The Faerie Queene\u2014A Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Sircy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dynestee Fields and Amanda Platz<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI forgot to print your prompt,\u201d Dr. Jonathan Sircy exclaimed in the middle of class one morning, during the Fall 2018 Semester. Because the class was Non-fiction Prose and Its Process,<\/em> the writing prompt was integral to the day\u2019s activities. He debated whether to send the prompt to us later that day or if he should go to his office and kill a few trees by printing it off right then. \u201cDo you think that I can make it back within ten minutes,\u201d he wagered. \u201cDo it,\u201d we all chanted. Before we knew it, all of our faces were pressed against the window, watching as our professor sprinted across campus. The room echoed with animated voices as we alternated between shouting \u201cDo you think he\u2019s gonna make it?\u201d and \u201cLook at how fast he\u2019s going!\u201d He had told us to work on an in-class assignment while he was gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We did not work on the assignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, we continued to stare out the window, debating whether or not he would get back in time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s going<\/em> to make it! Did you see <\/em>how fast he was running?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you sure? He only has ten minutes…\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the window had defogged from the heat of our breath, Dr. Sircy appeared in the doorway with a stack of freshly-printed papers\u2014our assignment. He hadn\u2019t even broken a sweat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After class, a couple of us were standing outside the Newby Education Center recounting the event and offering our own personal commentaries when Dr. Britt Terry,\u00a0 his wife, strolled over with her tote bag full of classroom supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDr. Terry, you have got <\/em>to hear what Dr. Sircy just did,\u201d one of us exclaimed in a torrent of laughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh no<\/em>,\u201d she sighed, a smirk gleaming in her chocolate-colored eyes. \u201cWhat did he do this time?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We quickly told her the story and watched as Dr. Terry laughed, shook her head, and said: \u201cThat doesn\u2019t surprise me at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the semester reflected the surprising events of that day. Dr. Sircy swaggering victoriously into the classroom, waving the copies of the prompt in his hand, is the perfect image of our class experience in Non-fiction Prose and its Process<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experiences like this incited us to interview Dr. Sircy regarding his own education experience, teaching philosophy, and extra-curricular passions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ~<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the day of the interview, we walk into his office to find a space that is uncluttered yet overflowing with character. A Singing in the Rain <\/em>poster, shelves upon shelves of books\u2014everything from J.R.R. Tolkien to David Foster Wallace\u2014, an Apple iMac accompanied by a 2018 MacBook Pro, and framed photos of his wife and daughter emerge as the room\u2019s primary accents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at this assortment of items, one might ask, where did this journey begin? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accordingly, our first question is \u201cHow did you get into English, and what inspired you to teach?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Sircy participated in a program just before his senior year of high school that allowed him to choose a major for five weeks and to participate in a college environment. In this program, he majored in philosophy and was assigned a minor\u2014which included an English class. The professor of this English class told Dr. Sircy about a pastime that he had undertaken, which included reading the books listed on the back of a Cliffs Notes<\/em>. In addition to this, Dr. Sircy also found a list of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th<\/sup> century written in English, released by Random House in 1998. He tells us that \u201cI decided \u2018I wanna major in whatever I can in college that will allow me to do that,\u2019 \u2018cause it was awesome\u2026 And so I came in as an English literature\/creative writing double major, and I\u2019ve never stopped. I knew that I was going to get a PhD when I came in as a Freshman on the first day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the loaded bookshelf in the background as a testament to the fulfillment of this aspiration, we ask him another question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs there one book that has influenced your life above all others, besides the Bible?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He lists five pieces of literature, including\u00a0A Supposedly Fun Thing I\u2019ll Never Do Again<\/em> <\/a>by David Foster Wallace, The Portrait of a Lady<\/em><\/a> by Henry James, The Faerie Queene<\/em> <\/a>by Edmund Spenser, Desiring the Kingdom<\/a><\/em> by James K. A. Smith, and The<\/em> 7 Habits of Highly Effective People<\/em><\/a> by Steven Covey. Each of these diverse works have contributed to facets of his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Dr. Sircy, A Supposedly Fun Thing<\/em> is a \u201csummation of funny, insightful, weird America that I aspire to.\u201d The Portrait of a Lady <\/em>demonstrates James\u2019 ability to portray the \u201csense that the real struggle in people is what happens inside them rather than what happens externally,\u201d which, \u201cis just magnificent.\u201d The Faerie Queene <\/em>is special because \u201cit\u2019s a head trip of a poem. And, it is unexpected all the time.\u201d Desiring the Kingdom<\/em> is \u201cthe most important book I ever read about teaching.\u201d And finally, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People <\/em>has advised him that \u201cyou should think about life not in terms of what you\u2019re called to do, but in terms of what your responsibilities are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elements of his teaching style appear to be evident in the books that he mentions. So, when we ask him \u201cDo you prefer teaching at Christian universities\u201d and \u201cHow do you incorporate your faith into your teaching,\u201d his answers do not deviate from his established grain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Sircy tells us that he appreciates teaching at Christian universities because he is able to express his faith in the classroom. \u201cMy teaching is overtly faith-filled in a way that was not true my first couple years teaching where I still had a USC<\/a> [his alma mater] mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His educational philosophy is that education is discipleship. Dr. Sircy explains that \u201cA disciple is a student, Jesus is a rabbi, so at the heart of what He did when He was on earth was, He taught people. Which means that what me and my wife and everyone here who is a teacher gets to do is have a life where we have this analog to what our spiritual lives should be like. So, once I made that connection, then it started\u2014I realized \u2018Oh, stuff that goes on in church is kind of educational\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The structure of his entire classroom experience revolves around church liturgy. He includes a gratitude exercise at the beginning of each class to more explicitly insert his faith into his classroom. In terms of intermingling faith and literature, Dr. Sircy says that the fact that Jesus teaches people through stories means that \u201creal truth is being conveyed in the stories we teach, and real truth should be engaged in the papers those students write.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After he has given this answer, it is only natural to follow it up with the question \u201cWhat is the ideal outcome\/experience for students coming out of your class?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long after students have received their final grades for his courses, Dr. Sircy hopes that he has created \u201ca place that you can go back to because of something you read, because of some conversation you had with somebody in the class, or maybe even something I said that wasn\u2019t even about the course content, but was about something else\u201d\u2014an Old Testament-style altar experience. He defines these altar experiences as being \u201cphysical monuments to some momentous spiritual event\u2026 The monument is there to point them to them having met God at that moment.\u201d Essentially, his ideal classroom experience is pointing his students to significant spiritual insights, places where they can meet Christ. As said earlier, reading material, conversations, and asides from lectures can all serve as catalysts for this experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our final question is in reference to his teaching style.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you incorporate multimedia skills into your teaching?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an effort to make his classes more engaging, Dr. Sircy does indeed seek to incorporate multimedia into his lesson plans. His latest effort is a podcast for his English 305 class\u2014British Literature I. \u201cThe first one\u2019s on Beowulf <\/em><\/a>and I will make one on each of the things that I\u2019m teaching in the brick and mortar course.\u201d But this isn\u2019t the only podcast that Dr. Sircy has made. He also has a podcast on the 1950s-1960s television drama Perry Mason<\/em><\/a>. There are seventeen episodes so far, and Dr. Sircy insists that those are \u201ctotally only something my dad listens to.\u201d On the other hand, he hopes that the English 305 podcast will be an educational resource for his students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the interview has ended, my fellow interviewer and I migrate to the Rickman Library to discuss the event. Inevitably, the conversation steers towards the happenings of Non-fiction Writing and Its Process<\/em>. We always seize opportunities to retell the story of Dr. Sircy racing across campus, advising his current students to embrace his passionate and attentive nature. From his intense story-board drawings that cover entire whiteboards to his discussions about modern rap music, Dr. Sircy\u2019s classes reflect the vision of the man at the head of the classroom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dynestee Fields and Amanda Platz \u201cI forgot to print your prompt,\u201d Dr. Jonathan Sircy exclaimed in the middle of class one morning, during the Fall 2018 Semester. Because the class […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":4442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344],"tags":[82,373],"class_list":["post-4440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-events","tag-conversations","tag-swu-stories","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4440"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4486,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4440\/revisions\/4486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}