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Educator Cares for Students: Award-Winning Northern Professor Says Learning is a Never-Ending Process

Posted on: Monday, 19 December 2005, 18:00 CST

By Russ Keen, American News, Aberdeen, S.D., American News, Aberdeen, S.D.

Dec. 19--Many educators believe students need to take responsibility for their own education.

But it also takes a teacher who cares, said Jon Schaff, who earlier this year was named Outstanding Faculty Member for 2005 at Northern State University in Aberdeen. Receiving the honor at age 33, Schaff, now 34, is among the youngest recipients.

"Students must be your No. 1 priority," said the political science and sociology professor. "You have to care enough about them to get them interested in the subject."

Collegians can be a tough crowd, Schaff said. For example, many students required to take Schaff's American government course will announce at the start, "'I don't like politics and I don't like government,'" he said. "In one sense, that's a healthy attitude, because there are things that are more important."

But when the end of a semester rolls around, sometimes these same students will tell Schaff, "I didn't think I'd like it, but I did."

Defining a good teacher: A good teacher is nothing more than an advanced student who also learns from less advanced ones, he said. "If you are a doing a good job, your students will inevitably be teaching you, too."

Even when you think you've mastered something, there's always more to learn, Schaff said. Take Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address."

"I've read it hundreds of times, but every time I read it or teach it, I find something new I had never thought about before. And it's only a two-minute speech."

Lincoln is among his passions. He and three students will be researching Lincoln's theories on labor and technology next semester.

Schaff said he encourages students to think about eternal values. "Most Americans, including young people, tend to get caught up in things of passing importance. I encourage students to think beyond this particular time and beyond their own experience."

Good books: Some of his favorite books are definitely not of this time: "My Antonia" by Willa Cather and "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen. But the book that impacted Schaff the most is contemporary: "Love and Friendship" by Allan Bloom.

"It changed my life," Schaff said of the book written in 1993 by a Chicago professor. For centuries, people viewed love as being all about sacrifice and heroism, according to the book. But the modern world sees love as mainly a contract centering around sex, and friendship has all but disappeared, according to the book.

Schaff will teach a non-university course called Love and Friendship this coming semester at the Newman Center, the campus Catholic church. He is adviser of the Newman Club, a student organization affiliated with the center. He also advises the College Republicans at Northern.

He blogs about South Dakota politics, and is sometimes asked by South Dakota Public Broadcasting to contribute political commentary. "Especially in an election year," Schaff said.

Background: Schaff grew up in Rochester, Minn. He received an undergraduate degree at St. John's University, the largest Benedictine monastery in the world, in Collegeville, Minn. He earned his doctor's degree in political science from Loyola University in Chicago, and came to Northern from Loyola in 2001.

He loves reading and films, and since moving to South Dakota has developed a passion for hunting ducks and pheasants. Schaff also loves baseball, and is a Minnesota Twins fan.

Some people say baseball is boring, he said. "It's not," Schaff said. "It's boring only for boring people. There's so much more going on than one guy throwing a white ball at another guy."

He approaches baseball with the same attitude he encourages students to develop: "You have to appreciate things on a deeper level."

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Copyright (c) 2005, American News, Aberdeen, S.D.

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Source: American News (Aberdeen, S.D.)

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