Reflective Narrative

Dave Harper
Associate Professor of English, Chesapeake College

Philosophy of Teaching
I believe teaching is leadership, and I believe the best leaders are servants.
My purpose in the classroom is to invest my training, energy, and personal
experiences in guiding students as they acquire valuable resources, knowledge, and
skill-sets for success in and beyond their college classes.
Integral to my view of teaching-as-servant-leadership is the application of
experiential education techniques. In his treatise on education, John Locke writes,
another thing that is of great advantage to everyones health, but especially
childrens, is to be much in the open airby this he will accustom himself to heat
and cold, shine and rain. Expanding upon the analogy, Locke explains that
exposure to a wide variety of experiences best prepares each student. Similarly,
Thoreau writes in Walden, To my astonishment I was informed on leaving college
that I had studied navigation! why, if I had taken one turn down the harbor I
should have known more about it. Effective teaching offers challenging
opportunities for application and personal growth for student and teacher alike and the result should be an engaging adventure for both.
My view is informed by the examples of my father and my wife, two of the people
whom I love and respect most in the world and two of the most intelligent people I
know. Yet, they were not stereotypically successful college students:

A lifetime native of Marylands Eastern Shore, my father is a gifted mechanic,

a fiercely independent man, and a creative thinker. For my whole lifetime,
instead of watching television, I have known him to spend his evenings
reading wiring diagrams, parts books, and technical manuals. Yet, he failed
out of one college and withdrew from a second before his parents allowed him
to pursue his own wish: a technical degree from the Pittsburg Institute of
Aeronautics. There, he graduated first in his class.

My wifes meandering journey through college took more than 13 years and
involved multiple part-time jobs, a 7-year hiatus, and a brief stint at
Chesapeake College (where she earned an AA and made the Deans List).

Although she has never considered herself an ideal student or an academic,

she is now on faculty at Salisbury University, directing their Outdoor Education
Leadership program and teaching classes like Camping & Backpacking,
Canoeing & Kayaking, Wilderness Navigation, Outdoor Leadership Techniques,
and more.
Two of the most successful people I know considered themselves unsuccessful
students in the traditional classroom. Both have been known to cringe when they
see reading lists for my classes or the papers I assign. Please tell your students I
am sorry, Christy has said to me more than once, flashing a wry grin.
So I try to keep Dad & Christy in mind when I design my courses and interact
with my students. I dont believe that classes should be easy, but I think they
should be engaging, thought-provoking, and accessible to people with a wide range
of skill sets and life experiences. The best courses, I think, are catalytic for the
peripheral student and deeply rewarding for motivated students.
Leadership has to do with how people are. You dont teach people a different way of
being, you create conditions so they can discover where their natural leadership comes
from. Peter Senge

Professional Goals
Goal

Plan

PhD, Biblical Studies

-54 credits completed as of January 2017

-projected ABD by fall 2017
-possible graduation fall 2018

Gain Administrative Experience

-serving as Interim Assistant Dean for AY

2016-2017
-continue to apply for opportunities to
serve

high quality adventure education

experiences for my students

-Recent collaborators include Washington

College (Literary House and Institute for
Religion, Politics, and Culture); WHCP
Community Radio, Cambridge; Gilbert
Byron Society; Pickering Creek Audubon
Center; Horn Point. (Continue)
-Recent adventure trips include Tuckahoe
Ropes Course; Canoeing on Bay tributaries;
Appalachian Trail hiking at Harpers Ferry.

(Continue)
-Potential work with Chesapeake College
Outdoor Club
4

maturity as a husband, father,

friend, teacher

-Practice better time-management,

learning to balance work, graduate work,
and home
-Better pace each class I teach and work to
dovetail assignment schedules among all
classes
-Be present for my kids childhood and
support my wife as she works and goes
through graduate school
-Maintain a healthy home life so I can be
fully present for my students, with
margin to spend more time and energy
serving them