Fancy a holiday full of lectures? Sydney Anglican Phil Hollins (pictured) is one of 14 teachers to choose training over time out this winter.
Last week, Mr Hollins and his colleagues from 13 different Anglican schools were the first group to embark on a new intensive-mode Diploma of Biblical Studies course run by Moore College in partnership with the Anglican Education Commission(AEC).
The course is designed specifically for teachers, allowing them to complete whole subjects in school holidays.
Last week, the group heard lectures for two subjects: Biblical Theology, taught by Dr Graeme Goldsworthy, and New Testament 1, delivered by the Rev Graeme Howells
For Mr Hollins, who teaches Year Five at Penrith Anglican College, the holiday timing of the week-long block of lectures was a welcome opportunity after a ski holiday fell through.
"It was just great because you can really sink your teeth into it when you can do a week full-time," he says.
"Ongoing part-time study is just really draining and it just takes up a lot of your life outside of work, whereas this was perfect."
The AEC's executive director, Dr Bryan Cowling, says easing the burden of extra-curricular study on teachers was a significant reason behind the intensive course.
"Teaching is becoming an increasingly busy and stressful vocation, such that many teachers just can't commit to further study on week nights," he says.
Dr Cowling heralds the course as "an exciting beginning of a new way of equipping school teachers to be better teachers of God's word in our schools".
"Our long-term hope is that this Diploma course will become the benchmark minimum requirement for teachers and coordinators of Christian Studies teachers in Anglican schools," he says.
Benefits stretch to classroom
For some teachers, the course was their first experience of systematic Bible teaching, which is delivered with "a spin on how the topic could be treated in the classroom" and "how the material could be re-phrased to address students' questions", Dr Cowling says.
Mr Hollins is certain the course will help him to answer questions from students and give him more confidence as he teaches divinity lessons and leads devotions and a chapel group.
"I'm looking forward to sharing with the class some of the things I learnt," he says, adding that he had particularly enjoyed studying the Old and New Testaments together.
"It was really challenging to not just present Old Testament stories as moral fairytales for kids but to put them in context with the New Testament and teach it in a deeper way," he says.
"It sharpened my understanding of things I was aware of before."
The broader vision
Moore College vice principal Dr Bill Salier says the course aims to provide Christian teachers with "quality biblical teaching" that will "enhance their teaching generally through the development of a biblical worldview."
"Completion of the program will be recognised by the Diocese as having satisfied its minimal professional requirements to be a teacher of Christian Studies in an Anglican School in the Diocese of Sydney," Dr Salier says.
"The initial feedback from students in the course has been very positive and it is anticipated that these intensive courses in the Diploma will become a regular feature of Moore’s External Studies offerings."
In January 2009, those who have started the course this winter will be the first to undertake the Christian Studies Method Unit, which will address issues of faith development and teaching strategies for Christian Studies subjects in schools.
