Twenty Questions with Karyn Traphagen

We are pleased to bring you Twenty Questions with fellow blogger and Matie (that’s mah-tee), Karyn Traphagen.

1. Where are you from? Where did you grow up?
I was born in Bellevue, NJ, grew up in Cedar Grove, NJ and was in the same school district until I graduated high school. After that, I’ve moved a lot! Since I’ve been married, we’ve lived in several places in NJ, NY, VA, PA, Hawaii, and now NC. We’ve had 26 different addresses.

2. Why biblical studies?
I’m intrigued by the overarching story in the text. Especially the HB. I grew up looking at scripture in a very atomistic way; I never connected the dots. Now, I enjoy both going deep into the details, but also stepping back and seeing the connections that tell the big story. I delight in learning the languages and cultures that the HB was situated among. I’m trying to always better understand the intersection of the text with my life. As I proceed on that journey, I hope I can humbly share my grasp of the text with others while I also continue to learn from my fellow trekkers.

3. In addition to Hebrew, you’re also a physics whiz and teacher. Did that come first or Hebrew?
I don’t know about “whiz,” but I do enjoy studying science. Hebrew and physics were sort of intertwined, but officially physics came first. I love a challenge and I love learning. I also crave diverse activities. In some ways, this is both an asset and a liability. I have my hands in so many disciplines that I never truly feel like I master any one. On the other hand, I am not afraid to try anything (except sweet potatoes). If someone dares me a challenge, I can’t resist. Just ask my family.

4. Do you read Greek as well?
Yes. I have also studied Aramaic, Ugaritic, Sindarin, and Quenya. I know enough Spanish to stay out of jail (I learned Spanish for some travels in Venezuela). I know enough Hungarian to shop for food in the markets and get around town (I taught English in Hungary for two summers). I took German in high school. Between my German and Hungarian I tried not to use English when traveling around parts of Europe (so as not to be identified as an American… or especially an American tourist). This actually led to some very hilarious conversations, but I’ll save those stories for another time. I wish I had learned more Afrikaans before going to South Africa. I do not speak Whale (but I have swum with them).

5. Where and what have you studied?
The world. Anything that interests me at the time. Oh, what? You mean “real” schools? Although I don’t think the institutions I’ve studied at are nearly as important to know as the people I’ve learned from, I’ll indulge your question. I’ve studied at Liberty University (long story), University of Virginia, Westminster Theological Seminary, and now at the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa).

6. How has it been doing a PhD long distance? Any advice for those considering studying outside the states?
My opportunity was completely driven by the relationship that I was able to develop with my advisor and mentor, Christo van der Merwe. I didn’t decide on a school first, I was fortunate to find someone with whom I resonated with. Christo’s research, interests, and projects were very intriguing to me. We met first at SBL and from there he invited me to apply to be one of his doctoral students. In some ways, I have had more contact with my advisor than some of my friends in the states have had with their advisors who are right in the same building with them. Christo is very generous with time. We are able to stay in touch via email, Skype, and at conferences. I loved being in Stellenbosch and can’t wait to spend more time there. My student ID looks awful because it was taken right after I had traveled! But, I still feel a part of the University and have good access to library resources, etc. via the internet. Mail takes much too long to arrive. I often receive “urgent” communications after a deadline. However, there are very helpful people in the international office and we have navigated most of the issues. The University is now sending more things via email and the online student portal is more useful and complete than some in the States (I can access and manage my finances, grades, IT account, library databases and personal contact info). Every country will have its own requirements and every school will be different (even within the same university). Be sure to be pro-active and understand that you are fitting into their system. You will need to deal with things like different forms of documentation (for some reason, notarized photocopies are more “valid” than a Registrar’s transcript!), sending money overseas, etc. For me, it has been worth it to work with Prof. van der Merwe.

7. Where and what have you taught?
I’ve pursued many interests in my life. I’ve taught music (violin), physics, high school math, and even kindergarten (one year). I’ve always loved learning. Languages and writing systems have also been intriguing to me because I like to do illuminated calligraphy (that’s calligraphy with gold ornaments). I taught in a Christian school in upstate NY, in a private school in VA, in a small island school in Moloka’i, Hawai’i, at the University of Virginia, and at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. I taught English to Hungarian students for two summers in Szeged, Hungary. I also taught a professional development seminar to teachers in Yei, Sudan, Africa. I would love to go back to Southern Sudan and do some more work there.

8. What is the greatest challenge you encounter as a biblical language teacher?
Students who take the course anticipating that they will not succeed or that they will put in significant work and just forget it all as soon as the class is over. I think this is the connection between physics and languages for me. I want to take a subject area that people think they cannot succeed in, and show them that they can learn (and hopefully have fun along the way). This ties in with my thoughts about pedagogy that is tied to end-use of the material. You don’t teach accountants the same kind of math that you teach to engineers or theoretical mathematicians. The same should be true for languages (or physics).

9. Same question as a physics teacher. Is there a relationship between the two?
See my answer to #8 above!

10. You read a great paper last year at a NAPH session during SBL’s Annual Meeting in Boston. It had a lot to do with goals in learning biblical Hebrew. Generally speaking, what are your Hebrew students’ goals and how does that influence your teaching goals?
Thanks for coming to hear the paper at SBL, and for your encouragement. The students at Westminster are required to take the biblical languages. So, one (albeit cynical) goal is jumping through a graduation requirement hoop. For some students, they really won’t use the language again after their biblical studies courses (that’s a whole different issue that I could talk about). For others, this is a stepping stone to doctoral studies in philology or OT and they will be very self-motivated to learn the languages. The last group are people who are interested and want to learn, but the reality is they will use the language very differently than their doctoral student friends. These future pastors need to learn sustainable skills. They are not going to be Hebrew grammarians. So, the focus has to be more on spending time getting them to the place where they are using language skills and resources in the same way that they will after they graduate. If you can’t develop the habit during the 3 or 4 years at seminary, you won’t be able to pick it up or sustain it after you graduate.

11. What’s your beef with Hebrew grammars and their audience in relation to goals?
This deserves more than a paragraph answer, so I’m going to skirt the question and say that rather than spend all my time critiquing other people’s grammars (valuable as that is), what I want to do is show Hebrew instructors how they can be better teachers. There are many resources out there that are not perfect. That does not mean we just throw them out and make a new one to add to the heap. Instead, it is more important that we learn how to better align the content of our curriculum with the end-use of the language of our particular students, and then choose from the various resources the tools that will be most helpful to accomplish that.

12. Your paper also dealt with work being done in the way of teaching biblical Hebrew as a communicative language. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach? How does this relate to goals?
This is also a complicated question. I think the bottom line though (for me) is that we need to always remember that biblical Hebrew is an ancient language with a closed corpus and no living speakers. The goal is to read and understand the text, not to be able to talk to each other in biblical Hebrew. So, I don’t think biblical Hebrew is (currently) a communicative language (in the way SLA research speaks of communicative goals). On the other hand, if you want to use a communicative method as a pedagogical tool, then that is a different story. I do think there is merit in some uses of communicative methodology. Nevertheless, I think we need to be careful that we don’t blur the line between curriculum (content) and pedagogy/methodology. The goal (content) of the course is not communicative (our purpose is not writing new texts, creating speeches, or talking to each other in biblical Hebrew), but the methodology that may get you there could be. The major disadvantage I still see with implementing a full communicative approach is the amount of time necessary to cover material. If your goal is just an introduction to the language and to get people to have fun, and retain what they learn, then you will likely be very happy with the current trends in communicative methods. On the other hand, if you need to meet standards and requirements of an institution that expects a certain amount of rigor, then you probably won’t be able to solely incorporate the communicative means.

13. Does your work on goals in biblical Hebrew pedagogy affect your physics pedagogy?
Definitely. I’ve taught calculus-based graduate physics courses to physics teachers and conceptual physics to non-science undergrads. These courses approach the material very differently, based on how the student needs to understand and use the content. For both Hebrew and physics, you have to ask (and answer) two questions: What needs to be taught? How should it be taught? Both content and methodology need to be considered.

14. You blog at Boulders To Bits. How long have you been blogging and what got you into blogging?
I started a blog just before we arrived at Westminster as a way to keep friends and family aware of what we were doing in Philadelphia. It was called “Westminster Confessions.” When we left Westminster, the name didn’t seem right (for lots of reasons), and I wanted to re-invent the purpose of the blog. I took a hiatus from blogging and then started Bouders2Bits this spring.

15. What’s the focus of Boulders to Bits?
One of the things I love to do is take difficult things (like physics or languages) and make them more accessible to people. So, the idea was to have a blog where I wasn’t talking to the specialists, but to anyone who might be interested. Basically, breaking down the jargon and hopefully making it attractive and helpful to even non-academic types. There are many biblio-bloggers out there doing a great job with the very academic discussions (and I love to read them), but there are not as many out there that take those topics and bring them “down to earth.” That’s the goal, but right now I’m not writing for the blog as much as I plan to. I’ve got several deadlines that are keeping me busy. The blog is also an archive for my Hebrew teaching resources. I wanted a place where I could keep the documents up-to-date and current and former students could access the material, even after graduating. I’m also in a bit of a contemplative mood, and am working through some ideas/thoughts/concerns privately before I put it out there in public. Surprisingly, my garden has made it onto the blog. I wrestled with this, but I think that part of what I want to show is that one result of studying biblical studies and biblical languages is to see what it means to be truly human. So, living my theology out in the “mundane” things like gardens, rain barrels, and the local culture really is important.

16. Can you give us a summary of the Hebrew resources you’ve created on your blog?
Right now I just have my Weak Verb Summary chart (a two page distillation of my presentation of weak verbs) and a first semester review guide (with lots of charts and short summaries). I point to other resources on the web. I am working on re-organizing vocabulary lists so that they are arranged in a more productive way. Some of the organization is with semantic groups, other organization is by HB text usage.

17. How else do you use technology in teaching?
I helped design and implement a distance learning course for the physics department at the University of Virginia. We just finished our eighth year with the course. I’ve used several online delivery systems for homework, collaboration, and course content. A few of these include Blackboard, Toolkit, and the open-source Sakai Collaborative and Learning Environment (CLE) (at UVa we call it Collab). www.sakaiproject.org
I use Skype to keep in contact with students in various locations. I have used Google-Video chat for the same purpose, but usually use Skype video when teaching Hebrew one-on-one. I’m working on using audio and video resources for presenting a multi-sensory vocabulary project. I definitely advocate students learning to properly use digital tools such as Accordance, Logos, or BibleWorks.

18. You’re reading at SBL in New Orleans, correct?
Yes, I’m presenting two papers. In the Best Practices in Teaching Workshop I’m presenting “Examining our Exams: What to include, exclude, and revisit for Biblical Language  Exams.” In the Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies section I’m presenting “Taking the Distance out of Distance Learning.”

19. What are you reading currently?
Just finished Minds and Gods (Tremlin), Fieldwork (Berlinski), and Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street (Davis). I also finished a few short fiction books. The best of which were by Alexander McCall Smith. Portuguese Irregular Verbs and The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs were hysterical and any academic will recognize themselves or some colleague between the covers of the books. I’m reading through a bibliography of books and articles on Hebrew conditionals. Finally, bedside reading includes Tolkien’s The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún.

20. What are you working on currently?
Gardening (vegetables, herbs, and native flowers), being more responsible with things like water and electricity (we put in three rain barrels and replaced various appliances with more efficient ones), swimming (I’m am a totally different person when I can get in the pool for a couple of hours several times a week). I’d like to swim in a competitive meet because as a child we could never afford for me to join a swim team, now I may have my chance! I’m a contributor writing entries for a bible dictionary to be published by Baker, typesetting a colleague’s book about royal inscriptions (for Mohr-Siebeck), and writing my dissertation. I’m also working on a section of Christo van der Merwe’s updated edition of his grammar (I’m working on אִם). My husband wants me to take up artwork again, and now that I have room in my studio/office to unpack all the art supplies, I just might. In between these things I help out with my daughter’s children. If I can’t pass on my experiences and knowledge to them, what right do I have to teach anyone else?

Much thanks to Karyn for making time for us!