From the Inspirational Teacher's series:
Dr. Brian Morley, Professor of Philosophy and Apologetics at The Master's College, provides students an example of deep humility, wisdom, truth, and love when approaching differing views to Christ and Christianity. His mastery of philosophy, love for the Lord, and overlay of history intertwine through every lesson in order to develop each student for real life. Students willing to listen and learn will recognize him as more than a man filling a classroom role and truly see a teacher preparing them for the fight of truth and life in a world fraught with deception and lifelessness.
He serves as a teacher that brings bright light (truth) to the dark discouragement the mind and the heart easily fall into via the minutia and contradiction of ideas, facts, thoughts, perspectives and world views this world affords. He focuses the senseless and silly student to be steadied by the ballast and foundation of truth while encouraging lightheartedness to the philosophical complexities. He introduces immature students to maturity with captivating stories and in depth understanding. He lays a road map of thought that simply leads to God and how different and distinct He really is among history and reality.
Any student who spends time asking him about his upbringing and work ethic to get to where he is will be greatly encouraged and inspired, especially by his view and love of people. I am thankful for him, one who taught well and challenged the very way I viewed life and God. I am in eternal thankfulness to Dr. Morley, as I hope all students are while going through his classes.
Here's the Q and A:
- What inspired you to teach?
I feel strongly about the importance of ideas, and I like to make them clear and (hopefully) interesting. Ideas shape us, they make us who we are, and they influence our personalities, feelings, and decisions. It’s ideas that build or tear down civilizations, and make armies march. That has been made abundantly obvious from the Second World War, the Cold War, and now in the interaction between Islam and the West. - Why do you teach the way you teach?
My goal is to make students mature, so they are no longer dependent on me as a teacher or on the school. As a mature person and thinker, they can themselves be a resource--a leader–whether they have the title or not. If someone never holds a position of any kind but becomes a parent, they will need every bit of maturity, intellectual and otherwise. In fact I can’t think of many things more important, or more demanding, than being a parent. - What teacher has had the greatest influence on you (parent, elementary teacher, pastor, professor, friend, colleague, etc.)?
The greatest (human) influence on me was my father, who loved learning and discovery–as well as wisdom, that ability to apply knowledge to life. He had a large personal library, and continually bought more books to read. Though we went to public school, he taught me and my sister at home: how to read, vocabulary, mathematics, literature, science, and more. I remember the day I learned something new in school that my father hadn’t already taught me. I believe I was in the seventh grade.
The second greatest influence was my fifth grade teacher. She impressed on us that God had given us a great gift, and that we were responsible to use it to benefit others, to make a contribution. I don’t think a week went by for the next three decades that I didn’t think about that and how to make that a reality. - Why was the teacher so influential?
Both my father and my teacher imparted to me that learning is an adventure, and is integral to growth. A full and rich life gives important place to the life of the mind. Knowledge and wisdom are at the core of life, and it’s a great privilege and blessing to seek and to share them.
