Rebecca Koerselman

Welcome to the Perspectives Journal Podcast where we have conversation with thoughtful and interesting people from a generously Reformed Perspective. We’ll be covering topics from theology and church to the arts and sciences. Today, we’ll be getting to know one of our Twelve Bloggers a little bit better. Introducing Rebecca Koerselman, a history professor at Northwestern College. In this episode, we discussed how Rebecca’s Reformed perspective and her faith shapes the way she studies history. She also tells of her fascination with gender history – studying history from the perspective of a particular gender and how that affects the way we perceive history. On a lighter note, one of the things Rebecca loves about teaching history is hearing the different perspectives that her students bring as they interpret history. And aside from teaching history, she finds joy in baking, spending time with her daughters, and doing projects around her home. Listen to the podcast or read the transcription for the full conversation and details. TRANSCRIPTION Steve: okay well we welcome Rebecca Koerselman, history professor at Northwestern College in Orange City and a regular blogger on the 12 thank you Rebecca for being one of our first podcast guests for the perspective podcast Rebecca: thank you Steve for having me Steve: so part of our goal is just to get to know some of our bloggers a little bit better so could you just tell us a little bit about who you are or your background what you do maybe FamilyLife kind of name rank serial number starting stuff Rebecca: Well, as you mentioned I’m a historian and I teach at Northwestern college. but I’ve kind of bounced around a few different places. I was born in Michigan, lived there for a while moved with my family to Iowa, went to Northwestern College as an undergrad and got my degree in history and secondary Ed, spent some time in South Dakota, and in central Iowa and then I spent time in Michigan at Michigan State to work on my doctoral degree in history. my first job was in Oklahoma and this is my second job, and this is my fourth year here. so we’ve lived a few different places mostly in the midwest. I have… my spouse Works in special education. and we have two daughters, which give our life a lot of fun and a lot of drama all at the same time . Steve:and tell us about teaching. why do you like to teach? what excites you in the classroom are there courses especially to you like the teach? or topics? or what what is it that kind of makes you get up in the morning and want to go to work? Rebecca: I love teaching. I love the interaction of Youth in particular dealing with content and history specifically. one of my favorite things about history is that it’s always an interaction between the present in the past. right? the past doesn’t necessarily change that much will occasionally does that most of the time that information say the same but we don’t. the things were interested in the things we pay attention to changes just like we do .and one of my favorite things about teaching history is that I get to see students bring their perspectives to what we’re looking at. so I could have read this book 4 5 times and then we talked about it in class, and I have students notice things and bring of things I’d never thought of or could ever possibly imagined before. and that’s one of my favorite things about teaching history. and I got to do that with high school students, I get to do that more with college students .because I got to spend less time policing behavior and more time talking about content, which I particularly enjoy. I teach all the u.s. history courses here at Northwestern College. and I’m primarily interested in 20th century US history. I do a lot and gender history and American religious history are two of my passions. I also oversee the student teachers and work a lot with the history education Majors, which I also really enjo