Meet Chris.
Chris McLain has over 30-years of teaching experience in high school and university spaces. He has also taught education courses in China and Togo as part of a seminary missions program to national pastors. Chris and his wife Mandy operate a non-profit organization that serves the local youth with after-school activities and addresses food insecurity. This platform is used to share the gospel and disciple the area youth. Chris also has a passion for the outdoors, leading numerous wilderness backpacking and canoeing trips for teens, sports teams, and adults in Canada, Pennsylvania, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
Chris views the wilderness as a control lab for learning where outside supports and distractions are out of reach, and participants are pushed to interact with the learning environment. These experiences have shown him how to create engagement in the classroom, ask questions, and use tension to process learning. He has learned how to engage people within their learning experience to maximize the benefits to them and their needs. Whether the person is a student, an athlete, a pastor, or a church layman, he works to learn about their aspirations and needs to shape the learning for their maximum benefit.
Teaching matters because everyone is in the process of learning either intentionally or unintentionally. The right teacher will look to the student first so that the content and skills match the student's goals and needs. Because learning is a human endeavor that grows from relationships.