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University of Wyoming

Kambutu: Ellbogen Award a call to action

Word that the University of Wyoming had bestowed upon him its highest teaching award caught John Kambutu by surprise.

   In fact, it took a few days to realize that he hadn’t dreamed the call and that he had been named a 2006 recipient of the John P. Ellbogen Meritorious Classroom Teaching Award.

   While some might consider such an honor a career pinnacle, Kambutu, assistant professor of educational studies at the UW/Casper College Center, sees it as an opportunity to reflect and a foundation for the next phase of his professional life.

   “This is raising the bar for me,” he says. “I’ve been asking myself: ‘Now, what do I do? How do I make sure that I don’t fail them, that I don’t disappoint them?’ How do I not only maintain my teaching standard but improve on it?”

   Kambutu resisted family pressure to pursue a legal career, so that he could take his high school principal’s advice and follow his passion: teaching. It is a journey that led John from his home country, Kenya, to Laramie to complete his undergraduate program in education. A master’s degree in educational administrationfollowed a year later and ultimately, so did a Ph.D. in adult and post-secondary education. John found a home in Wyoming and on the College of Education faculty.

   Kambutu describes his early approach to educating teachers-in-training as “fiery” and a straightforward transmission of knowledge. Making students “get it” was the ultimate goal. Over the more than 20 years in the classroom, his understanding of learning has evolved—and with it, his philosophy and teaching style. He draws from his own experiences as a lifelong learner to help students think critically and arrive at their own conclusions.

    Kambutu still leads straightforward academic discussions when the subject and situation call for them. But more often, he functions as a learning leader who stretches students as they consider increasingly complex issues in education. He encourages them to research, evaluate and identify ways in which the issue affects them and the students who will one day be in their classrooms.

   “That’s when learning is taking place—when students are able to bring out what I brought, personalize it, put it out there for public interpretation, and then come up with their own meaning,” Kambutu says.

   They also must answer the inevitable “now what?” question.

   “I ask them, ‘How do you see yourselves in the context of the solutions that you are providing?’”

   “That’s what it means to be a member of a democratic society,” John says, “Democracy means that we are in this together. We can’t afford to point fingers at other people. We have to know what’s going on and then ask ourselves, ‘so how do I fit into this picture?’  That is when transformation takes place.”

   While Kambutu spends most of his instructional time with college-age students, he also draws energy from interacting with classrooms of young children. In fact, those children are the focal point of his professional life.

   To Kambutu, young children are like small ships, lacking sophisticated tools to navigate life’s journey.

   “They’re not miniature adults—they’re not complex, they’re very innocent and trusting,” he says. “My question is, how are we guiding them? I want them to get the best guidance possible.”

   Kambutu’s work with the “big ships”—pre-service teachers—prepares them to guide young people to successful educational careers and lives. John says he doesn’t worry about whether his legacy will be publicly acknowledged at the end of the career, or whether former UW/CC students readily list him as a favorite teacher.

   “If that happens, that will be a good thing,” he says, “but my focus is on our little ships. Everything I do, I do for the little children.”

   For Kambutu, the ultimate measure of whether or not he’s made a difference will be the ways in which his former students have made a difference in the lives of generations of “little ships.”