Here’s how an award winning teacher at Summit Christian Academy inspires his students

Greg Finch knows well the influence an educator can make.

“I didn’t attend college until my early 30s,” Finch said. “ I didn’t know what my major would be, but presumed it would be business. But it was in college that I was caught off guard when I met a history professor that lit a fire in me.”

Finch went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in English literature and history, and a master’s degree in American history from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and began teaching at Summit Christian Academy in 2005.

Finch — a secondary American government, geography, world history and American history teacher at Summit Christian — was recently named the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution Outstanding Teacher of American History of 2022 for all Missouri schools, public and private.

Summit Christian Head of School Chris Hahn said Finch is one of the best teachers he has worked with in his career.

“His heart for Jesus, his love for the children he serves and his passion for history contribute to him being a master teacher,” Hahn said in a press release about the award. “I have been asked, ‘If you could go back and take a class at Summit Christian, what would it be?’ I would be excited to sign up with Mr. Finch.”

Finch was named the Summit Christian’s Teacher of the Year in 2018 and Teacher of the Year for the Great Plains Alliance of Christian Schools in 2019.

“When I made history my major, all my friends said, ‘Why do that? All you can do with a history degree is teach’,” Finch said. “I naively said, ‘I know I’ll never teach, but for now this is what my heart is telling me to pursue.’

“Years later, nobody was more surprised than I was when I found myself applying for a high school history position at Summit Christian.”

Finch said inspiring young people to understand their roots has become his joy.

“To me personally, the most meaningful era of American history to teach about surrounds the remarkable and revolutionary beginnings of our nation and the selfless visionaries that created our founding documents,” Finch said. “(They) gifted the Bill of Rights and amazing overall liberties to those of us who have come behind.”

He said students will often come to class with the predetermined idea that history is boring.

“That’s because they’ve had boring history teachers that have focused on dead people and broken things from the past with no context to their real lives today,” Finch said. “To be inspiring, history should be hands-on as much as possible.”

To achieve that, Finch developed a partnership with the owner of a Civil War-era home in Harrisonville.

“Sobering is the word that best describe the students’ personal experiences visiting the still-standing slave quarters in the backyard – located just 20 minutes from our school,” Finch said. “Over time, some of my young people learned the proper way to caretake the old cemetery while others learned how to excavate the foundation of a collapsed 19th-century summer kitchen.”

The homeowner once loaned Finch boxes of old uncatalogued family letters dating back to the 1860s.

Finch’s students transcribed and cataloged the letters.

Through those numerous letters, Finch said his students were able to follow the life of one young man who fell in love with a neighbor girl before going to law school and moving for a time to Washington, D.C. to intern for a congressman. He then was drafted to serve as an officer in France during World War I.

“My students were spellbound and couldn’t wait to get to class each day to learn about the next chapter of the history that was unfolding before them,” Finch said. “It all ended with the man’s sad death in France, not from war wounds, but from the flu pandemic.

“That project taught my students aspects of history nobody could ever learn from a textbook. They discovered history’s heart-wrenching human side, especially when we concluded the semester by taking a field trip to visit the soldier’s grave in a local cemetery. We all felt like we’d known him personally.”