From Student to Teacher: A Journey of Faith, Learning, and Community
25 at 25 | Kenny Wollmann (CMU '18)
Kenny Wollmann is a high school educator, teaching primarily Bible, theology, and world religions—but not in a typical classroom. Wollmann teaches students online in Hutterite communities across Manitoba and even into the northern United States.
Hutterites are communal Anabaptist Christian groups who live in rural colonies, share belongings and resources, and often sustain themselves through agriculture. With only small groups of students in each community, sharing resources, like teachers who are each experts in their subjects, helps ensure a robust learning program.
Wollmann was called to be a teacher by his community, who sent him to university to get his credentials. He graduated from CMU in 2018 with a double major in Biblical and Theological Studies and History, after which he also earned an education degree. He's been teaching since then—not only online, but also English and social studies at the middle school in his home of Baker Hutterite Community in Manitoba.
He has also done a lot of publishing work with the Hutterian Brethren Book Centre, which resources the broader Hutterite community. He worked on 12 book projects this summer, completing several of them.
Wollmann actually started his post-secondary schooling at a different institution, but when he soon found the experience lacking, he decided to follow a friend's recommendation and take a class at CMU as a visiting student. Soon, he had transferred over to CMU full-time, taking too many courses at once and living on campus. "I barely survived that first semester, but I did. And more significantly, I made friends, I connected with people," he says.
He never imagined that the Bible would be his subject of choice to instruct. He began studying with the intention of teaching music and writing, but then a transformative moment happened in his CMU experience: "I reconnected with scripture," he says. "I had an awkward relationship with the Bible at that point in my life, and in Dan Epp-Tiessen's class, in Sheila Klassen-Wiebe's gospels class, my relationship with the Bible was rehabilitated... it was life changing."
He jokes that he still hasn't gotten over the fact that he won't be teaching Bible this year, since he was assigned to teach grade 11 and 12 health. "I wasn't going to be a Bible teacher. It's hilarious that's what I've become, and it's a place of deepest joy for me."
It was not just the classes that facilitated this trajectory. There were many opportunities for connection at CMU, and Wollmann regularly attended events like chapel, which contributed to his conversations and were reflected in his writing. "This notion of CMU being a learning and worshipping community, that really resonated with me. It was deeply meaningful."