Archives for 2025

We are teaching through a polycrisis – a situation in which the problems we and our students are facing in the world are complex and interpenetrating, increasing the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of our lives in the world. Many of our students went to high school or college, raised children, ...

Teaching. Is there a greater thing to fear? For those of us in religious education, the “straw epistle” tells us that the teacher will be judged more strictly (James 3:1). These words on strict judgment are a source of meta praxis reflection for me. Irene Orr defines meta praxis as: “the ...

Funie Hsu’s “How Mainstream Mindfulness Erases Its Buddhist Roots” hit my classroom like a bombshell. We had studied Hindu and Buddhist teachings in my sophomore-level philosophy class, and we were ending the semester by discussing the mindfulness movement. I had introduced Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and we had ...

Our attempts to teach towards openness, towards possibility, towards new glimpses of an uncharted future mean that teaching can be demanding, even confounding. One way I learned to embrace this approach was by incorporating rituals in my course designs. The use of rituals in classrooms allows students an experience that ...

Imagine quickly stepping out for a coffee break between classes. It sounds simple enough: latte or mocha? But for international students, especially those with F-1 visas, that seemingly easy choice turns into a mental checklist: Am I carrying my passport? My I-20 form? Do I have a valid driver’s ...