Resources by Ella Johnson

Like so many others during the pandemic I picked up a new hobby. Breadmaking was already claimed by two others in my family, so I decided to turn to houseplants. Gardening has always been therapeutic for me, so I sensed I would like getting my hands dirty indoors as well, and I had always found beauty and a sense of peace in homes filled with a variety of plants.I began pretty haphazardly, just buying plants I found on sale and watering them when they looked bad. I soon learned that water isn’t always the best solution for a dying plant. There is such a thing as overwatering, and I learned that lesson the hard way—by killing a lot of plants.It probably took me a year or so to learn the needs of different plants; for example, how much sun, humidity, and water they require. Now almost four years into my new craft, I rarely kill a plant. My eight-year-old daughter even recently declared: “Mommy, it’s starting to look like a jungle in here!” That’s when I knew I was getting good and that I had achieved the aesthetic I was going for.I’ve learned a lot of good lessons in becoming a plant person. In fact, I was reminded of my deleterious overwatering the other day, when I was making plans for my sabbatical this coming fall.This sabbatical will be the first one I’ve ever had the luxury to take, and to say that I’m looking forward to it would be an understatement. I’ve been teaching for fourteen years, and for the last two years I have been increasingly involved in administration.My fairly new administrative work has not left me much time for research. And when I think of that area of my academic life, I think of a wilted, dried out plant. I’ve pulled as much life out of my previous research as possible, and it’s parched.Always an overachiever, I know my tendency will be to over-plan for and overschedule my sabbatical time. I intend to write a new book. I want to read, research, and write; and I want to travel in Europe for my research. I also want to take pictures and videos during my travels for my classes.When I was charting this all out the other day, I was overwhelmed. My (too-high) expectations left me feeling panicky. I also started feeling the pressure of thoughts like: “Given the landscape of higher education, this might be your first and last sabbatical.” In short, I was setting myself up for burnout!Of course, this defeats the point of sabbatical. Isn’t it supposed to be a magical time in which one can finally achieve the sweet balance of rest and productivity?But how does one achieve this? I suppose the answer is different for everyone. It’s like caring for the different needs of different plants.Taking a tip again from my plants, I reflected on the following questions:1) What do I really need right now?What I need is some time to slow down and rest. I need some time to breathe, to re-center myself. I need to establish a new workplace (away from my institutional office), where I can be free from distractions. I need an easy routine with the time to be creative and to explore new ideas.2) What do I really want?What I want is to have some new life breathed into my intellectual project. I want to use the privilege of this precious time wisely. A semester free of classes and meetings provides me with the opportunity to travel for my research. I’ve always wanted to visit the monastic sites and places in Germany of the medieval writers who I study, and to talk and pray with the contemporary nuns that currently live there. Now I can!I also want to get several chapters of a new book written. This “want” competes with the other. Of course, planning for a trip and taking it will hinder my writing productivity, at least in the short term. I’ve had to come to grips with that fact, and remind myself that I can write anywhere and anytime. I can get some writing done on sabbatical, and continue the rest later.3) What will sustain me?What I need for my scholarly labor to be sustained, during this sabbatical and going forward from it, is for it to engage my intellectual passions. My last book was published four years ago. The world has changed since then, and so have I. One of the first things I need to do before starting in on a new research project is to give myself some time to reflect on some perennial questions. I have bookmarked Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield’s blog “Articulating Your Intellectual Project,” which contains questions like:     What is the intersection of your gifts/talents with the mighty needs of the world?     At the end of your life, when you look back over your long and illustrative career, to what did you say yes?I plan to use the questions she provides therein to help encourage and bring about clarity for the focus of my project and its intent.And then I plan to get to work (at a restful pace)!

I recently returned from an overnight trip to see some old family friends. They live about four hours away by car, so I only make it for a visit once every year or two. My friends have seven children, ranging from teenagers to young adults. So, there’s usually a milestone to celebrate in one of their kids’ lives, prompting me to make an annual trip. This year, it was the wedding of their oldest son.Their celebrations are always casual and relaxed, backyard parties including lots of food and drink. By the end of the evening, people either congregate around a bonfire or make their way into the living room.Their living room always makes an impression on me. Not because of its furniture or décor (it includes a well-worn couch and old piano, and is without a TV), but because of the way it welcomes and nourishes so many people.The room is typically full of people of all ages, races, and walks of life. It includes family members, old friends (like me), new neighbors and acquaintances, local migrant workers, single teenage mothers, children they are fostering (sometimes long-term, sometimes short-term), and even pet reptiles (this time I was introduced to an elderly snake who was struggling to deliver infertile eggs).The room provides a place to meet new people, to sing and dance around the piano, and to have conversations that relish in both the beauty and hardships of common humanity.Whenever I leave my friends’ house, I try to tell them how much grace I feel in their living room; I’m just so impressed by how a home created by two people can touch countless lives.And without a doubt, after each visit I reflect on my own life and reflect on how I might emulate some of their radical inclusivity and hospitality.I’ve been thinking about radical inclusivity quite a bit lately, anyway. Not so much in relation to my home, but to my classroom. I got to thinking about this while reading a new book by a former colleague of mine that notes how many diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and trauma-informed care trainings within the academy “remain entirely cognitively driven” and “situated within a deficiency praxis.” She says these programs are “not integrative or radical because they do not create ‘safe’ spaces for those of us who actively embody and allow our sensitive, intuitive implicit selves to be present”[i]The major insight I have taken away from this book is that in order to create these “safe” spaces, those of us within the academy need to resist the age-old structures of cognitive and colonial-patriarchal knowledge that have deemed all other ways of being and knowing as deficient.As a white tenured professor, I have certainly benefitted in many ways from this model. But I have also been reminded of the ways in which I have not measured up to this model: I am a woman, my family is blue-collar; my academic training has not been elite or traditional; and I have a proclivity for religion, and spiritual and embodied ways of knowing. That I have not been good enough has been said to me both directly and indirectly (in the form of jokes and insults) by professionals in the field, sometimes over “collegial” drinks and dinners, and sometimes as direct feedback in rejections from academic programs and teaching positions.Perhaps, because of these experiences, I have wanted something different for my students. I have wanted each and every student, regardless of their academic preparation, socioeconomic background, sexual orientation, or racial, gender, or religious identification, to feel welcome in my classroom and to have the opportunity to learn.Up until now, I’ve been trying to create this safe space mostly by my attitude and as a teacher. As much as possible, I try to connect with and meet each student where they are at. I do this by learning and using their chosen names, creating a space for them to connect their life experiences to course content, respecting differing opinions, and devoting some time in each class to checking in with how they are doing as people (not just as students). I also try to avoid using academic jargon, or ways of speaking which are unfamiliar to first-generation students.This, I hope, creates a safe and welcoming vibe similar to that in my friends’ living room: a space that is free from pretense, and in its simplicity allows for a deeper recognition of the diverse beauty and hardships of human experience, which comprise our common humanity.Something interesting about my friends is that one of them is a medical doctor, but nothing about their home, mannerisms, or even the company they keep indicates this to others. They intentionally live a radically simple lifestyle, without concern for status, possessions, or notoriety. Their home embodies a space that is free from the paradigms which are typically used to measure human worth. This, of course, is a sign of resistance, and is perhaps the main reason that people from all walks of life feel so welcome and comfortable in their space.This is a type of resistance that I can introduce to my classroom practice to make the space even safer. Beyond a welcoming presence, and course material that is representationally inclusive, I’m now considering how to reimagine the cognitive structures in which my courses are based. How might I measure learning and construct assessments in ways that are, dare I say, nonacademic? How can I create a space where first-generation and prep school students alike are on the same footing? What would an assignment in a first-year theology course look like, that allows people to learn in ways more unique to them and less-determined as deficient by old paradigms? How can I signal a deep valuing and respect for diverse and embodied ways of knowing?I look forward to suggestions from others! Notes & Bibliography[i] Iris Gildea, The Poetry of Belonging (Toronto: Mad and Crip Theology Press, 2024)

I stopped dead in my tracks. I had been enjoying an early-Autumn walk, crunching my way through fallen leaves, while listening to a Wabash Center podcast in which Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield and Rev. Dr. Steed Davidson were discussing how to “Future Proof Your Career.” I stopped walking when I heard Dr. Westfield declare: “I guarantee you, you will not have the career your mentor had. That career is over.” Later she remarked, “We need to adapt.” I didn’t stop walking because I was angry about having to change my pedagogy. To be honest, I enjoy that sort of thing. Neither did I stop walking because I was shocked. I know that small private liberal arts institutions and seminaries are facing enrollment challenges now, perhaps more than ever. And, for this reason, new adaptions and academic-adjacent careers are a reality for those of us teaching theology and religion, especially those of us who are in the beginning or middle stages of our career trajectories. I stopped walking because I was stunned by the clear and honest way Dr. Westfield had articulated something I had been thinking about a lot—and to be honest, wrestling with—in a couple of different ways in my current institution. I teach in the Theology department at a fairly small, private Catholic institution. Most of the students we teach register for our courses to fulfill a General Education requirement in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. This context is quite different from one in which I formerly taught, comprised of students pursuing a theology degree for professional ministry. My current colleagues and I have been reflecting on the purpose of our department and its course offerings within our institution; in doing so, we have discussed how we primarily serve the General Education curriculum, rather than a curriculum designed for theology majors. While we have several majors graduate from our program every year, we need to make sure we are serving not only them, but also the bulk of the students in our classes who are not theology majors. Of course, a curriculum designed for majors needs to cover a range of diverse areas of study within its discipline, equipping students with the knowledge and skills necessary to pursue a career or further studies in its area. Content is critical. Certain topics in the discipline must be covered. However, in a curriculum designed for students taking a couple of courses in theology as a general education requirement, specific areas of content are less critical. Instead, courses are meant to introduce students to a discipline—not by covering all of its topics in a preliminary way—but by teaching students how to use the approach of the discipline, or to think with its lens. For example, in a content approach, I construct a course around the question: “What do students need to know about Christianity?” I then choose a textbook that covers these areas of knowledge that I have deemed necessary. The methodological approach, instead, asks: “How will I teach students to think theologically?” Often, when the course is a requirement for their graduation, I have to ask the additional question: “How will I get students to understand that learning to think this way is relevant to their lives?” One way our department has done this is to revise the introductory theology courses we teach. Rather than asking our students to fulfill their first theology course in an introduction to Scripture or Systematics, we designed a course that introduces students to Christian scriptures and theological disciplines through the lens of justice. This change in focus made us adapt the way we teach. Rather than simply teaching only about our content areas of expertise, we are teaching in ways that engage the contemporary questions our students (most of whom may be categorized as Gen Z) find relevant. This change, in my experience, has increased student engagement. For example, not many of my students—especially those who are not majors or care much about Christianity—find a unit on creation in systematics very interesting, at least on a personal level. Their lives aren’t invested in the doctrine of creation ex-nihilo and learning about pantheism and panentheism. However, if I introduce them to Christian scriptures and theology on creation with a primary focus on global warming, they are engaged almost instantaneously. This focus addresses something the world needs right now. More than increased levels of engagement, though, this new approach introduces students to a practice of applying theology to contemporary concerns. My hope is that by the time they leave my class, when religious ideas and concerns show up in contemporary events, they know how to evaluate and analyze them. How is scripture being used at an anti-immigration protest, for example? What we have done in our department resonates with a point Dr. Davidson made in the podcast. He mentioned someone who wanted to research gazelles in antiquity. This person eventually became interested in contemporary animal rights movements and wanted to bring that into their work, but the individual’s dissertation committee advised against it. (Most likely because the committee didn’t know how to direct it in that way). The point is that the questions in which the dissertation committee members are interested are not the same questions that those with future careers will need be to ready to answer, in order to thrive. The other way I (and some of my departmental colleagues) have been thinking about this question is in our upper-level courses. I’ll be honest, I’m attached to mine. I have a 300-level course on “Medieval Women Mystics” that I love because I get to introduce students to my favorite area of research and expertise. I’m beginning to understand, however, that it’s probably time to contemporize this course as well. It’s time to reframe this course around important questions of our time. Stay tuned.

Going to the local art supply store was something one of my cousins and I used to love to do as kids. I remember how she used to walk up and down every aisle looking carefully at all the different kinds of paints, brushes, and pencils. I could almost see her thinking about how she would use each one to improve her next project. While I liked going to the store, I never really used to think of myself as an artist. But I do now. I view teaching as an art. It involves carefully designing syllabi, assignments, classroom activities, and more. And I love to shop for new tools to improve this craft. I remember acquiring a simple but extremely helpful tool about ten years ago, during a Wabash Center Workshop for Pre-Tenure Theology Faculty. A member of the leadership team, Rolf Jacobson, encouraged us to read at least two books on teaching each year. Since then, I’ve adopted this advice as discipline. If I haven’t read my two books by the end of the academic year, I read them during the summer. I’ve found that reading about teaching not only keeps me up-to-date in the field, but it often prompts me to revise my syllabi or classroom assignments, which, at the very least, reenergizes my classroom presence and practice. I’ve also picked up another helpful tool from Wabash—probably the most useful one I’ve found to date: writing about teaching. I began this practice on a regular basis when I was first asked to contribute to a Wabash blog series back in 2014. I was given a schedule of deadlines for my contributions (around five over the period of a year or two). I found that the schedule encouraged a helpful rhythm for me throughout the academic year. Every few months I had to set aside some time to really reflect on my teaching and articulate it to others. I have the benefit of working in a department in which all of the faculty members are both collegial and dedicated to teaching. While we often chat about classroom experiences and things that either work or don’t work in our classes, these conversations are usually brief because we are all just so busy. Setting aside the time to write about my teaching, whether for a blog or in a journal, gives me extra space for processing and reflection. Sometimes this extra space is a necessity. Like the time when I fell down on the first day of class (!), or during the last several years when teaching during multiple pandemics and traumatic current events. In these instances, writing about teaching has helped me to discover, articulate, and distill lessons about myself as a pedagogue and ways to facilitate more engaged learning for students. Other times, I’ve found that writing about teaching has elicited valuable advice and feedback from others. Several years ago I reflected on whether or not it is helpful to display emotions in the classroom while talking about difficult topics like racism. I now understand that, as a white teacher, I was not seeing my own privilege in even asking the question. Comments and feedback on this blog helped me to grow. Receiving viewpoints different from my own allow this to happen. As is the case with research articles and manuscripts, writing and publishing about teaching puts my work out there for others to see. While this sometimes feels vulnerable, the critiques I receive often help me to come to a fuller, more accurate view of the topic or what I could be doing better. In other cases, I write about teaching because something beautiful happened! This happens when I see a “light-bulb” click on for one of my students, or when a classroom conversation takes on a life of its own and results in a moment of organic learning. Sometimes I see the Spirit move in unexpected ways in the classroom or I find that an assignment I designed worked well. Sometimes all of these things happen at the same time. These are moments of beauty. I write about them and read about how other teachers have experienced them in their own classrooms, so we can all appreciate the beauty. Like when my cousin uses a good paintbrush, I use writing about teaching to ultimately enhance the beauty of my craft.

“It’s like you’re crying out for them to trust you.” These insightful words were said to me nearly 10 years ago in a small group conversation at a Wabash Workshop for Pre-Tenure Theological School Faculty. I remember the conversation with gratitude.  We were sharing with each other what we had written down individually in response to reflection prompts about our experience in the classroom. The prompts had elicited some unprocessed emotions in me about my first few years of teaching. I was fortunate to get a teaching job the same semester I earned my Ph.D. I had some confidence in my abilities to do the job well, as I had graduated at the top of my class and gained some valuable classroom experience and mentoring in graduate school. But what little confidence I had was quickly shaken. After I had distributed and explained the syllabus in my first class, a student declared, “We’re going to run you back to Toronto where you came from!” Everyone laughed and cheered. This class was comprised mostly of men, ranging in age from 40-70 years old, with one year left in their graduate program before they were ordained to the deaconate in the Roman Catholic Church. I stood before them as a freshly minted Ph.D., who had just turned 30 years old, and had not yet had the time or experience to find confidence my teaching voice. The demanding syllabus I had crafted may have surprised them, given my age, gender, and long blond hair. I made it through that first semester, but I have the scars to prove it. I still remember one classroom discussion in which a student admitted, “I don’t know why I like to pick on you so much.” In another class, after a student bluntly told me that he didn’t know why I was teaching the way I was, I shouted, “I have a PhD!” In hindsight, over a decade later, I can see the situation for what it was. My body was not welcome in the space. Just by standing in front of the class, as a woman in a position of religious authority, I challenged their assumptions of credible leadership. It’s likely that my students asked the (un)conscious question, “If she can’t be ordained, can she teach those who will?” At the time though, the resistance I faced in the classroom, caused me to doubt my teaching vocation. “Maybe they’re right,” I worried. “Maybe I just don’t belong.” As a first-generation college student, I always felt like a bit of a misfit in graduate school. But now I was feeling for the first-time like a misfit in the church. Sharing these experiences with my Wabash cohort colleagues brought healing and affirmation of my teaching vocation. Each of us in the cohort were all so different in so many ways (i.e., personality, educational background, race, ability, religious affiliation, culture) but we shared a vocation (in addition to a lot of food and fun). Others had not been welcomed in spaces due to their embodiment, in far more violent, ongoing, and consistent ways than I had ever experienced. My cohort experience was also free from the academic pretense that so often deepened my self-doubt. I felt like I could be exactly who I was and that I was valued for it. I belonged. As I began to trust my vocation and my place in the academy and church, my eager desire for my students to trust me waned. It didn’t matter as much. While trust is necessary for real intellectual and spiritual formation to occur, it can’t be earned, begged for, or contrived. In fact, now I understand that the most certain way to gain this trust from students is by embracing who I uniquely am and being true to my vocation.

In striving to craft a trauma-informed pedagogy while teaching about social justice, my reflections have often circled around a central question: When is it appropriate to use tragic and traumatic current events as examples of injustice in the classroom? I’ve been pondering this question for the last few years, while teaching undergraduate courses at a predominately White, Catholic institute. The majority of students take my classes to fulfill a General Education requirement. Most students are from Christian denominations at varying levels of personal faith commitments, and few might elect to take a theology class if it was not required. On the one hand, making connections between course content and the world in which students live is effective. Tethering discussion to an event that every person in the classroom knows about (e.g., the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021) is an attention-grabber. When a well-known event, like the Atlanta spa shootings, affects a particular community more significantly than others—in this case, the AAPI community—discussing it in class signals to students that I take the trauma seriously and care about how they’ve been impacted by it. It can also be time during which my White-identifying students—especially those from predominately White communities—may be more open to learn a much-needed lesson about the reality of White supremacy and White privilege. On the other hand, I worry about retraumatizing students from communities affected by the event. I’ll never forget how a few years ago, after a 2-week unit on racism in my theology and social justice course, a Black male student told me: “I have to think about racism almost every minute in my life. I always have a target on my back. I drive to school with my wallet on the dashboard, just in case I get pulled over. When I get to your classroom, I want a break. I just want to talk about Jesus.” This student did not need me to cater to White students, in trying to convince them that Black lives really do matter. And it clearly added to his trauma when I did. This question of how often to bring traumatic current events into the classroom came to a head while I was teaching about theology and justice this spring, in an undergraduate class entitled “Just Theology.” My class is constructed around several modules, each analyzing a theme of injustice prevalent in US society, through a theological lens. Modules center around topics like poverty, war and weapons, global warming, sexism and patriarchy, racism, immigration, and homophobia and transphobia. My students were predominately White (around 10 to 15 percent BIPOC-identifying) and fairly gender balanced. In my 24-student undergraduate classes usually no more than one student (if that) openly identifies as trans or non-binary. In some classes, I’ve had up to 30 percent disclose to me in written work that they identify as LGBTQ+, but not all are open on campus. This last semester (Spring 2021), I had no shortage of options for bringing current events into our classroom discussions. But I was also deeply aware of how my students were living in a permanent state of instability and uncertainty, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Capitol attack, the US-Mexico border crisis, ongoing police brutality and murders, record high unemployment rates, and frequent mass shootings. Introducing students to disorienting dilemmas with conflicting theories and positions, as I usually tried to do in other semesters, almost seemed insensitive in a context already so unstable and polarized over these same issues. After chatting with some colleagues about this struggle, I came to articulate and adopt a pedagogical principle: discussing traumatic events in the classroom, in such an unstable time, necessitates a stabilizing scaffold to frame the events, that is, a theory or intellectual framework that is responsible to course content and objectives.[1] Remembering my former student’s words about wanting to “just talk about Jesus” in my class, I decided to include in my syllabus a piece by Kelly Brown Douglas which makes connections between the stand-your-ground murder of Trayvon Martin and the crucifying murder of Jesus.[2] Of course, in requiring reading like this, appropriate trigger warnings and alternative assignments need to be offered to students, especially during traumatic times. But the reading assignment seemed to help several students connect my class to the world around them in a personal way. By reading, discussing, and writing about Douglas’s connection between Jesus and Trayvon, most of my White students, who needed to, gained some awareness of White supremacy and White privilege. Some of my students of color commented on how they had never been introduced to a liberating reading of Jesus and appreciated this one that connected deeply to their current everyday struggles. The piece provided nearly all of the students a concept to evaluate—a stabilizing intellectual scaffold around which to consider disorienting and nonsensical tragedies and traumas. Teaching through 2020 and 2021 has been difficult, to be sure, but my students helped me to see how many of them necessitate and yearn for critical thought even more during times of tragedy, uncertainty, and trauma. [1] I am particularly grateful to my colleague and conversation partner, Dr. Kristi Law, Director of the Bachelor of Social Work program and Associate Professor at St. Ambrose University, for helping me think through this idea. [2] Kelly Brown Douglas, “Jesus and Trayvon: The Justice of God,” in Stand your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2015), 171-203.  

For the last few years, in teaching about racial justice, I have consciously decided to incorporate into my syllabi an opportunity for critical reflection based on Stephen Brookfield’s theory of “ideology critique.”[1] In short, Brookfield defines ideology critique as “part learning process, part civic action”; it “focuses on helping people come to an awareness of how capitalism, White Supremacy, patriarchy, ableism, heterosexism, and other ideologies shape beliefs and practices that justify and maintain economic and political inequity.”[2] As Brookfield describes it, ideology critique is a helpful tool for framing discussions about the unjust beliefs and assumptions that dictate the unequal ways in which society is organized: “(1) that apparently open, Western democracies are actually highly unequal societies in which economic inequity, racism, and class discrimination are empirical realties; (2) that the way this state of affairs is reproduced as seeming to be normal, natural, and inevitable (thereby heading off potential challenges to the system) is through the dissemination of dominant ideology; and (3) that critical theory attempts to understand this state of affairs as a prelude to changing it.”[3] As I understand and use his theory, the ubiquitous and dominant nature of unjust ideologies, like racism, demands that every subject area question its foundational assumptions, in order to pave the way for real and lasting societal change. Assignments designed to teach ideology critique also help us model that habit of mind with our students and let them practice it as well. In order to use this theory in my courses effectively, I need to connect the critical reflection with course content in a way that is responsible for the methods and objectives about which I am hired to teach (i.e., Catholic Systematic Theology). One of the most effective strategies I’ve designed is the following written assignment. In one of my introductory theology courses, I ask my students to write a critical evaluation of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) most recent document on race, “Open Wide Our Hearts: A Pastoral Letter Against Racism,” issued in 2018. To prepare students for the assignment, we spend a few class sessions analyzing the social realties of racism and white privilege based on the work of scholars like Ibram X. Kendhi and Robin DiAngelo. We then turn to a Catholic theological perspective written by Bryan Massingale, a Black Roman Catholic moral theologian and priest, who also has recently come out as gay. I have students read Massingale’s critique of prior USCCB documents and list both the substantial deficits and limitations that he identifies. To do this, they read a chapter from his groundbreaking book, Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, which was published in 2010, eight years prior to the writing of the most recent “Open Wide Our Hearts” document. Then, in their written assignment, I ask the students to apply Massingale’s critiques of the prior USCCB documents to their own analysis of the current one. This assignment has been effective for a number of reasons. First, it allows students the chance to explore how racism has been embedded not just in economics and politics, but in religion—something of which they are not always aware. In particular, they often identify how even a theological document that denounces racism is itself entangled with assumptions based in patriarchy, heterosexism, and White Supremacy. For instance, many times students remark on how the USCCB document is written by a predominately White group of people, all of whom are men. In recent student papers, two different students made this critique and bolstered it by mentioning how the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus (NBCCC) approved a statement in April of 1968 that described the Catholic Church as a “white racist institution.” Second, it often leads students to see how theology and religion have the opportunity as ideologies to promote civic action, as was the case with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s religious convictions, but how they can also be problematic—particularly if they promote reconciliation without justice. For example, a recent student’s paper made this critique by remarking on the 2018 USCCB document “Open Wide Our Hearts” in this way: The Catholic Bishops think that racism will be overcome by education, dialogue, and moral persuasion. They think that if everyone is educated on racism that it’ll just magically disappear, but it’s not that simple…. Racism has been with us for many, many years now and it’s deep in our roots. It’s not something you can change overnight by having a different mindset. I wish it were that easy, but unfortunately it’s not. The student is recognizing that racism goes beyond an individual’s acts, and that it is also a widespread and deeply entrenched, systemic issue. Another student went further in their analysis and considered why the Bishops might not have promoted real systemic change in their document: I think that the Bishops might be concerned with not crossing any boundaries and having too strong of an opinion that would align themselves with a certain political party. The idea that there needs to be a separation of church and state has been a saying for a long time and people believe that it is an important part in democracy. This concern is valid but I also think that the idea of all people having equal rights is not only a Catholic belief and should be a belief held by both political parties. Finally, and here’s where I hope the assignment is most effective: the assignment teaches students to begin to develop and adopt for themselves a process of ideology critique outside of the classroom. For instance, after discussing the widespread issuing of #BLM statements by nearly every retail company, with no real call to action, one student made a similar critique of the 2018 USCCB document as the “church’s feeble attempt to get ahead of a problem instead of being deemed as ignoring the problem.” When students are able to identify how racism has been shaped and maintained in other documents, beliefs, and practices, including but not limited to religious ones, I know the assignment has accomplished its objective. Notes [1] This post continues reflections that I began in a previous post. I am grateful to Dr. Jessica Tinklenberg, who encouraged me to develop this post in such a way, and to include anonymous student comments. She also worked with me on a fuller piece which will be include in the American Academy of Religion’s Fall 2020 edition of Spotlight on Teaching. [2] Stephen Brookfield, “The Concept of Critical Reflection: Promises and Contradictions,” European Journal of Social Work 12, no. 3 (September 2009): 298-299. [3] Brookfield, 298.

Since last fall, the theology department at my institution, St. Ambrose University, has been offering a new course called “Just Theology.” On the first day of class each semester, I like to poll the students to ask them what they think the title “Just Theology” means. Most of the students’ answers reveal that they assumed they had signed up for a basic theology class, one that covered religious principles only—without any math, science, or art mixed in. In actuality, the class is designed to introduce students to the study of Christian scripture and theology through the lens of justice. I’ve learned more from this first day activity than that my students are bad at puns. Many are surprised to learn that theology has anything to do with just action in the world. In an effort to analyze this trend more deeply and to see if the course is successful in teaching about the relationship between justice and theology, my department chair, Lisa Powell, developed a survey to distribute to our students on both the first and last day of class. The survey asks students to respond to five statements: (1) “Acting for justice is central to the Christian life”; (2) “Racial justice is an important part of the Christian message”; (3) “Christian teaching can have a liberating message for women”; (4) “Care for the earth is an important part of Christian teaching”; and (5) “The Bible shows God’s particular concern for the poor.” Students indicate their belief about each statement from the following options: “strongly disagree”; “disagree”; “agree”; “strongly agree”; and “I don’t know.” It surprises me each semester to learn that only about half of the students at the beginning of the semester select “agree” or “strongly agree” to each statement. In fact, around 25-30% select “strongly disagree.” I am always happy to see that nearly all the students select “agree” or “strongly agree” by the end of the semester. The surveys are helpful in gauging what my students’ preconceptions about religion and theology are, especially at the beginning of the semester, so I can identify the starting point for our conversations. This semester’s data was particularly noteworthy. To take just one example: only about 10% of my class indicated that they agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “Racial justice is an important part of the Christian message.” I asked the class, “Who has ever heard a sermon or homily that endorsed racial justice?” About 10% raised their hands. This was disturbing, particularly on the heels of a summer in which racial injustice and police brutality received heightened attention in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. I asked the students how many had attended a Black Lives Matter protest this summer: about 25% of them raised their hands. But when I asked how many did this from a religious or faith conviction, none raised their hands. About the same 25% of students raised their hands when I asked if they had watched Representative John Lewis’s funeral on television. Again, when I asked if anyone could give me an example of how his religious/faith convictions related to his social justice work, no one raised their hands. Of course, John Lewis’s life and funeral provides a heroic and exceptionally clear example of the relationship between God and just action in the world. But the students seemed to miss the connection. Instead, they told me that they understood his civic engagement (and civic disobedience) as stemming from his affiliation with the Democratic party. As a counterpoint and illustration of black liberation theology, I read the students this quote from President Obama’s eulogy: “Like John the Baptist preparing the way, like those Old Testament prophets speaking truth to kings, John Lewis did not hesitate—he kept on getting on board buses and sitting at lunch counters, got his mug shot taken again and again, marched again and again on a mission to change America.” [i] One student responded to the quote by mentioning that it was President Obama who delivered the eulogy. They seemed to be arguing that political party affiliations and values were more probable indicators of one’s work for social justice in the world than one’s theological commitments. This summer as I prepared for my classes, I knew this semester would be a complicated one for students in nearly every aspect. I revised syllabi and lesson plans to account for and to integrate the COVID - 19 pandemic and increased exposure to ongoing racial injustice, but I neglected to consider how deeply the pre-election, polarized political landscape would impact students’ assumptions about theology and justice. One student honestly explained to me that they responded “strongly disagree” on the survey because when they scroll through social media, they only see Christianity associated with injustice, and usually with the political “right.” Donald Trump’s photo op with the Bible in front of St. John’s Church offers a poignant example of such. After just one week of this fall semester, I’ve learned that I need to be more cognizant than ever before, about so many things—including students’ presuppositions about religion and politics, and theology and justice. Notes [i] “President Barack Obama’s Eulogy for John Lewis: Full Transcript.” New York Times, July 30 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/us/obama-eulogy-john-lewis-full-transcript.html.  

In teaching undergraduates about social justice, I have found that the concept of the common good is both the most foundational and difficult one for students to learn. According to Catholic social teaching, the perspective from which I teach my theology and justice courses, the concept is defined as such: every individual person should have sufficient access to the resources of the society that they need to completely and easily live fulfilling lives; therefore, the rights of the individual to personal possessions and community resources must be balanced with the needs of the disadvantaged and dispossessed. My students are able to memorize this definition for exams, but when asked to apply this principle to everyday life and current events, they struggle. I recently discovered, however, that tethering the abstract concept to the concrete circumstances of their lives, as with most things, is the key to their learning. I made this discovery in mid-March during the abrupt transition of my classes from face-to-face to online format due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With only a few panic-filled days to reformat my classes, I sought help from my “squad”—i.e., my group of justice-seeking colleagues and friends that I trust for advice on how to care for students. Over phone-calls and group social media chat, we shared ideas about how we could ascertain and meet our students’ needs during this unprecedented time. I decided to send out a survey worth enough points to insure that every student would fill it out, quickly. This enabled me to assess whether every student had sufficient access to the resources they needed to live their lives and continue their education. I was worried about the safety and health of my students—particularly those in possible situations of intimate partner-violence, LGBTQ+ identified students who were returning to live with unsupportive families, international students who could not return home, students who lost their jobs or were now working more now than ever in healthcare, grocery stores, or family businesses, and students who had contracted or been exposed to the coronavirus. Of course, I also needed to know about Wi-Fi and computer access, since without these necessities any online learning would be impossible. I was sure there were also student issues that I had not thought of yet. So, I created and distributed a simple survey. I asked students about: Their concerns about safety, health, Covid-19, and current living conditions Wi-Fi availability Access to a computer Access to course textbooks (since some had not been able to return to campus after Spring Break, before moving home) Preferences for online class sessions and office hours to supplement asynchronous lectures and discussion boards--e.g., optional groups hangouts; open office hours? (Accounting for abrupt schedule changes and heeding advice from my “squad,” I made all of my classes asynchronous) Concerns they had about online learning and completing coursework What support they needed from me Other concerns I told the students that the questions I asked them on the survey were “no-brainers.” I needed this information, first, to connect them to resources for their safety and health, if necessary, and then to re-construct course syllabi that were fair and manageable during this time of upheaval and crisis. I told them that these are the questions that the principle of the common good asks and that the responses the questions generate often demands a restructuring of the community. They got it, because it related to their lives directly. I also discovered two things: I should be explicitly asking every semester, even outsides of crisis, about student needs and access to resources. Responsible pedagogy demands upholding the common good principle. And effective teaching about this foundational social justice principle requires the instructor to model it by applying it to students’ immediate situations and experiences. This application, in my experience, proved to be the bridge necessary for students to transverse the gap between memorizing a definition to rooting it in their lives with meaning. As I write this blog, the recent murders of African Americans Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, and the ensuing outrage and protests over their murders, demand me again to consider the common good outside and inside of the classroom. The fact that black lives do not yet matter in our country and world is a clear illustration of the common good failing to be met in our nation. I should be teaching content like this in my classes, while at the same time being cognizant in my pedagogical practice of the heightened needs of my students, particularly those of color. If you are teaching this summer, how have you restructured your content and pedagogy to account for how the basic needs of your students have changed, due to the global Covid-19 pandemic and the continued outright disregard for black and brown lives?

“I’m just so sick of feeling awkward,” I told my spouse the night before the first day of classes this semester. After having taught for eight years in another school across the country, I was about to begin teaching at a new institution. I was bemoaning the fact that everything was different at my new job, and I felt like a fish-out-of-water most of the time. My new colleagues were extremely warm, welcoming, and supportive. But I was still learning the ropes at my new institution. I had to ask questions about nearly everything: how to use the copy machine, if I could use the coffee maker at the end of the hall, how to navigate the learning management system, and who to go to on campus for what. I was also feeling unsure about the new age range of students I’d be teaching. I had been at a small graduate school, comprised of adult students (generally ages 40-70), and I was now at a medium-sized liberal arts institution, teaching mostly undergraduate students (typically 18-21 years old). I hadn’t taught undergraduate students since I had completed my PhD, over 9 years ago. When I was chatting about my nervousness with a friend, she consoled me by saying, “You’ll be fine. Just don’t dress frumpy!” So, when I was getting ready for work on the first day of classes, I went to my closet in search of my least frumpy ensemble. I donned a brightly colored geometric-print skirt and a pair of 3-inch heeled sandals in hopes that my students, over twenty years younger than me, might approve. My first two classes that day went well. I introduced them to the syllabus and assignments, but also sprinkled in some course content. I also tried to introduce them to my teaching style, by using music, 1-min journal writes, and a think-pair-share exercise. By the third class of the day, I was getting into the groove and feeling more confident, which means I began to walk around in the classroom. Then, right in the middle of class, when I was near the front of the room, I stumbled. I lost balance on my right foot—remember: I was wearing 3-inch sandals—and then tried to regain balance by putting all of my weight on my left foot. The next thing I knew, I was tripping around the front of the class and flailing my arms in big circular motions until I went crashing into the whiteboard behind me. The only saving grace was that my skirt remained in place. When I regained my composure and looked up, the 24 students in the room (nearly all of whom were first-years) were staring at me wide-eyed, their mouths gaping. One cried out, “Are you okay?!?!?” I managed to mumble a joke about them not expecting an acrobatics performance in a theology class, but it had no effect. No one laughed. They were, I’m guessing, still in shock. I had to keep talking and teaching, because what else could I do? After class (thankfully my last class for the day), I headed back to my office. I passed my new colleagues in the hall, and did what any self-respecting introvert would do: When they asked me how my first day went, I smiled and said, “Fine!” Then, I went into my office, closed the door, and posted about it on Facebook. The next day, I could laugh about it (and could also tell my new colleagues about it). I laughed about it with my students, which gave them permission to laugh about it too. And now that we are almost at the mid-term mark in the semester, I realize, like most awkward and humbling experiences, there’s a teaching and learning moment in this one too. Here’s what I learned: 1) Embrace the awkward; it may help in relating to students. Even before I fell, I was feeling awkward, but I’m guessing that many of my students were too. As first-year students, it was also their first day of class in a new institution too. Some students had to present me with sheets verifying their learning accommodation needs, which, based on societal stigmas, they might not have preferred to do. Others, I later learned, were first-generation college students and were wondering if they belonged on campus. And a few were single mothers, trying to balance a full course load with parenting and part-time jobs. When I stopped worrying about how I looked and felt, I could be more in tune with their needs. 2) Think about how to help first-year students succeed in a new learning environment. I had been learning the ropes in a new school, but so had they. Many had left home, family, friends, and partners, and they were living away from all of their most stable relationships. They were also learning to manage their time and new freedom. Realizing this, I decided I could do more than simply list on my syllabi the contact information for the Student Success Center. I set some time aside in the course schedule for supportive activities. For example, I had a representative from the Student Success Center come into class and talk about the services they offer; I asked a librarian to demonstrate the research database to them; I led workshops on how to avoid plagiarism, how to read critically, and how to write a theology paper. I also passed around informal evaluations after the first few weeks of class, and I learned that students were feeling nervous about disagreeing (even respectfully) with other students in small groups. So, I led another workshop on respectful, critical dialogue. 3) Be comfortable. I’m back to wearing flats and 1” heels, even if they are frumpy. But it’s not just my shoes that have to feel comfortable, I have learned. So does my teaching style. When I over-plan or am too calculated about what I want to do in any given class session, the delivery usually falls flat (pun fully intended). When I relax, loosen my grip on the lesson place, and let the feel of the room and the students’ questions and concerns guide the way I present the material, it usually works much better. The students are more engaged and take on a more active role in their learning. Have any of you had big embarrassments in the classroom? If so, I’d love to hear about them—not just to stroke my bruised ego, but to hear what you’ve learned from them too! Please comment below.