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If you teach long enough, you will teach a course that feels flat, has low morale, or even fails.  While a totally ruined course is rare, there are moments when the sinking, the malaise—yours and that of the students, happens.  We all know this experience.If you have never taught a course that has tanked, then you have likely been a student in a course that has. No real need to recount or describe all the ways a course can fail—the ways a course can “go south” are legion. The more important emphasis is to know that when a course is collapsing it can be rescued. When you feel the course sinking …...do not blame yourself.do not blame the students.do not blame the administration.do not blame your family.do not blame your pets.do not blame the moon phase.do not blame the state of the nation.do not blame the national economy.do not blame climate change.Blaming is ineffective. Finding fault, placing fault, shaming, guilting or scapegoating rarely corrects the problem. Sinking courses are not saved through blame.Do not ignore the situation or pretend that, without adjustment, it will mend. If you sense that there is trouble with the course, the students know there is trouble with the course. When you find yourself watching the clock during your own class session – this is a clue that something needs to be adjusted, altered, changed.Resist the impulse to knuckle down, grin and bear it.Resist the impulse to stay-the-course, stick to your guns!Resist the impulse to “right-fight” and believe whatever you planned, how you planned, is best and “be damned!” anyone who will not comply with your plans.Consider that rescuing a course might take a multi-pronged approach. The recovery of the course might need support from others. Don’t be a hero - please ask for help. If you feel as if the course is weak, ask for help. If you feel lost or disoriented, ask for help. If you do not know how you feel or what to do, ask for help.What help?Get a new perspective, fresh eyes, a more seasoned approach, an empathetic listener. Talk to colleagues. Talk with a trusted colleague at your school, or a trusted colleague beyond your school. You might talk just once, or you might talk several times. Describe the incident or incidents and ask them to listen to what might be changed to strengthen the course.Consider asking a trusted colleague to observe your teaching and then assist you with reflection. These talks are not for confessing to being an imposter. Resist reducing these conversations to disclosing your deep-seated anxieties about public performance (save that for your therapist). Use these conversations to troubleshoot, problem solve and strategize for better teaching and strengthening of your course design.Consider, at the beginning of the semester, creating a small reflection group of colleagues (3 or 4 people) for a semester long conversation so when the course feels like it is not going well you have established conversation partners. The group might be organized around studying teaching resources, together.Talk with a trusted student to get feedback. Talk with a small group of students and ask their opinion. Perhaps, take class time to ask the entire class for feedback and suggestions.Talk to human resource personnel, consult the faculty handbook, know your Title IX procedures. Sometimes bullying behaviors are the culprit in troubled classroom environments.What might be needed?Consider that you might need to recast elements of the syllabus. Consider creating different assignments, adjusting timelines, subtracting some readings or adding new kinds of readings. Add a field trip. Invite a guest speaker.Ask yourself about yourself. Are you too tired to teach well? Are you bored in your own course? Are you anxious? Are you distracted? Are you disappointed, grieving or just sad? Do you have an experience of belonging in your institution and in your own classroom? Your vibe radiates to the students and permeates all aspects of the course.Are the materials in the course too advanced for the students or too inconsequential? Are the materials culturally aligned and relevant to the students’ experiences and expectations? What story are you inviting the students into—is it a story of their imaginations and aspirations?What are the larger happenings of the school, community, region and country that are affecting your classroom? What would it mean to weave these happenings into the conversation?Perhaps it is the students - by which I mean – perhaps you do not know the students and their lives well enough. In what ways can you get better acquainted with your students. Do your students come to class tired after a long day of work? Are your morning students tired after having worked all night? Are they taking too many courses? If they are rested, are they hungry while in your class? Awareness of the conditions of your students might help with addressing some of the malaise.Do not be surprised when a course tanks. It happens to the best of teachers. When a course is “not going well,” do not abandon it or your students. Learn, by experience, how to adjust and adapt to create a meaningful experience for your learners and for yourself.

Student course evaluations can be fraught. Many of my friends don’t even look at theirs, either because it’s so stressful/shameful or because they don’t think there’s anything to be learned in them. Course evaluations are, after all, only one (admittedly limited and often problematic) data point.I do look at course evals, and I tell students I look at them. I think it’s important to consider what the students—that is, the primary audience of and for our teaching—actually experience. That doesn’t mean students get the final say. That doesn’t mean we have to make every change they desire. But it does mean that I want to know how they experienced the course, and it’s a bit hard for me to know without checking.But it’s not often that anything surprises me. It’s usually the same old, same old. This class is a lot of work. Too hard for a required course. Picky grader. Great prof. Class is fun. She really cares. I love our community. I’ve read it all before.But, last semester, I received something new, from a student in my upper-level Religion and Disability class:Emily Gravett assigned course materials that allowed me to critically think about my views on religion and disability. However, as someone who is Catholic the way she explained course material did not align with what all people of that religion believe…. The way she portrayed religious people made it appear as if religious people had it out for people with disabilities. This takes away why people are a part of a religion…. By what I read about this class I thought we were going to go in further in depth about the beliefs of religions. Instead, we read content from opinion–based sources that bashed everything about the religion. I think the way the content was addressed was very inconsiderate for people that belong to a religious group. If the whole class is about accepting others and taking in other points of view, why is every positive view of religion being bashed? Overall more theology should be incorporated with the course instead of throwing opinions out in lecture. Now, this was just one comment. None of the other students said anything like it and I did have other religious (including Christian) students in that class, just like in any class I teach. Certainly, instructors shouldn’t focus overly much on the one-offs or outliers in our course evaluations, especially the more negative ones. Yet I felt this student was expressing something important, which I wanted to take seriously—something perhaps other students had felt, but had not dared to express.It’s certainly never been my intention to make anyone feel badly about their religious convictions. I don’t set out to dissuade anyone from their identities or commitments, just in the same way I wouldn’t proselytize. It should also go without saying that I certainly don’t represent religions as (very bad) monoliths—this is a key concept of the course, that religions are diverse—but clearly this student experienced the course as being very critical and negative toward religions, perhaps specifically her own. And, I have to admit, she may not be wrong. Religions (on the whole, and in the specific) haven’t been great on disability—and this was what the course reflected. The Bible often treats disability as something to be fixed/cured to demonstrate God’s great power. Disability is understood as the result of bad karma by many Hindus. The choreography of Muslim daily prayer is rough or even prohibitive for some bodies. In this class, we read a piece in which a well-known disability scholar critiqued the pope—the head of this particular student’s religion—for singling out a disabled man for a blessing. My guess is that this was the day I lost her.So, what responsibility do I have to how religions are represented or come across? Do I need to couple every negative portrayal, example, or opinion with a positive one? Do I need to make sure I am presenting rosy or complimentary views of religion, regardless of topic? Do I need to be very selective or cautious with the critical pieces I assign? I admit there’s a lot I don’t know what to do about this student’s concern. Here’s what I’ve tried to implement in my current Race and Religion course (which faces some similar issues, given the way that Christianity has influenced conceptions of race, in this country and globally):Added a statement to the syllabus, which I read aloud in class, that clarifies that I don’t agree with or endorse every single piece I assignForecast that there will be some critiques of religions in this class—and acknowledge this may be (understandably) unsettling or even upsetting if you are a part of that religionReminded students that learning can be uncomfortable and that exposure to ideas that you disagree with is an important (an essential??) part of development and lifeIntroduced the notion of meta-cognition and asked them to reflect on certain activities or materials in terms of what they were thinking and feeling during themContinued to reiterate that religions aren’t just one “thing” and that, of course, for all the bad, there’s also quite a bit of goodAssigned pieces on religion being both/neither good or bad, such as Appiah’s TED Talk as well as material demonstrating a range or diversity within traditionsClarified that much of what we discuss in terms of religious people’s behavior is also just human behavior—that is, that it’s applicable to everyone; religious people are usually not different or specialEmphasized to students that it’s okay to stick with values, beliefs, or groups, including the religious, that are imperfect/critiqued (because nothing is perfect)Continued to offer caveats when leading a session that was more based on criticism, such as “of course reasonable people will disagree” or “this may be interpreted differently within the community” or “obviously this doesn’t represent the whole”Assigned more companion (or both-side) pieces for every topic (e.g., “what is Critical Race Theory?” as well as a critique of Critical Race Theory)But I am still grappling with this issue. The reality is that religions aren’t all good (whatever we even mean by this). Robert Orsi, one of my favorite scholars, who grew up Catholic and has written extensively about the study of religion, has written powerfully on just how disgusted he is by the history of Catholicism, that “in the long perspective of human history, religion has done more harm than good and that the good it does is inextricable from the harm.” I think I would be doing students themselves a harm if I pretended otherwise.

How are you doing with taking chances? Are you engaging the wonder in your students, or are you still grading participation posts? If you read part one then you know what I’m talking about. For today’s episode of what Miss Frizzle teaches us about teaching, we learn about making mistakes. Not learning how to make them per se (because let’s face it, we all have plenty of experience) but what to do when we make them.Mistakes are inevitable. They will happen. Part of the reason we fear them so much is because we are still recovering from the trauma of unrealistic expectations from our graduate programs, or from our education in general (I’m looking at you formerly “gifted and talented” students). It may seem redundant then to be told to do the thing that you have already done and will certainly do in the future. But the advice to make mistakes isn’t about intention, it's about adaptation (cough…taking chances…cough).  In a world where failure and risk are old friends…If I had to choose one thing that scientists and entrepreneurs have in common, I'd say it's that both understand that failure is information. Scientists have revolutionized their fields by using information gained from failed experiments. Think of the countless medicines that didn’t work for the illness they were intended for, only to produce an outcome that changed the medical field. In the same way, entrepreneurs are learning about trends, marketing, supply, demand, and a whole host of other things when they start something that doesn’t work out. If you are going to be a person to take risks (go ahead honey, take a chance!) then you will have to embrace making mistakes. But wait, you say, a failure and a mistake are not the same thing! A failure is when you do something and it doesn’t work out, while a mistake is doing something wrong. And you’d be correct. A failure focuses on the outcome, while a mistake focuses on behavior. This is why you can make mistakes but you cannot be a failure (go ahead and read that again). And while mistakes made along the way can aid to the result of a failed outcome, several other factors, many beyond your knowledge and control, makeup that failed attempt.  Let’s play a game… Where it's all made up and the points don’t matter.So, how and why would you be intentional about making a mistake? Remember, the lesson isn’t about intentionality per se, it's about adaptation. Being intentional about making mistakes means being intentional about taking chances and risks. One of the best and easiest ways to do that is through the act of play. Playing a game is about creativity and knowing which of the rules you want to keep, bend, or break (every UNO player understands this). You are willing to push the boundaries or cross them to meet the games’ goals creatively, or to make a better play experience. One of the best examples of this is improv. Improv thrives on making mistakes. Nothing is wasted, and the space feels limitless. You can say the wrong word, or get caught off guard by another’s response, or even fall off the stage, and there will be someone there, not necessarily to catch you, but to use your “mistake” to continue the time of play. This communal act of play creates a kind of generativity that encourages you to make mistakes. So, what does this have to do with Theological Education? Much of our objectives in theological education feel daunting. We want our students to say something meaningful about the divine, or about implications on our world. We train them to lead others in matters of the heart, mind, and spirit. We do deeply meaningful work. This is the kind of work where mistakes matter. Where we are held accountable for the implications of our theology. Our theological intentions land somewhere, usually in the lives of other people. I recognize that asking someone to make a mistake in this context is no small thing. But that is exactly why we need to encourage it in our classrooms. I approach all of my classrooms as part of a grand experiment. Students are encouraged to “say the weird thing” (IYKYK) then work-out what that means in community. If I didn’t encourage my students to make mistakes, then how am I preparing them to lead? Preach? Teach? How can I teach them to adapt if I attempt to create a space with no obstacles for them to adapt to? If students say or bring up concepts about God that cause tension, we work through it. I help them understand the implications of their theological actions. And yes, they make “mistakes.” So do I. But because we do not forsake play in the classroom we learn to adapt. Taking chances means making mistakes. And like scientists we learn from the outcomes. We discover the ways theology can help us change the world, especially in ways we didn’t originally intend. We do this because we’ve learned that mistakes do not automatically end in failure. They create a possibility to open up a new pathway we didn’t originally plan. They generate new lessons we didn’t know we needed to learn. And for that, they will always be worth making.

It’s a relief to some professors to find that making their course antiracist is not simply about introducing heavy and sometimes politicized topics into class discussion. I find that moving one’s course further along the antiracism spectrum can, and should, start with the syllabus!None of the below suggestions can magically turn a course antiracist – my experience is that antiracism is a lifelong journey, consisting both of moments of inspiration and, perhaps more often, moments of face-palming as you realize the way you’ve done something for years is problematic, but you literally never noticed it until right now. This is part of why I think many professors shy away from explicitly naming their own journey in antiracist teaching – it requires you to feel embarrassed about the way you used to do things and then using that embarrassment to fuel something better. But the glorious thing is that it does produce something better!The first thing to do with your syllabus is to take stock of the racial representation of your authors. If you use one or a few textbooks, this will likely be easy. If you rely on a variety of resources, it’ll take longer, and often require a bit more research. When you tally up who students are primarily hearing from, what voices are most prominent? Do white men win the day? Or is there substantive authorship from people with other racial identities?In my department, we calculate these totals every semester based on course days. Basically, what days are students only hearing from white people, and what days are they hearing from people of color? (It could be advantageous to do this in a more granular way too – examining how Black authors compare to Latinx authors, etc., but unless your percentage of authors of color is fairly high, you may not have enough data to draw meaningful conclusions). We submit our percentages every term, and part of our annual assessment is examining if we’ve met our minimums and if we’ve increased racial representation or lost ground overall. The fact that we can work in hard numbers here also tends to encourage something of a gamification of our syllabi – seeing if we can beat our last “high score” is motivation to make our authorship more racially diverse each semester. A single replaced reading feels like a victory in this context – and it is!Once that work is completed for the term, the next step is to ensure that it’s visible to students and that they understand why it’s significant. I do this in two ways: including relevant expertise and identity markers, including race, along with the link to the course readings, and telling my students directly about what I’m doing with authorship in the course. The first involves setting up Canvas (or whatever LMS) with more than just links to required text. I include the link, and then provide context after it about the writer. For example, “______ is a Black woman and a seminary-level professor of Theology,” or “______ is a white male journalist who primarily writes on religious topics.” This is part of an overarching lesson that people’s context is always relevant, and that nobody writes without bias. It’s also a practice I royally screwed up the first time I tried it – I only included the racial identities of authors who weren’t white and didn’t mention race for white authors. You know, because white is… normal? White default bias for the fail. Thankfully I caught that one halfway though the semester and worked feverishly to remedy it on the day that awful realization struck me.Finally, I like being transparent with my students about the “why” of my teaching – it makes them feel trusted and included, and it helps hold me accountable for doing what I say I will. On the first day of class, I show the students our hard numbers for the course and explain that the field is historically and currently white-dominated, but that our program values students learning from a variety of perspectives and voices, so we’ve made a particular effort to use and highlight authors of color. For whatever reason, this is the moment on day one when students will actually take their eyes off their syllabus and look at me directly. I find that there’s power in critiquing your own field, and doing it right away – it helps students feel more able to offer critique and criticism when they feel it necessary.So, there you have it – if you want to be a more antiracist teacher and aren’t sure where to begin, start with your course authorship and make your choices explicit to your students. It’s far from perfection, but it’s a starting point for the journey.