Resources

The first time I taught Interfaith Justice and Peacemaking, a class that explores interfaith efforts to create a more just and peaceful world, I began the class by discussing terms. What is justice? What is peace? I gave students quotes to read from various figures in American society and asked them to reflect on these famous persons’ notions of justice. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” and Cornell West’s “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public” were some of the quotes that made it onto the strips of paper I passed out to students. The exercise worked fine but it did not invite the kind of openness I was hoping for. It didn’t give students insight into how our various life experiences inform our understanding of what is just and unjust. A year later, I tried a different approach. I printed out results from an image search of the word “justice” on Google. I settled on five interesting, although imperfectly representative, black and white images: a raised fist, a gavel, lady justice with scales, a silhouette of a crowd of people with mouths exclaiming, and an image of children watering a tree. I created five desk stations and placed an image in the center of each one. I invited students to sit together facing one another in groups of three to four at each station and to freewrite about how the images made them feel—their gut reactions, emotions and memories stirred, and further images that came to mind. Then, I invited them to share their feelings and experiences with the other students at their station. Once everyone had a chance to share, they were encouraged to reflect on how, if at all, these images squared with their own senses of the word “justice.” This time, students opened up in ways that surprised me. They shared stories of positive and negative encounters with the police; stories of being treated fairly (and unfairly) by teachers; and discrimination they faced in their hometowns and at Regis. They brought up volunteerism, breaking the law, and efforts to change the law. And upon hearing the stories of their classmates, at least one student responded by saying, “I never thought of justice that way before.” The conversation that emerged framed justice as something more than retribution and in contexts as diverse as students own backgrounds. Genuine listening occurred between a group of students who included first- and second-generation migrants to the US from Mexico and Iran, an international student, an army vet and mother of two, feminists, atheists, Protestants, Catholics, and a Muslim-raised but Buddhist-leaning environmentalist, to name a few. In short, they discussed justice from all the angles I had wanted to teach them about. Students have a lot to teach one another. Though it’s easy to forget, the collective knowledge of the classroom in terms of personal experience and wisdom is often richer, more diverse, and potentially more transformative than my framing of a topic alone. Many of my students know all too well what it feels like to be a victim of an injustice. When given an opportunity to share these insights with one another, they arrive at a broader and more personalized understanding of justice than can be represented by a few famous figures’ quotes. This collective understanding is foundational to their ability to work together across lines of difference to build a more just and peaceful society. But creating an inclusive classroom environment where a diverse group of students can share with and learn from one another is not easy. Last week, in a writing seminar, as part of an assignment geared toward helping students avoid hurtful essentialisms in their writing, I gave students a writing prompt in which they were to reflect on an experience when they felt misunderstood because of their race, gender, faith, sexual orientation, country of origin, or economic status. One student, from Vietnam, wrote about her experience being accosted in a Walmart shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. A middle-aged white man came up from behind her and yelled at her for bringing the virus to the US from China. Shaking, and thus still physically bearing the wounds from this emotional trauma, she described to us the various cultures of Asia, and how it felt to be lumped together with people from forty-eight different countries, and blamed for a virus she did not create. Another student in the class, a white student from Kentucky, shared his experience of being called a racist because of an emoji he shared with a friend. “She thought I was being racist and I wasn’t! My best friends are Mexican and black. I chose the Latinx fist bump emoji because I like it. But I didn’t care. I didn’t let it get to me.” Everything about his body language—his shaking voice and red cheeks—betrayed the fact that it did get to him. These two students’ stories, the juxtaposed narratives of the one—a victim of racism, with the other—a person accused of racism, were pregnant with teachable moments. I listened to both, even tried to pause and slow down. Still, I failed to think of the right questions to ask in the moment. “How did that make you feel?” was all I could muster. In reflecting on what transpired, I’ve come to realize that while I appreciated both students’ willingness to share, something about his story directly following hers felt misplaced to me. While the student from Kentucky’s story mattered, and has much to teach us, it was in no way on par with the Vietnamese student’s story. They were not equal victims. Being blamed for bringing COVID-19 to the US because one appears to be of Asian origin is a far heavier burden to bear than being questioned about one’s use of a Latinx-looking fist bump emoji, especially when considering our country’s history of racism against Asian Americans. Moreover, I had asked students to write about an experience when they felt misunderstood because of their race, gender, faith, sexual orientation, country of origin, or economic status. Did the white student’s story of being accused of racism qualify? In “Pedagogies in the Flesh: Building an Anti-Racist Decolonized Classroom,” Karen Buenavista Hanna proposes a model of classroom dialogue that disrupts the conventional free-market models. In engaging with prompts or readings related to racism or sexism or any other kind of institutionalized oppression or injustice, she recommends that students be permitted to share only stories that happened to them, not stories that happened to a friend or someone they know. What this set of discussion parameters does is upend the normal colonial-based hierarchies of the classroom. It forces those who are used to speaking to listen and gives those who are used to listening a chance to speak, which begs the question, did I fail my students by giving them a prompt for which not every student had a response? Should I have reworded the prompt to say, write about an experience when you were misunderstood because of your race, gender, sexual orientation, or economic status OR if you don’t have such story, save your blank paper for notetaking in the conversation that follows? There are no easy ways to have an interfaith conversation on the topic of justice (and injustice). There’s no exercise or prompt that works all the time, and no set of fail-proof directives for the teacher-facilitator. The beauty of the interfaith classroom is that every person adds uniquely to the dynamic of the classroom. This is also the challenge. What I do know is that facilitating dialogue across lines of difference requires the acknowledgement that we’re not all equals—we can’t all contribute equally to every conversation on racism or other kinds of systemic injustice. Next time I ask students to write about being misunderstood, I might set up the conversation a little differently: “Write about an experience when you were misunderstood because of your race, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin and/or write about an experience when you were accused of being racist, sexist, or prejudiced in any kind of way. We’ll hear from everyone, but let’s give those who responded to the former set of questions a chance to speak first. Then, we’ll consider how all of us might be hurt by racist and essentialist thinking even if such thinking hurts some more than others.” I owed it both of my students—the one from Vietnam and the one from Kentucky—to help them unpack their stories. I wish I had asked the student from Kentucky, “How did that make you feel?” followed by “Why do you think your friend felt hurt by the emoji you sent?” I think he is brave enough to receive those questions. Or maybe I could have invited my students to pose compassionate questions to their classmates from Vietnam and Kentucky? Maybe their inquiries might have led us to an epiphany about justice I have yet to even imagine.

Regardless of how one may feel about online learning (now, during COVID-19, thrust upon us, the willing and unwilling), admittedly it is now a vital and critical academic and professional skill. Helping students become proficient in online learning has arguably become as important as mastering academic content in whatever discipline one teaches. One way to help students become more proficient at online learning is to actively assess their performance in online discussion forums. Most instructors at least provide a list of minimum expectations, something like: Post at least two entries for every forum; avoid non-substantive posts (“I agree”); post by a deadline for a session; cite references, respond to questions from the professor, etc. Some instructors place limits on word count. Some insist on complete sentences and proper grammar. In addition to assessing engagement with the course content (academic concepts and course texts, for example), and checking for adherence to minimum expectations as noted above, instructors can help students become more proficient online learners by assessing metacognition student performance, those transferable skills and competencies that will serve students well as they become lifelong online learners. Metacognitive assessment helps students become critically aware of themselves as thinkers and learners. Robert E. MacDonald refers to these as part of the “informal observations” [i] that instructors engage in as part of the evaluation of student learning. Here are examples of metacognition student performance in online discussion forums that you can look for, assess, and for which you can provide feedback to students: The consistency in the amount and quality of their posts. The quality and kinds of questions students ask during online discussions. The cooperative peer learning skills students demonstrate in discussion forums. The manner in which they receive directions and challenges from the instructor. The way students respond to questions from the professor and other students. Their ability to follow through on assignments and activities to completion. Their level of initiative in asking for help, seeking information, offering critique, and questioning assumptions. Their ability to uncover their own bias and prejudices. Their ability to recognize their misunderstanding and demonstrate corrective thinking. Their ability to come up with novel and original examples. The quality of their written skill in expressing and explaining ideas. Their ability to manage their time and participate in online discussion forums, as well as complete assignments, promptly. It is no longer enough to help our students master academic content related to our particular scholarship. Part of the work of teaching in this technological age is helping our students become better learners, and that includes becoming more adept at learning in online and virtual environments. Notes [i] Robert E. MacDonald,  A Handbook for Beginning Teachers: Facing the Challenge of Teaching in Today’s Schools (New York, NY: Pearson, 1999).

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.  

A few weeks ago, I had to put down my cat of 14 years. She was very sick and there were no roads to recovery. Her name was Regan. I got her my first year of graduate school, when I had just started at the University of Virginia, and I was living in a basement apartment, in a not-so-safe part of town, on my own for the first time. I was in a doctoral program with a bunch of older, married men, and I was lonely. Regan was my first friend in Charlottesville. If you’ve ever had a pet die—or had to make the decision to end their life—you’ll know the grief and guilt that I felt, feel still. We’re in the middle of a “triple” pandemic, which I’ve watched killing hundreds of thousands of people and disproportionately affecting those who are already most vulnerable, and I’m also sad about my cat. On its own, Covid-19 is causing all sorts of problems—and not just sickness and death. People are suffering from mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression; job loss; homelessness and food scarcity; domestic violence; racial discrimination; you name it. But it’s not just that. We’re also all still experiencing whatever life would normally be throwing at us. Come fall, students will still be stressing out about projects and exams, still wanting to rush, still eating leftover pizza, still hooking up, still doing research, still missing their parents, still working out, still cracking jokes, still procrastinating, still singing in the shower, still praying, still volunteering, still playing ultimate Frisbee, still skipping class, still applying for jobs, still requesting accommodations, still sleeping in, still ending relationships, still feeling proud about their grades, still starting their own businesses, still asking for recommendation letters, still fighting with friends, still protesting, still driving with the windows down, still getting accepted into grad school, still cheating, still feeling like they don’t belong, still reading the news, still trying to earn money, still drinking, still shaving—still living, that is. And my life continues too. I’m still a mom. I still want to write and do research. I still want to support and uplift my colleagues. I’ve still got to create an online course for the fall. I have books to read, a stack of New Yorkers to finish. (One of my favorite bits on the show The Good Place is a conception of hell as “nothing but a growing stack of New Yorker magazines that will never be read.” I laughed a little too hard at this joke.) Dishes need to be washed, laundry needs to be folded, rent needs to be paid. My house could use a good dusting. I found out yesterday that I can go up early for promotion; there are a lot of forms to fill out, y’all! It’s my friend’s birthday today, I got the oil changed in my car this morning, and I have reservations at the local pool later on, if an afternoon thunderstorm doesn’t pass through. I wake up too early, I eat heirloom tomatoes with a shake of salt, and I don’t always put enough sunscreen on. I’m grateful, I’m cranky, I’m hormonal, I’m excited, I’m overwhelmed, I’m angry, I’m weary, I’m . . . . This is life, my life. And it’s, inexplicably, somehow, still going, amidst everything else. There will be some big stories in the fall—the pandemic, the presidential election, the Black Lives Matter protests, the federal arrests that are starting to seem more like kidnappings—and we must attend to them. They are devastating, deep rooted. We must not look away—or allow our students to look away. We can teach to these big stories, we can support one another through them. But our students will not stop having everyday concerns, needs, questions, and experiences, those seemingly “small” stories. We must allow for them too. After all, they will affect, as they always have, how our students learn, how motivated they are, how much time and energy they can or want to give to any academic pursuits, how they interact with us and their peers. We must hold the mundane and the massive together, in tension. For years now, I’ve kept a note in my wallet that my aunt wrote for me, for one of my graduations, I think it was. It’s frayed and faded, a quotation by author Grace Paley. I pulled it out recently, when I was grappling with the loss of my long-time feline companion . . . and so much more: “Well, by now you must know yourself, honey, whatever you do, life don’t stop. It only sits a minute and dreams a dream.” Life sure don’t stop. Not for us and not for our students. We must remember this, come fall. Thanks to Andreas Broscheid for offering important feedback to earlier drafts of this blog post.

When our courses went online in the spring, many of our students kept their cameras turned off in class. It was eerie. When my students wouldn’t say anything, I felt like I was speaking into a void, and my imagination started running wild. Was anybody else really out there? Maybe they had all just . . . left? Even when most students were talking, I wondered about those who weren’t. Were they still paying attention? I had no idea. It’s tempting to address this problem by adding a strict camera policy to our syllabi for the fall: Students must keep the camera on during online classes. Several of my colleagues are doing just that. I understand the impulse, and I agree that we need to find ways to help our students stay focused in our online classes. Making sure that we can see them and that they know it would be a simple start. But let’s think more before we add a camera policy to our syllabi. Why do students want to turn their cameras off in the first place? I’m sure some of them do it so that they can goof off without their professors noticing. But not all of them: Some students are embarrassed about what people will see in their homes: Poverty. A mess. A crowded space. A virtual background will hide all that, but students can only use one if their computer meets certain system requirements. On an older computer with older software, the virtual background won’t work. And of course, poor students are more likely to have an older computer. The camera makes some students acutely self-conscious, which makes sense given that it broadcasts a closeup of one’s face to the entire class for the entire class period. My favorite description of the experience is from “Why Zoom is terrible”: “You feel like every eyeball is on you, like a very intimidating job interview." I share this experience. Honestly, just reading the line from the New York Times makes my heart race. After the first painful month of Zoom meetings, I began turning the camera off as often as possible. It made the meetings less exhausting, and it became much easier for me to focus and to listen to what people were saying. If students are feeling overly self-conscious, they won’t learn well and won’t speak much. Are there other reasons for keeping the cameras on? We might think that seeing each other’s faces improves communication. In non-virtual face-to-face interactions, it does. Without noticing it, we process and interpret a flood of subtle facial cues, adding to what we learn from the other person’s words and tone of voice. But on Zoom, the imperfect video feed obscures those crucial small cues. We just don’t see the faces well enough, and so, we get faulty cues which can mislead us. We might communicate better with the cameras off. Requiring cameras to be on probably helps some students pay attention and the cameras allow us to see that our students are still there. But seeing their faces probably doesn’t improve our conversations, and the cameras make other students self-conscious, and thus less likely to participate and pay attention. So, can we find other ways of checking that our students are paying attention? I think so. In my class, we’ll develop a set of norms together. I plan to ask them: How do we normally show each other that we’re paying attention and that what others are saying matters to us? If we have cameras off, most of our usual ‘I’m listening’ signals won’t work, so what should we do instead? I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with! In the meantime, here are some ideas of my own for confirming that they are paying attention: Gentle cold calling (soft-ball questions). Have them type questions, comments, and answers to questions in the chat. Mini quizzes or mini papers partway through class. Exit slip at the end of class: “What was the most important thing you learned in class today and what question do you have?” All of these will be low-stakes assignments; and students will get full credit if it looks like they paid attention. Like the rest of us, I am looking forward to seeing my students’ faces again, but my Zoom class is not the right time for that. I’ll save that for office hours and small group discussions. In class, I’ll settle for their profile pictures and their voices. Note: I wish the idea about developing a set of norms was my own, but I got it from one of my esteemed colleagues at Stonehill.

New learning that counters established or accepted knowledge is challenging. My “Global Read of the Bible” course introduces students to different interpretations by Christians from around the globe. Many global Bible readers are critical of the relationship between western colonialisms and the role of the Bible as a tool of oppression. In my first-year teaching, a very thoughtful and engaged white female student reacted emotionally, strongly dissociating herself and her ancestors from western colonialism. In another class, when I discussed how some biblical texts had silenced women, a black male student asked how a woman professor can teach and have authority over men at a seminary!  If education is to be formational and transformational, how can we deal with difficult topics related to the privilege and oppression internalized in the teacher and students? This big question is even more complicated when we consider intersectionality and the complexity of identities, but “unlearning” may open the way to approaching this question. The word “unlearn” means discarding or nullifying what we have learned when it is wrong, false, or outdated; to “forget your usual way of doing something so that you can learn a new and sometimes better way.” Yet often, we cannot conveniently remove what we know. What we learn through oppression is inscribed in our bodies. Defining feminist work as memory work, Sara Ahmed argues: Experiences … seem to accumulate over time, gathering like things in a bag, but the bag is your body, so that you feel like you are carrying more and more weight. The past becomes heavy….” (Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life, 23) Previously experienced or continued oppression may lead to suppressing the feeling of shame. You learn to be un- or less affected, or try to forget what should not have happened. So, the definition of “unlearn” is half right when it applies to oppression. Students, as well as the teacher, come to class as embodied beings. Some have unforgettable memories of violence and ineradicable experiences of oppression. In her House Floor speech on July 23rd, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded to Rep. Yoho’s non-apology over his vulgar insult of her on the steps of the Capitol. She had encountered that type of harassment many times—at restaurants, on the streets, and in the subway, just like other ordinary women. Yet, she stood up for other women and girls using her privilege. The power and pain of the speech lie in her remembering all those past events. Her hearers gathered their own memories and connected them into a fuller picture of women’s status and humanity.   Unlearning also applies for the privileged. We gain knowledge in interactions with the social body—societal systems and institutions that give power and opportunity to specific groups of people. So, the privileged learn and embody their privilege without recognizing that they have it. Whiteness is such a privilege. By naming the privilege and internalized superiority, we begin the unlearning process. My conscientization came in my undergraduate “Sociology of Education” classroom. The professor told us that studying at the prestigious women’s university was a privilege, which was made possible at the expense of other women of our age. I was shocked. Surely, I hadn’t done anything wrong to them. And, my parents had to work so hard to pay for their daughter’s tuition. Yet, this powerful education has helped me to always ask what privilege(s) I have over others in different contexts—even as a racial/ethnic minority woman in the U.S. Borrowing Ahmed’s words, I would say unlearning is a memory work. Unlearning is a work—a work “to remember what sometimes we wish would or could just recede” (Ahmed, 22). If the space is safe enough for such work to take place, it can generate tension and conflicts among students. Still, my students are encouraged and willing to listen to others and unlearn their privileges, a conscientization that they will use to benefit others. Although such discussions do not have to be personal, what we teach and learn—even seemingly abstract ideas—are grounded in people’s lives and social realities, including past and present marginalization and oppression. The pandemic has exposed such disparities among peoples so that unlearning occurs not only in the classroom but also in public squares and virtual spaces. We see the potential of our (un)learning as collective and social. I imagine the student who responded to other people’s suffering defensively nonetheless continues her journey toward the liberation of herself and others among her communities and the masses.

The social justice issue that I have consistently raised in my biblical exegesis courses has been US immigration. As I tell my students—mostly white middle-class Protestants fixed on parish ministry—engaging this topic in a sermon will likely incite some criticism from parishioners or even set in motion a premature resignation.  Despite my school’s borderlands location and the exilic content of the Hebrew Bible, pivoting to the topic of US immigration in a biblical exegesis course cannot be done haphazardly. In terms of texts, I find that Genesis (12–50), Exodus, Psalms 120–134, Second Isaiah (40–55) and Lamentations are especially apt for engaging this complex sociopolitical topic. What is unavoidable in these texts are stories about people on the move because of famine, jealousy, conquest, or faith—to name just a few. Yet still, connecting these biblical stories to the lived experiences of migrants in places like the US-Mexico border is by no means a linear process. No matter how convinced I am that Abram’s journey from the Ur of the Chaldeans to the land of Canaan (Gen 11:31) is a migration story, in order to bring my students along I must confront the assumptions that inform their understanding of migration. A common assumption they often have about migration and by extension immigration is that both phenomena represent a social problem or challenge. At the source of this assumption is indeed not an ancient notion of migration but rather their nation-state formation. By contextualizing the latter, students discover that the problems most associated with migration and immigration in US dominant society—like border crossers as “illegal,” economic strains, cultural threats, and spreaders of disease—stem from Western nationalist forms of inclusion and exclusion. After discovering their own nation-state biases about immigrants, I find it easier to shift to the theme of migration in the biblical text, contrasting along the way the ancient assumptions that likely informed it. As opposed to nationalist thinking, the biblical text often starts with the assumption that humans are free to move and that this movement constitutes an act of faith rather than a crime. Emphasizing the freedom of movement and the faith that accompanies it in the biblical text, I then pivot to US immigration and the sociopolitical injustices produced by the nation-state’s control of human mobility. Though migration studies, forced migration studies, and refugee studies are useful resources, their approach to immigration is often based entirely on the modern concept of the nation-state and hence tend to view borders, citizenship, and state sovereignty not as human constructs but as natural to our earthly existence. This nationalist-centric agenda can also be transferred unwittingly over to the biblical commentary material that relies on the social sciences.  For this reason, I supplement my immigration bibliography with migrant artwork (See https://artedelagrimas.org/), particularly the kind that emphasizes the freedom of movement and faith as in the drawing below: Dayana, “Mi Jornada (My Journey),” colored pencil and marker, 2014, 9 x 12, Arte de Lágrimas Gallery. Dayana is from Guatemala and was 7-years old when she drew this art piece about her asylum-seeking journey to the US. She and her mother travelled by car and then by bus. She remembered that the road was long and gray (left side). Her picture narrative ends with them crossing the Rio Grande on a makeshift raft (lancha). She first drew the rocks (piedras) in the river and then the river banks. Next, she drew the makeshift raft in the middle of the river with her and her mother inside it. I asked, “Did anyone say good bye to you?” She replied, “My aunt.” She placed her aunt on the Mexican side of the river waving goodbye. I then asked, “Was there anyone else?” Not saying anything, she removed the rosary from around her neck and traced the plastic crucifix over the Rio Grande. She then began to sing the hymn “En la Cruz, en la Cruz, yo primero vi la luz, y las manchas de mi alma yo lavé, fue allí por fe yo vi a Jesús, y siempre feliz con El seré (At the Cross).” Her and her mother sang these words while on the raft. In the drawing the cross is the symbol of faith that accompanied Dayana’s migratory movement across the Rio Grande—the symbol of a territorially bounded state. Like Abram’s story, her faith assumes the freedom of movement.

In Toward a Theory of Instruction, educator Jerome Bruner insists that a theory of development must be linked both to a theory of knowledge and to a theory of instruction, “or be doomed to triviality.” (Toward a Theory of Instruction, Jerome Bruner, Boston: Harvard University Press, 1974, 192 pages, ISBN 9780674897014, 21). I’ve long felt that this is partly the reason why so much of what passes for religious education and religious studies are at best benign, and at worst, risk a tendency to trivialize faith and religion. Being “interesting” may provide enough impetus to keep people coming back to participate in religious education and religious studies for a while, or to keep students engaged during a course, but ultimately, there are more “interesting” things in the world to capture and hold our attention if entertainment is our vehicle for retaining people’s participation in learning. An effective education program (1) must give rigorous attention to the developmental dynamics and processes of its subjects (learners), including motivation (which is based on “need” and not “interest”), (2) must hold to an epistemological philosophy of how learners learn, and, (3) must apply and practice a theory of learning related to how to teach, be it instruction, nurture, training, demonstration, tutorial, apprenticeship, etc. Bruner suggests that mental growth “is in very considerable measure dependent on growth from the outside in—a mastering of [the ways] that are embodied in the culture and that are passed on in a contingent dialogue by agents of the culture.” (Bruner, 21). He claims that this is the case when language and the symbolic systems of the culture are involved. Can we say the same about faith formation and development for ministerial and religious studies students? Perhaps it’s helpful to consider that while faith is a universal human potential, it is dependent on growth from the outside in “a mastering of the ways the practices of faith are embodied in the faith community’s culture that are passed on, as Bruner says, “in a contingent dialogue by agents of the culture.” That strikes me as a more helpful and promising start at understanding how faith develops than fuzzy devotional notions, individualistic or “magical thinking” related to how faith comes about and develops. Worse still, the temptation to make learning entertaining and interesting. Further, Bruner’s statement that ”much of the growth starts out by our turning around on our own traces and recoding in new forms, with the aid of adult tutors, what we have been doing or seeing, then going on to new modes of organization with the new products that have been formed by these recodings” (Bruner, 21) suggests three things. First, the necessity of a core curriculum structured in a spiral or holographic framework. This allows for intentionality in creating opportunity for re-tracing and “recoding in new forms” the fundamental concepts of faith (this may be a good rationale for the power of the observance of liturgical cycles in worship and educational programming). Second, it highlights the necessity of mediating relationships for growth in understanding—teachers, mentors, guides, spiritual friends. Third, the constructivist understanding of epistemology (knowing) through which the learner creates knowledge, insight, and meaning through the experiences of faith and relationships. Or, as Bruner puts it, ”the heart of the educational process consists of providing aids and dialogues for translating experience into more powerful systems of notation and ordering.“ (Bruner, 21).  

Too often when grading theology work, I find myself writing critical comments on students’ papers reminding them that their responses lack substance and need to be supported by scholarship. Their work is interesting but, at times, can drift between heresy and emoting. They mean well in making application in their essays to their personal relationship with a deity or critiquing such reality, but I remind them that theology class is an academic endeavor to which researchers, teachers, and practitioners have given their lives. There are other spaces that are more appropriate for disclosing feelings and discussing personal relationships with God. As we pivoted to remote learning and teaching, I found myself not being as severe in my demand for substantive support of their claims. In fact, in our section on social justice, I encouraged it. I wanted them to think deeply and broadly about justice. Justice demands a thorough critique of our present economic, social, political, and even religious realities. Our students need this in order to reimagine resources to meet the needs of tomorrow. Defining Justice Understanding justice can begin with an experience of injustice. I asked my students to reflect on an instance in their lives when they were slighted or scammed. Subsequent questions focused on areas where, historically, I have not gone: When did you first sense that you had been violated? What was the catalyst? Did anyone come to your aid? How did this experience make you feel? How did you know what you experienced was wrong? Did this experience lead you to recognize others also have been victims of the same heinous or did you believe you were the only one to suffer?  The example that I used is driving in New York City. Whether students drive or take public transportation, all them know motoring here is a horror show, and what subsequently happens, too often, only deepens the disgust. I will be in the midst of heavy traffic on the expressway with everyone sluggishly driving to more open areas when all of a sudden a new lane appears to open up. What has really happened is that someone is driving in the safety lane to bypass the rush-hour traffic. I am always astonished by this. How could anyone do this knowing that all the drivers are frustrated and eager to get to their destinations?  They violate a basic rule of justice we learn as children: You don’t cut the line.  I then asked the students to recall moments of injustice from these months of Covid-19 and began with the same question “Where have you been slighted or scammed?” They recalled some hard experiences when others they know, or they personally, were offended during this time. These moments made often exclaim, “That’s just wrong!” I urged my students not to be quiescent in the face of these injustices, but to think more deeply about what needs to be rectified in the “new normal.”  Imagining Justice Students admitted that in some instances people feel helpless, and, historically, many efforts to rectify injustice have failed. It is discouraging when perpetrators are not held responsible for their actions. They referenced my example of driving on that crowded road and the inevitability of others using the safety lane to bypass the traffic: “You can’t do anything about it. People are going to continue to do it. The police don’t even seem to care.”  Students are right. The police generally don’t get involved; they do not want to be stuck in traffic no less spend time writing moving violations. The other drivers and I could let it go, but we only would be contributing to a series of greater injustices. When people violate simple traffic rules on a regular basis, why do drivers tolerate such abase actions?  But, It is not enough to recognize an injustice. My response in traffic: pull to the side and block the line cutters from proceeding. It is a risky action. I admit that. But, perhaps, at an historical global pause when injustices, sadly, have multiplied, the human community needs to be more imaginative to offset economic, political, social, and religious abuse. The “new normal” does not have to be a return to business as usual and, as I remind my students, injustice is a failure of the moral imagination.

Planning for fall teaching frightens me much more than the spring switch to online teaching did. Going online in the spring was a mad, last-minute scramble, and it felt like an adventure. My students and I had already bonded so I had goodwill built up and I used it shamelessly. It also helped that we were in a crisis. My students didn’t expect me to do things perfectly and I lowered my expectations of them as well. I interacted with them as a fellow human being, providing structure, a sense of normalcy, and a little philosophy. I knew how to do all that, and my students helped me out whenever the technology confused me. But what about the fall? I just went through a few packed training days about teaching online. I left terrified, feeling that I had to spend the summer acquiring technical mastery in online teaching, learning to create snazzy videos and other exciting content. But am I teaching online? I don’t know yet. The situation is too fluid. I need to be prepared to teach online, in person, or in a hybrid format. And I’m tired. I can guarantee that my students will be underwhelmed by any videos that I create over the summer. I won’t have enough time to acquire the technical expertise required to create even decent videos. And because my classes are discussion heavy and lecture light, I’m not sure what I would put into those videos in the first place. Still, I felt pressured to switch to a lecture format, learn to lecture, and then to create videos of those lectures. All in one summer. Wait. Stop. Is that really what I should be working on this summer? No. The online teaching experts who conducted the training forgot that this year is extraordinary. In preparing to teach in the fall, we must start by considering our situation: Our students didn’t choose to take online classes. My students are at a small college, and they came here because of our small in-person classes. If I’m teaching online in the fall, it’s because we were forced into it. Our students are living through a pandemic and political upheaval, so they are distracted and stressed. If they have mental health issues, and many do, those are exacerbated. They are shaken and they feel less safe than they used to. They may have lost loved ones and they are worried about those who remain. We too are living through a pandemic and political upheaval, and it affects us in the same ways that it affects our students. My experts didn’t take any of this into account; they focused on how to create an online course under normal circumstances. And then, I freaked out instead of asking what portion of the advice was applicable to our current situation. Don’t make that mistake. Before spending precious time and energy on your online teaching this summer, ask two questions: What do your students need most from you and your courses under these circumstances? What is your energy level and mental health status, and what are the competing demands on your time and energy? Here is my list of what my students need: A sense of normalcy. A clearly structured course, website, and a set of assignments where expectations and directions are spelled out in simple language. Compassion and flexibility Discussions about meaning and purpose, including some that help them make sense of the current moment. Community and connection. My work this summer will be about doing these five well in any of the possible formats: in-person, online, and hybrid. I’ll work on lectures and videos only if that helps me with the five. I’ll work on technology because I need a better handle on Zoom and our learning management software. But my most important task won’t be about technology. It will be figuring out how to foster community in my classes if we are forced to start the semester online. It’s the most important task for me because I have at least some experience in doing all the others. But how do I build community online? How do we get to know each other? How do we learn to trust each other enough to have a real conversation? I’ll be thinking a lot about that in the next few weeks. Molleen Dupree-Dominguez offers some great places to start.