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More than once, a student has reported on a trauma unfolding in real time in the middle of class. Students with laptops open, or phones nearby, have shared breaking news of university lockdowns or school shootings. Just this semester, in the hours surrounding classes, we’ve seen gun violence and middle school walkouts, women’s rights and sexualized violence, police brutality and other forms of racist misuse of power, DACA and the risk and vulnerability of undocumented students, and more.  As a teacher, how does one prepare for what to do next? Part of responding to trauma is preparing to be present in unpredictable moments. Where in the curriculum do students learn whether to interrupt teaching and learning, to rewrite budgets, sermons, pastoral prayers, to scrap programming or lecture content in favor of addressing a trauma at hand?  This year I’ve experimented more regularly with a strategy I’ve used occasionally to structure time and space into my courses for the unpredictable. When trauma interrupts class, I often feel compelled to address it. However, I don’t always know which issues will trigger which students. Disclosing personal histories of trauma is not something I require nor think should be required. Histories of trauma exist, at all times, in visible and invisible ways. Some new trauma will interrupt, a decision is made about whether or not to address it, and unintended consequences may follow.  A “one-layer removed” pedagogical strategy helps me hold space to respond to trauma that interrupts courses while also protecting students from having to disclose their personal histories or being triggered directly. The strategy structures a simulated conversation about having a conversation about the presenting traumatic event. It’s not the conversation per se, but a directed conversation about the possibility of a more direct conversation at another time and place. Thus, the pedagogical exercise is by design one-layer removed from a trauma that interrupts. How does it work?  The one-layer removed practice requires at least 15 minutes of class time on a regular basis throughout the semester. I divide the class into groups of three with a seeker, a consultant, and an observer (a classic role play design). In larger groups, seekers can tag team or consultants can work together, or observers can share unique observations in turn. The seekers are the students themselves in their actual or imagined future vocational setting. The seeker contacts the consultant(s) about how to address a particular trauma in their ministry setting, practicing collegial consultation with a prompt: Seeker: Given the topic of class today and the reading we’ve been doing, I want to respond to (fill in the trauma that has interrupted the class in real time or in the local or global community).  Can you help me imagine how to do so? The consultant and seeker discuss possible conversations they imagine having or not having in their ministry, vocational, or other context at another time and space. After 5 minutes, the observer(s) reports about connections they see to the course themes, readings, contextual factors, trigger warnings or concerns, and more. Then, to debrief, the group can join with another group or the whole class can have a brief or longer conversation. This “one-layer removed” practice highlights three learning goals I have for students in several of my classes: (1) practicing and preparing to remain present when unpredictable care concerns and moral dilemmas arise (2) demonstrating and committing to ongoing courageous self-awareness and leading courageous communal awareness[1] (3) building on this awareness, cultivating a living referral network through practices of relationship-building,  consultation, and networking. When trauma infuses public discourse during a semester or even during a class session, a one-layer removed practice helps the class work on all three of these goals.  Here’s an example. This past fall, the #metoo movement arose with renewed energy[2] in which people, particularly women, disclosed experiences of abuse through social media and public protests. It was hard not to notice. In October 2017, I was teaching examples of trinitarian pastoral theology that took seriously intersectional concerns of gender, class, race, and a history of surviving abuse. There were lots of connections between course requirements and collective trauma being disclosed through the #metoo public discourse.  In a class session, I used previously set aside one-layer removed practice class time: Seeker: Given the topic of class this week and the reading we’ve been doing on taking women’s experiences seriously in our theologies of pastoral care and given the eruption of the #metoo movement this week, I am thinking about quoting this prayer[3] in my faith community’s service this week. Do you think that’s wise and how could I frame it? In the brief but important conversations that emerged, students practiced putting words to something that was painfully very familiar to some and not at all to others. Students considered how various folks with various experiences might receive either these words, other words, or lack of words about #metoo. Students brainstormed the kind of referrals they would need in their pocket that week in their various ministry and nonprofit contexts, no matter what was said or unsaid, about local resources they might print on a service bulletin. We discussed self-care, courageous communal care, and, yes, we incorporated assigned readings on implications for trinitarian pastoral theology and why that mattered. A one-layer removed pedagogical strategy helps students in my practical and pastoral theology and ethics classes prepare for moments when trauma or other dire care needs interrupt their work as a student, minister, nonprofit leader, or even dinner conversations with family and friends. Increasingly in the last year, as a pastoral theologian, I’ve been called by friends and strangers both near and far to support communities regarding various traumas. For example, I’m on a non-profit board whose carefully constructed budget had to be completely rethought when violence erupted in our service population.  Suddenly we needed to fund emergency counseling and care across multiple countries and communities. Here is just one example where my own lived experiences and the learning outcomes I have for my students aligned: the need to create a referral network before you need it.  Trauma will impinge on previously scheduled plans and folks will ask religious and spiritual leaders for advice, expect to hear a word or prayer, and hope to find some assistance in what to do next. I teach graduate students in theological education at the Masters and Doctoral levels and often remind my students that whether or not they see themselves as religious or spiritual leaders, folks who know they are educated in graduate theological education will expect them to be present in significant life and death moments. Where can students practice this in the curriculum? I’ve found that a pedagogical practice of one-layer removed can offer crucial time and space to practice.  [1] This awareness is important for helping students know which issues are too close to their own experience for them to be a care-provider and therefore need to establish referrals for help with these issues before they are needed. [2] Tanara Burke, longtime supporter of social justice for women and girls of color and founder of the nonprofit organization “JustBeInc,” created the “me too” movement to support survivors of sexualized violence a decade before the social media #metoo campaign of 2017 (see for example, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/us/me-too-movement-tarana-burke.html.  See also http://justbeinc.wixsite.com/justbeinc/board ). [3] I provided each group with copies of a blog that had been published that week from Rev. Sarah Griffith Lund at https://sarahgriffithlund.com/2017/10/18/god-were-you-there-when-metoo/

Over the past few months, the entries in this blog series have attempted to provide guidance and insight related to the pedagogical challenges of teaching traumatic materials. The series was initiated to provide a sense of reassurance about facing these challenges. By discussing the range of challenges, the variety of approaches, the multiple potential topics, and the significant questions, it may, of course, have had the opposite effect. Readers of the series may be even less confident that they can engage such topics in their classrooms. In my final entry, then, let me try and make the case for why—pedagogically—traumatic materials belong in our classrooms.  First and foremost, and this is consistent with everything I’ve said in my contributions, as teachers of religion, we don’t decide to introduce traumatic materials into our classrooms; they are already the warp and woof of our subject matter and of our students’ lives.  We can make decisions to avoid such materials and topics or to try and ignore their affective charge, but we can’t avoid them if we are treating our subject well.         Since we have to engage traumatic materials, we should be mindful of what they can do in our classrooms, to our teaching, and for our students. Traumatic materials are, for all kinds of complicated, and unpredictable, reasons, interesting. They have a charge that engages and enlivens students. They demand a response. Traumatic materials are complex. They require a wide range of approaches—both disciplinary and interpretive. To treat traumatic materials well, students will have to think like historians, like textualists, like rhetoricians, like sociologists, like psychologists, like ethicists, like political theorists. They will have to think about questions of nation, identity, power, race, sex, class, and cultural difference. Traumatic materials cannot be mastered. They cannot be mastered by teacher or student. This means they necessarily create a collaborative learning environment in which everyone has a chance to shine and everyone has a chance to listen. They require patience, and attention, and stillness, and reflection. But because they are so complex, when we begin to understand them, there is a genuine feeling of accomplishment that not only vivifies the learning environment but also gives students (and teachers) a sense of capacity and competence.  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, traumatic materials are difficult. Not just difficult to comprehend and interpret, but emotionally, affectively, psychically difficult.  They demand something of us. They demand something more from some of us than others. But this means that teaching traumatic materials generates a situation that calls for a certain ethical attentiveness. Students and teachers are required to listen to each other more carefully, to respond to each other more thoughtfully, to sit with each other more patiently. We must learn how to recover from slips, and mistakes, and hurts. In his Netflix special, “Thank God for Jokes,” comedian Mike Birbiglia notes that jokes are sites of offense, insult, and even danger because jokes are always about someone.  (He references as an extreme case of this problem—the Charlie Hebdo shootings—a traumatic event that brings together jokes, violence, and religion.) Similarly, traumas always impact someone. But Birbiglia goes on to observe that because jokes are always about someone, they create an invitation to attend to each other with great care and sensitivity, to make sure that we are not rushing to judgment, or taking each other’s words out of context, or quickly ascribing ill motives. The attention that Birbiglia claims jokes can foster in us sounds a great deal like the habits of scholarly attention that we want our students to develop. Let me be clear: we should not use traumatic events and materials instrumentally to build skills in our students. The last thing we need is to establish some new pedagogical trend that posits trauma as the new tool for engaged student learning! At the same time, we should not be afraid of the challenges posed by traumatic materials because, as I’ve said in my contributions to this series, the challenges are not so different than the challenges posed by teaching generally. And, as I am suggesting here when there are sound reasons for considering and investigating traumatic events, the rewards of engaging them with our students are quite rich and profound.

I don’t recall ever meeting anyone who sought out their own trauma. Those most prepared for the causal event were still caught unawares. As I’ve said before, trauma insists on passivity. That’s why I am a bit weary of valorizing people who did the so-called right thing in the face of trauma. Should we honor the person’s resilient responses? Absolutely. Can we do so without reducing their story to a marketable remedy or idol for veneration? If we don’t, then we may end up down a slippery slope of objectification. We would do well to learn from people without making them an object lesson or essentializing an ability. It takes commitment to refrain from tokenizing those dealing with trauma. I see the struggle play out around the water cooler. Faculty are shooting the breeze in between classes. Small talk turns to a hot-button issue ripped from the headlines or the grapevine. Someone presses the point that the weighty issue should be brought up in the classroom. “But how?” another asks; the quickest solution, leave it to the most affected colleague to lead the way or do it all. They’re a natural fit, right? Crisis averted. Here’s the thing—no one’s a natural fit for dealing with trauma. The experience of trauma isn’t a virtue. It’s a burden. And when we add to it, we not only bring insult to injury but also a stumbling block to those committed to addressing it. I know. I know. In my last post, I emphasized how dealing with trauma isn’t always your problem. But struggling to face it isn’t a sign that it’s not your problem. Dealing with trauma in your classroom is hard. And no taught subject is a natural fit for addressing trauma because it stymies the active participation that learning requires. I think honoring this is worth a moment of reflection. Once you embrace that dealing with trauma isn’t a natural fit, what might you do when trauma finds its way into your class? I’ve found comparison to be a useful too. Comparison thrives in the reality that classification is where humans dwell. When you realize that nothing you do is going to ever solve the thing, you can begin to acknowledge the freedom at your disposal. Put differently, you can talk about the thing without talking about the thing. Here’s what I mean. First, name the trauma in a way appropriate to your learning setting. “Do no harm” is a good tact here. Surface the trauma to acknowledge the situation but do so without violating the trust, privacy, or boundaries that bind your learning community. For example, when a “bias-related incident” or climate-changing event happens on your campus, actually acknowledge that it happened. Second, name your desire for the teaching moment. Given the difficulty of this teaching task, I like to lower the bar . . . and then lower it again. I teach on religion and the politics of social difference. I’m not out here trying to bring world peace or end racism. I’m upfront with students that I intend to facilitate a substantive 15-week conversation without a body count. The same expectation holds true for even a single class session. Other than that, if students leave the session asking better questions, seeking sharper answers, or are more skillful in pursuing either given the topic, that is well. Maybe this philosophy won’t win you “Teacher of the Year,” but I do find that it helps me be present in the moment. Third, present something besides the trauma to discuss. This can be something you find relatively pertinent. It can be a historical example from your domain of expertise. It can be a piece of art or news story that keeps popping into your head. I don’t want to put limitations on this because nothing naturally fits. Just make sure that it meets the criteria of steps one and two. For me, I find it least helpful to compare similar type of incidents (e.g. blatant discrimination, sudden death of a community member, a major institutional change). Comparisons that are similar limit the potential of the activity because the similarities immediately standout as co-incidents. Instead, I might set up a comparison based upon what I see as similar power relationships (e.g. feeling of a lack of agency), eerily similar diction across vastly different contexts (e.g, Where else have people expressed an inability to breathe?), or in the case of images, artistic motifs. On this last, I used Romance paintings to help students process the arrest of artist-activist Bree Newsome after she pulled down a Confederate Flag from the South Carolina State House. Fourth, invite your students to reflect on the thing on paper. You can be so blunt as to ask, “Why am I showing you this?” I like to have students freely associate and hypothesize the comparison for themselves. I think this extends a grace in which students can relish in the messiness of the learning process without pretense or fear of reprisal. Fifth, share the grounds upon which you found your “something” comparable to the named trauma. Why is it that your selection is worth discussing? How do you see its relevance? Is it because of the subject matter or a social dynamic you recognize? Is there a historical connection? Retrace how you connected the dots. One connection will give you plenty to discuss. Sixth, give students an opportunity to reflect about the trauma on paper. You can see that we are now going through the steps backward. Seventh, ask what needs further reflection given the lessons learned from the comparison. Encourage these to be described openly—perhaps with one word. These can be shared aloud and recorded on the board. To maintain the “do no harm” ethos, remind them of your desire for this moment. Lastly, let the students go free to name the trauma (or not) as they choose. Also, give a sense of what comes next in the course schedule. This helps to situate the day’s class session within the rhythm of the course, inviting them to make further connections on their own. For all the steps listed here, this exercise appears more complicated than it is in execution. Take it as an attempt to strip down teaching-learning to the basics so that those involved can recall that there can be possibilities, connections, and community in the face of trauma.

I’ve been in higher education just long enough to warrant a sense of déjà vu. My lips and tongue stretch in a pattern too familiar for comfort. My ears know the buzz of silence that follows the words now oft spoken. Despite the lack of novelty, every time I’m shook; the surprise never fails—the call, the response-- they stir every time. It goes down like this. I’m sitting with a colleague or a student. Sometimes I’m on a panel or giving a workshop. Maybe I’m standing before a mirror. Whoever is across from me begins to tell me about some crisis happening at their institution and how much it is weighing on them and those they care about and how they’re trying to find the solution. And then I say the thing that catches them off guard. It’s the same thing that catches me off guard, even though it shouldn’t. “Maybe it’s not your job.” Then there’s the silence, the loud, unmistakable silence when thought gives way to understanding. In my contributions to this series on “Teaching and Traumatic Events,” I’ve tried to offer preparatory resources for those educators seeking to rise to the occasion. What needs to be said though is that it’s not always your job to do anything. You don’t have to unfurl a rapid response protocol, roll out a diversity initiative, lead the revolution, or assert what no one else has confessed. I don’t know your situation. But, teacher-to-teacher, I’m pretty sure that “fixing” isn’t in your job description. I’ve tried to speak pretty generally about trauma in terms of its various meanings. But to clarify, I will call out the stressors that can precede the compulsion to fix. Why must you be the one to lead the charge? Sometimes the reasons simply aren’t good, but the voices peddling them are insistent. Here are few reasons for you to remember why “maybe it’s not your job.” “It directly effects ‘people like you.’” This line of thinking betrays a Horatio Alger/bootstraps myth to hardship. Because an event or circumstance impacts you, your efforts to rectify the situation can lead to glory. What doesn’t get mentioned is that those efforts can make you more vulnerable to the pain and suffering that will keep you from doing your actual job. In my opinion, you’ve just been given an opportunity to inquire what the institution is going to do to equip you to do your job effectively given the trauma’s impact on employees. This isn’t selfish. This is contractual. “Your expertise is a natural fit.” I think this line, perhaps more than any other, is a disenfranchising play, especially for those in religious studies and theological education. It assumes that some subject domains, by nature, lend themselves to relevance. Were this the case, then why not send a link or bibliography to those in need and check on them in the morning? Our expertise is in the connections we make between critical observations, creative analysis, and methodical application. None of that work is natural. No one comes to that without practice, training, and focus. And even if you find that you have the first two, your job description likely doesn’t afford the third one—especially if you’re teaching. If anything, your expert opinion may lead you to recommend that the concerned locate someone who can do the requested task better than you. Reluctance on their part to do so speaks volumes about their take on you and the trauma at hand. “People look to you for . . . “ This may be true, but take some time to ask why. Early in my teaching career, a friend shared some great advice. She said that you can’t develop a good teaching strategy without understanding how your students see you. Often students fall back on socialized models to inform their interaction with professors (for better, and too frequently, for worse). Even when encountering the same instructional situation, we each might choose different teaching tactics because she, as a petite, African American woman, would be read differently than I would as a large, African American man. Amado Padilla put such readings in institutional terms when discussing the “cultural taxation” carried by faculty of color paid in undue burdens of service—especially on issues of diversity and inclusion. Some people benignly and naively will use any resemblance you bear to a stamp-worthy activist to make the devastating assumption that you should take up a similar mantle. That choice is on you. The institutional responsibility for that burden is not. “You’re effective.” Just because you are good at a task doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t be, nor does it mean you should do the task. You have a job to do and if that task is not part of it, that task can keep you from it. We never occupy one role or responsibility, but when I come across students inclined to activism, I remind them that ultimately their job in higher education is to graduate. As faculty, I wonder whether we remind each other about what we are here to do. I’m not going to presume to know what that is for each of you, but I don’t think your effectiveness at a task should be an excuse for others’ lack thereof. People love to opine about the shortcomings of teachers. Press them on their rationale and you quickly realize they think we’re here to be tutors, social workers, counselors, and campus security. To paraphrase Michael Jordan’s words to a rising generation of basketball players, maybe we make this education thing look easy. Or maybe too many are using us as an excuse. Let’s not let them use trauma to do so.

Perception is among the first points of impact in a traumatic event. How we see ourselves, the world, and our options can radically change. Sometimes our perception alters our reality. Sometimes our new reality necessitates a change in our perception. Either way, the world doesn’t seem the same when trauma happens. Reckoning with that is a lot to ask of anyone. And it often feels like you are just “one” in the struggle. Usually, this is the moment in professional development discussions when a workshop facilitator says something like, “But you’re not alone. You have a community right there beside you fighting the good fight. You have allies.” There are a lot of different kinds of trauma, but I am not familiar with any that does a roll call to double check that all allies are present and accounted for. Trauma takes names, and it asks questions later. I think this is why I’ve grown weary of the ally metaphor. Allyship too often (1) emphasizes the election of the ally at the expense of the subject’s involuntary trauma and (2) accommodates conditions in which would-be supporters can exit when that is not a universal luxury. Speaking from the context of American foreign policy, it’s really quite easy to see the fickle potential of the ally metaphor. Allyship can be good. But when you’re in the struggle, the last thing you need is for your chorus to become a soliloquy or, maybe worse, a teachable moment. I think it’s good for teachers to ask the conditions upon which they build allegiances. Maybe it’s the introvert in me, but if I’m going to have a squad, I want mine to be filled with accomplices—people beside me committed to dealing with a situation despite the good, bad, and ugly consequences of doing so. As I write this, I’m in a place of transition. I’m about to embark on an exciting new chapter in my career, leaving behind a wonderful institution where I’ve spent four years teaching, advising, mentoring, problem-solving, and enduring. Over the past few days I’ve been reflecting on how I did it. I remember learning from social media how a college-bound Michael Brown was murdered a few days before the school year that I started. I was wrestling with the ramifications of teaching from my own body in a sundown town. At the same time, I was reconsidering my scheduled curricular offerings to better help a predominantly white institution be part of the solution rather than the problem. Some described these efforts as troublemaking and agitating. Let’s be real—some described me as troublemaking and agitating. When you become a problem you sometimes get a clearer picture of who’s with you. For me, it was a loose network of chaplains, librarians, department assistants, fellow professors, and administrators. These were the few upon whom I could count on for collegial care and collaboration. Through their diversity I’ve been able to tease out some common threads that made them squad-worthy. Maybe you’ll find these criteria helpful as you find your own squad. (1) They assume the rewards and risks in your common initiatives. Suffering doesn’t pay, but it does sell. The former can keep many from supporting you while the latter will bring them flocking. Squad-worthy colleagues understand this but value your work by a different metric. They acknowledge your humanity, your initiative, and your circumstances, and they ante up accordingly.  This investment can come at a loss to them, but it’s worth it because they value you and your work. (2) You complement and supplement each other’s gifts. Successful networks have a solid understanding of what the different nodes offer to the work of the whole. My college makes great use of inventories like the Clifton StrengthsFinder to help units understand how individuals work and how they can work together. In my experience, trauma doesn’t wait for you to have a good day or for you to be at your best. This is why having people who understand how to synergize with you is worth its weight in gold. (3) We acknowledge the power dynamics and respect our limitations. If you go back to those listed in my squad, you will probably recognize that they span the higher educational social hierarchy. For this to work, members should recognize the stratification at play. Rewards and reprimands are diffused unevenly, so how does one mitigate that reality? What do you do to bring equity to the exchange? And are they willing to act likewise? (4) Privacy is honored and expected. Your individual agency is sacrosanct. The squad doesn’t need to know everything. Boundaries are encouraged. Having clear expectations is essential in fruitful relationships. Once, some colleagues and I were kicking around these ideas, and we determined that some of our allies weren’t really accomplices. One trauma or another had tested their resolve too much. That doesn’t mean relationships need to be jettisoned. It’s a reminder that squads must be built. These are just a few of the ways you can be proactive about building a squad that lasts.

Church history, may, at first glance, appear rather uninteresting to some seminary students. After all, hot-button issues in theology, ethics, bible, and pastoral care stimulate gospel-oriented revolutionary thinking, particularly in regard to contemporary needs in church and society. Individuals take graduate-level courses in ministry to make a difference. They seek biblical and theological knowledge, ministerial tools, and critical skills to engage a world burdened with injustice and suffering. Although a cursory acknowledgment of historical occurrences is surely helpful in constructing a general appreciation of our religious pasts, such material is ultimately not, quite frankly, exciting. However, there are times when course content, even in church history studies, may smash deeply held theological or biblical assumptions. In other words, some course material can threaten students. Acquiring knowledge can be iconoclastic. One’s understanding of the Christian faith reflects a psychological investment buried deeply within the context of familial beliefs, cultural identity, and social teachings. Such views may be supported by ecclesiastical or denominational institutions. Historical-critical methods and pedagogy designed to problematize traditionally established narratives in this setting may not only rupture foundational belief systems, but also elicit emotional reactions. Students may actually experience feelings of traumatic loss. Of course, this phenomenon is applicable to any field of study. Yet, as a church history professor, I have routinely witnessed first-year and other students grapple with the shocking prospect of a structurally non-linear, chaotically diverse, and relatively inclusive early Christianity. In fact, recently, I taught a number of students who were theologically invested in beliefs that the early church was doctrinally monolithic; moreover, these students held specifically that women’s subordination in church leadership throughout history was a natural occurrence. This religious view is quite standard, in fact, in many religious traditions. Hence, the emergence of women’s voices calling for church ordination and equality in recent centuries is interpreted as novel. But in my class, students were required to critically engage literary and physical evidence that squarely challenges these assumptions. I did not predict the reactions some students had one day. To put it mildly, class discussion became heated. Individuals expressed shock and dismay over information in primary historical sources. They became defensive and emotional with regard to the implications for contemporary ministry. Some began talking at each other.  For me, James Baldwin’s words from The Fire Next Time suddenly came to mind, “our entire frame of reference will have to change, and you will be forced to surrender many things.” In that moment, it was immediately necessary for me as instructor to quell the rising tide of emotion in that space. I talked about the controversial nature of claims on all sides, noting even the historical dissension those precise questions had caused. I reiterated the goal of critical examination in that context: to substantiate one’s positions using critical research methods, not to establish historical fact. Weakly, I even tried (emphasis on tried!) to crack a joke or two. Miraculously, the students responded. They articulated their feelings of trauma at the thought of modifying cherished religious understandings. As they expressed it, part of the fear lay in the thought of sharing those ideas among their families and religious communities. They ministered to themselves and to each other right there in the classroom, even as they wondered how to appropriate this knowledge. Through ongoing analytical reflection as the class progressed, the students, with some guidance, were able to find their way. Indeed, pastoral and pedagogical methods proved effective—by admitting the sensitive nature of the subject matter, emotionally combative feelings were calmed. But when class was over, I needed self-care! What had I done wrong? How could I have prevented the outbursts from occurring? Why did the critical engagement of material become so emotional? By sharing the day’s events with a colleague, processing the steps taken, and outlining improved techniques for broaching challenging course content, I embraced the experience as a learning opportunity for better teaching. In subsequent class gatherings with the students, we continued the process of critical, scholarly engagement with sources, while reflecting on the social-cultural, theological, and religious implications of debatable historical conclusions. Hence, that initial emotionally ridden event was not isolated as a singular, unhealthy occurrence. Instead, it became part of praxis-driven ministerial development. What better way to learn navigation of potentially explosive religious-social environments than in theologically-charged history classroom debates? Just as in church history, icons have and will be broken in seminary classrooms. Just as in church history, these events will likely trigger emotional responses. However, unlike some notorious iconoclastic chapters, also in church history, this doesn’t have to be earth shattering. For students and teacher-learners striving to maintain cohesive, yet flexible, class settings, even broken pieces can be reassembled with newfound beauty in the cracks.

I ask students to laugh at death with me. Rather than treating death as off-limits or something that must be approached with absolute solemnity, I ask students to laugh. And when I make jokes about death and they stare at me with horror, I remind them that it’s ok to laugh about death. I like to think that they eventually get used to me. Discussions about trauma often coalesce around healing, but this orientation forecloses the (im)possibilities inherent in trauma. Quick movements from trauma to healing also assume the inherent value of life as opposed to death. Rather than treating life and death as opposites, the death positivity movement suggests that death is a part of life and the ongoing ecosystem. Death becomes something active, something that can be done (and done well), instead of avoided until it overtakes the agency of a body (or mind) that is actively attempting to remain alive. The death positively movement maintains that individual human lives may not continue forever, but life does. I teach about this movement in my course “Religion Outside of Religions,” a course that draws on theories and methods often used to study religious traditions to explore aspects of contemporary U.S. culture that aren’t considered overtly religious. The death positivity movement, therefore, serves as an example of an orientation to the so-called natural world that occurs outside of overt religious traditions. Students explore the myths, rituals, beliefs, and ethical systems that guide this movement, especially as they develop in contrast to broader medical and funerary practices in the U.S. Through this process, students often confront their own assumptions about death, especially as these assumptions tend to be informed by the medical and funerary practices opposed by the death-positivity movement. These confrontations push students beyond life-death binaries and some even learn to laugh at my jokes (I keep wondering if I should start listing that as a learning outcome). Might we, as teachers, adopt this posture to trauma? What would it look like to push ourselves past the binary of trauma and healing? What if we accept and adapt to the trauma that is always already in our midst? What if we refuse to tidy up traumatized psyches behind the closed doors of licensed counselors, much like the corpses made to look eerily lifelike in funeral homes?   Teaching about different approaches to death can reorient the assumption that trauma is bad and healing good. This is a particularly important reorientation within a context where trauma is often ongoing and not a one-time event. The death positivity movement recognizes that some people live in closer proximity to death than others and that the deaths that result from this proximity can and should be avoided. As Everything Dies: A Coloring Book About Life! says, “I know everything dies, but there seems to me to be a big difference between something dying to feed another living thing, and this strange knack we have for needless death. These are deaths that don’t feed life. These are deaths of entire species and peoples and places. Humans seem to do this a lot.” (58) Recognizing that all deaths (like all lives) are not equal given our current political systems, the movement argues for breaking the culture of silence around death, including the culture of silence around systems that locate some bodies closer to death as a result of race, sexuality, gender, disability, class, or location. By opening these questions, the death positivity movement pushes us to teach recognizing that trauma is often ongoing and systemic, rather than a one-time event. The death positivity movement encourages us to ask why life is necessarily better than death. It also begs the question of whether trauma must end with healing, suggesting that trauma, like death, is ever-present and not something to be avoided but, rather, to be engaged. These are ideas to bring to students and to let challenge our own assumptions about teaching, particularly around the place of trauma in the classroom.

The call for educational practitioners to be critically self-reflective is fairly common today. This is in large part due to the work of pedagogical theorists, such as Stephen Brookfield, who have challenged educators to routinely assess and hone our teaching practices. Indeed, since the beginning of my teaching career, I have been encouraged by mentors to reflect critically on my teaching through the four lenses Brookfield identifies: (1) students' eyes, (2) colleagues' perceptions, (3) personal experience, and (4) theory.[1] Recently, however, I have noticed a pattern in my critical reflection: it becomes all-encompassing and far-reaching during the aftermath of national traumas. For example, in these few weeks following the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, I have been thinking, “What are we doing wrong? What am I doing wrong? What else should I be doing?” The sickening coincidence that the shooting occurred on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent according to the Christian liturgical calendar that I observe, added an unavoidable urgency to my usual Lenten critical reflection. Because the main area of my social engagement is through my teaching and writing, the tragedy of yet another mass shooting prompted me to reconsider everything I have ever done in the classroom. Similar moments of wholescale critical reflection were stirred within me after other tragic events over the past few years. For example, I vividly remember this process of questioning all of my pedagogical assumptions and practices after the presidential election of 2016 and the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown.  In the genre of educational theory, I believe Jack Mezirow would define each of these events as a “disorienting dilemma.”[2] He has poignantly described how traumatic events can often lead us to scrutinize previously unquestioned assumptions and to identify how our assumptions have limited our thought-processes and actions up to the point they occurred. For me, each of these national tragedies has led me to uncover my previous assumption that “I need to be an expert in what I teach.” Based on this assumption, I had believed that my expertise in the area of “systematic theology” did not qualify me to teach about civic action or politics at all. So, if I wanted to teach about anything that engaged in social or racial justice (which I desperately did), I would need to go back and get another Ph.D. in critical race theory. However, through my critical reflection, particularly through Brookfield’s fourth lens of theory, I have come to understand the inaccuracy of my previous viewpoint and have begun to embrace a much more accurate alternative: all teaching in higher education must entail “ideology critique.” Indeed, I have taken a tip from Brookfield’s own theory. As he defines it, “Ideology critique is 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.”[3] I now understand ideology critique as a necessary and central component to critical reflection. National traumas led me to intuit this assumption, and Brookfield’s theory led me to embrace it. Moreover, through my critical reflection--specifically through Brookfield’s first lens, that of my students’ eyes--I know that it is not just me that is questioning everything I have been doing (cognitively and behaviorally) after a national tragedy, but my students are too. I have found that leading them through a critical reflection, which entails ideology critique, is helpful for them as well. The three core assumptions Brookfield identifies as comprising ideology critique are helpful for framing such discussions about the unjust ways the world 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.”[4] Of course, this activity of leading students in a reflection on these assumptions is not the primary focus of my lesson plan in every class. After all, I am responsible for teaching them theological methods and theories—that is, the areas in which I have been trained. But what I know now for sure is that I can and necessarily must lead them in a critical reflection concerning dominant ideology, especially in the aftermath of national tragedies and traumas. I am curious to know how and to what extent others engage in ideology critique in the classroom: In what ways and in which theory do you frame your discussion? How do you balance the demands of the course content for which you are responsible and the demands of the students and contemporary society begging for ideology critique? [1] Stephen Brookfield, Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher (San-Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995). [2] Jack Mezirow, Learning as Transformation: Critical Perspectives on a Theory in Progress (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2000). [3] Stephen Brookfield, “The Concept of Critical Reflection: Promises and Contradictions,” European Journal of Social Work, 12.3 (September 2009): 298-299. [4] Ibid., 298.

Trauma is like a mirror that we don’t want to look into. It captures us at our worst angles. It accentuates what we want minimized and overlooks what we wish to be prominent. In trauma, we see projected the unwanted aspects of our realities in such a startling way that we forget everything over which we might have control. Sometimes we don’t have control over a lot. And if we are lucky, we are graced with a reminder that less can be more. To be clear, I don’t mean to make asceticism a virtue. Rather, I want to honor the irrelevant revelation where many on the brink find humor and solace—the fleeting thought of how “it could be worse.” On the flip side of that sentiment is an appreciation for the chance to no longer take what one has for granted. It is this latter posture that I think we teachers should become more accustomed to inhabit. If you follow me on social media, then you know that half of my best pedagogy comes from lessons learned while parenting. As I write, my six-year-old is wrestling in his first tournament. Kid Newton loves the sport. I like that he loves it. But the anxiety in the gym is as airborne as the body odor. And as these children face off, I can read the look in their faces. They are not scared of each other. They are afraid of their own limitations. Throughout this tournament, I have seen a lot of different coaching styles. I don’t have the foggiest idea about wrestling technique, yet I do know enough about teaching-learning to see what isn’t working. And the number one way to fail seems to be throwing a lot of new information at a student/athlete in the midst of a stressful situation. This results in a lot of takedowns, tears, and tantrums. I’ve also picked up some practices that seem to work on the mat, if not in the classroom. When trauma finds your students, consider having them do the following: Breathe. At a Wabash consultation, my colleague Dr. Melanie Harris would frequently lead my cohort in a few moments of collective breathing before we dove into the topic of the day. This may have been the single greatest takeaway from these intensive professional development experiences. In just a few silent moments of respiration, I found assurance that I had survived the previous moment and could be present in the current one. My mind stopped wandering to the future. My thoughts stopped dwelling on the past. So when I sense that my students are stressed or at dis-ease, I push pause on whatever we are doing and have us breathe. When we reenter into the activity, we are so much more prepared for what may come. Have space to be heard, read, and seen. Just like athletes need to breathe, people in trauma need a moment to vent. This doesn’t necessarily involve conspicuous expression, but perhaps just a moment to acknowledge what one has observed can go a long way. If I have a sense that we are in the middle of a traumatic moment, I like to start punctually but give students a chance to release their thoughts within the formal classroom time. This gives them license to work through preoccupation rather than be consumed by the trauma occupying them. Sometimes I just quickly name the event and have students free-write individually as they see fit. Other times I announce that we’ll take three minutes to talk about (or not) whatever they think needs to be discussed. In this situation, I move to the side of the classroom so that students can relate to each other as peers instead of to me as their instructor. When we move to our next activity, students seem to be calmer and more collected. Relax in their strengths. The traumatic moment can be a teachable moment, but not for skill acquisition. This is not the time to trot out radically new content. Instead, consider how you can bring out the things students know. What are the things that have been practiced, drilled, and rehearsed? Giving students a chance to bring these out will orient them toward the “more” ahead. Leaving a little room for free association or creative application can even bring a little hope in the midst of despair. As students rise to the occasion of just one task, they can remember that they have risen before and will rise again. None of these activities are novel. In fact, if you incorporate them into your regular teaching practices, they’ll be that much more effective in moments of testing. At the end of the day, the challenge isn’t ending the trauma. It is dealing with it. Just remember that you, in fact, do have the tools to begin doing so.

When I was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer, everything seemed to cave in on my body as questions narrowed: first, what to take out via surgery, then what to put in via chemotherapy and food, and eventually, to possible internal causes due to genetic flaws. Although everything and everyone seemed to be focused on my body, my thoughts were occupied with things outside of my body--from environmental carcinogens, to students, to writing deadlines. While much of the focus on trauma in the classroom has been on how to deal with traumatized students (links below), there has been less discussion of traumatized faculty, as if professors are somehow immune to the trauma students bring into the classroom. Yet, professors, like students, are embedded in environments that often cause trauma. How do we teach not only in the wake of the trauma of students, but also in the wake of our own traumas? Moreover, how can we shift individualistic narratives about trauma toward a cultural narrative, particularly in the context of the classroom? While we might idealistically like to keep personal trauma separate from the classroom, the realities of trauma tend to be messy. Trauma exceeds the boundaries we have worked so hard to establish. This is as true for professors as it is for students. To tell or not to tell When I was diagnosed, I was teaching two courses: one entirely online as part of the Council for Independent Colleges's Consortium for Online Humanities Instruction and one at a correctional institution using the inside-out model. I knew that I would not be able to continue shuttling students back and forth to a correctional institution following my surgery and that it was going to be difficult as I started chemo. My online students had grown accustomed to near-daily interactions in the spaces we had created for dialogue. My options, as I saw them, were to tell the students about the diagnosis, tell the students that I was sick, or not to tell the students anything. Regardless of the choice I made, my diagnosis would affect students and classroom dynamics. Do we invite students into our personal traumas or keep them out? What do we risk by putting students in proximity to personal trauma? What do we risk by trying to keep them out? What might students learn from watching their professors deal with illness or other personal traumas? Both classes had fewer than 20 students enrolled and I had formed connections with many of the students, so I weighed the options in this context and decided not to shield students from the details. I would be as honest as I could. Shifting the narrative One of the things that students might learn if we invite them into our personal traumas is how to shift the narrative of trauma from a narrative about individuals to a cultural one. In the case of my cancer, this means considering the "how did this happen question" without resorting to blaming my genetic line, the decisions of my parents, or my decisions about food and exercise. It is easy to like individualistic reasons for trauma. If you can figure out why I got colon cancer, you feel like you can protect yourself from this particular trauma by making better decisions. This is not unlike feeling that you can avoid rape by dressing modestly and not walking alone at night. While many have recognized the problem with responding to rape by calling on potential rape victims to change their habits, people with cancer continue to be advised to change their personal habits. Such advice shields the broader collective from having to make difficult decisions about the way we have organized our lives together, how that organization might be contributing to the rise in cancer, and the effects of a politics that marginalizes people with pre-existing conditions. Because my diagnosis coincided with the first-full scale attempt to dismantle the ACA, bringing my personal trauma into the classroom created space for students to see how collective decisions shape what might appear to be individual trauma. By naming trauma in the classroom, we invite students into the kinds of questions that can shift the narrative of blame from individuals who experience trauma toward systemic problems that reveal an economy willing to sacrifice some for the benefit of others. In shifting this narrative, students learn how to think about trauma as something that affects individuals, but often does not have individual causes. Trauma is often rooted in social decisions. Links: The Ethics of Trigger Warnings in the Classroom No Trigger Warnings in my class You Are Triggering Me!