Resources

It’s a heavy time at our university. The pandemic is still with us (a funny/not-funny tweet I read recently said, “i didn’t realize 2020 was gonna be a trilogy”). Within the first few weeks of class, I had six students from my Religion and Pop Culture class out with COVID symptoms or positive diagnoses; there are only 17 of them enrolled. Throughout the semester, they have emailed me with health updates, how they’re feeling, when they’re getting tested, what the test results were. I myself got sick at the start of the semester and had to cancel the first day of class and hold the next two online. Worse, if possible, there was a shooting on a college campus just a few miles from us, at the beginning of February, resulting in the deaths of two beloved campus safety officers; this is a college always considered one of the safest places to attend, in a town always considered one of the safest places to live. Many of our students, as well as faculty, hail from the surrounding areas, so this event affected our community deeply. And then, just a few weeks later, there were two suicides on our campus. Information was scarce, privacy protected. The administration sent out emails of support, with urls and phone numbers for crisis hotlines, but nothing seemed like enough. Faculty and students were struggling, are struggling still. Mental health issues are on the rise. We are not all trained counselors. Nobody is equipped. Life isn’t stopping. But there is something we can do. We can acknowledge the difficulties, the events, the overwhelm. We can give them a name. We can convey our shared humanity. We can create space for processing. We can say something. This seems so basic, but it is crucial. After the Bridgewater College shootings, I came to class and told my students I was really sad about what had happened. I said it felt utterly stupid to me to be trying to talk about the definitions of pop culture (our topic for the day), in light of the tragedy. I opened up space for them to share any feelings or reactions. Many students chose to talk. They said they felt scared. They said the event brought up memories and connections to other shootings, other trauma in their young lives. They said they were left with a “it can happen anywhere, it can happen here, to us, to me” sense. I then led them through a gratitude exercise. (Gratitude, as a practice, has been shown to increase happiness.) I asked them to write down what they were grateful for having in their lives. I told them about a quotation that struck me many years ago: What if you woke up tomorrow with only what you were grateful for today? I encouraged them, if any people appeared on their list, to let those people know. As the shootings show, you never know what can happen. Later, a student told me I was the only one of her six professors who had said anything about the incident. The only one. I imagine, of course, there could be many reasons for such silence. It could be that folks didn’t know what to say or how to say it. It could be that they felt awkward. It could be that they didn’t want to make things worse or cause harm. It could be that they didn’t know, or want to presume, what students needed in that moment. It could be that they didn’t want to get too personal, especially if this was out of character for them or the learning environment. It could be that the lesson plan for the day didn’t seem to allow time to detour. It could also be that they themselves were feeling traumatized. It could be that this event was indistinguishable from other shootings on or around campuses (like what happened near Virginia Tech just recently), or the other acts of violence in other spaces, that continue to happen on a regular basis. It could be that they have reached a point of compassion fatigue, a numbness that has been settling over us all because of the terrible things that keep happening and our inability to cope with it all. I understand all of these hesitations. It’s hard to know what to do and difficult. But I still think we have to say something. Even if it is imperfect, halting, awkward, uncomfortable, uncertain. It’s similar to the way social justice educators recommend we handle microaggressions in class (e.g., here and here). Don’t let the incident pass in silence, in avoidance, in complicity. Silence is damaging. It itself communicates something and that something, I worry, is: nothing of note happened; I don’t care about you all as whole humans, only the topic or lesson at hand; people died and it didn’t matter. There are a lot of moments in class where we can acknowledge and honor our students’ humanity, and our own. When terrible events, like shootings or suicides happen, these are moments to stop, to slow down, and to say something.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds…   Romans 12:2a (NRSV) Students are stressed today, and Omicron is not the only culprit. Twenty-four-hour access to social media and our preoccupation with it has proven to be both a blessing and a curse. With every posting that stirs divisive issues like Critical Race Theory, attacks on voting rights, or the “anti-vax” movement, what may have begun for students as an average day can quickly lapse into chaos. “This is really nothing new,” faculty might whisper to themselves. Educators have always been challenged by the effects of life’s storms that impact adult learners. What is concerning now is that tempests seem to be rising at an alarming pace. During the past two years we have witnessed: (1) The COVID-19 pandemic taking the lives of almost one million Americans; (2) The cruel public murder of George Floyd by a law enforcement officer; (3) The violent insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021; and (4) The brazen slaughter of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery and subsequent criminal conviction of his unrepentant assailants. You undoubtedly have your own list that may include one or more of these tumultuous events. Consider George Floyd’s death. Students throughout the world were outraged by the inhumane treatment inflicted upon Floyd. Organic protests spread from Berkeley to Budapest. On the other hand, a vocal segment of Americans believed that Floyd caused his own demise because he unlawfully purchased cigarettes with a counterfeit 20 dollar bill. In a June 8, 2020, article in Inside Higher Ed, Lindsay McKenzie noted that many university presidents called for social change following Floyd’s killing but very few offered concrete ideas for implementation. That fact was not lost on discerning college students. So, what did you share with students and what did they share with you in the wake of these critical events? Perhaps the prospect of discussing the “COVID/Floyd/Insurrection/Arbery” incidents with students raised problematic classroom management issues for you. Did any of these events create anxiety for you personally? Were you transparent with students? Was it your first impulse to offer solutions or solace? Did you squarely address the tough questions raised or did you conspicuously sidestep the deeper issues? I regret that I was not actively teaching courses during this period. However, I personally experienced moments of reckoning in the classroom following the murder of Trayvon Martin and the mass shooting deaths of 20 precious children at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I also witnessed the rise of disparaging racist speech leveled against Barack Obama and his wife Michelle following Mr. Obama’s first election as US President; I recall adult students arriving in class expressing despair or anger while others sat in relative silence. Those incidents led me to reexamine my responsibility as an educator in the aftermath of a social crisis. A number of my colleagues found themselves distressed by the feverish hostility expressed by competing political factions. Some faculty were reluctant to share with students because the subjects of controversy were outside the scope of their field of scholarship. Others found it safer to tread lightly on the periphery and not address contentious student concerns. But this message is not intended as a critique; now is a time for grace. In an era when student feelings of isolation often predominate, adult learners need a sense of community with their peers and with educators. We are listening to students, but do we hear them? If we can encourage students to boldly go into the world and speak truth to power, then we must also be willing to bear witness to each student’s truth—even when it is raw or unscripted. Effective teaching is essential, but it is not without limitations. When instructors teach, we facilitate student acquisition of information and the development of discrete skills. But when we endeavor to educate, we answer a higher calling; a calling rooted in a belief that each learner has the potential to experience growth and gain insight in ways that can ultimately transform the whole person. When we educate, we are not tentative—we are intentional. During times of crisis, we cannot permit ourselves to be constrained by the four corners of cherished syllabi. It is imperative that I operate “in the moment” and not become a hostage to the moment. We must seek first to educate; we can always teach tomorrow.

Every now and then I read a book for which I have such resonance and affection that I wish I had written it. One such book is The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, by Parker Palmer. Parker Palmer teaches that the bad days of teaching create a kind of suffering that only comes from attempting work that is loved, revered – work where our passions find expression and release. For many of us, teaching is the work our souls must have. (K. Cannon) When soul-rich teaching days are bad, then the teacher is anguished. Palmer encourages that when teachers endure unswerving bad days that that teacher must not attempt to escape, but instead, to get out of trouble, go deeper in Yes! I agree! Or I used to agree. Before the quarantine I thought Palmer’s words noble, admirable, aspirational and attainable. Now, in the midst of the yet on-going Covid pandemic, the unrelenting social violence against BIPOC people, the renewed awareness of war around the globe, the uptick of mental illness, the supply chain shortages, grieving, languishing and so on - while I am not rethinking this nobility, I am stymied by it in new ways. In the struggle with teaching-while-in-Covid, a refrain uttered by colleagues is the wish, need, outcry for withdrawal, maybe even surrender. In multiple forms, colleagues have reported their suffering with these words: I want to quit teaching every day. The series of bad days is stretching-out too long, too far, too much. A response of going deeper, doing more, reifying commitment, is not working. Colleagues do not possess the fortitude to meet their espoused loyalty. For many, the fires of passion have burned out. Some days, I count myself in this number. Lovers of the Courage to Teach are encouraged to read beyond the aforementioned pithy quotes, and focus on the grand picture of teaching and the teaching life for which Palmer speaks. We must remember that Palmer also wrote, If we want to grow as teachers -- we must do something alien to academic culture: we must talk to each other about our inner lives -- risky stuff in a profession that fears the personal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant, the abstract. During the pandemic, the practice of nurturing an inner life, rather than for growth, might now be practices of survival. While it would have been better to have risked habits and practices of talking to each other about our inner lives before the current on-going crisis and malaise, doing it right now might slow our undoing.   A foundation stone of the Wabash Center is our cohort groups. We have learned that the critical role of the cohort groups lies in providing space for dialogue, networking, and relationship building. Participants often find old friends, make new friends, and deepen friendships (see our website for upcoming opportunities). Friends are the folks to whom we can pour out our hearts with the assurance that our words will not be weaponized against us at tenure or promotion processes. My hunch is that without friends in the industry of teaching, or friends beyond the industry of teaching, a teaching soul cannot make it alone, especially during this pandemic. It is in the intimacy of friendship where our inner life is discussed so that the suffering of our bad teaching days does not devour us. I have a friend I depend upon. We speak regularly. During the isolation of quarantine, we spoke every day – sometimes more than once a day. We needed to check-in, to be checked-on, and to feel connected. One of my favorite ways that we interact is to always say to each other such yammering of truth telling and troublemaking as --- you have done enough/you are enough/go take a nap/tell them no/did you eat today/ are you hydrated/go outside and sit/ set your alarm clock so you stop working/ you don’t have to reply to that email/that deadline can be renegotiated/I’ll call you later… These statements are not so much advice as they are gestures of soul tending and care. It takes friends to help with the daily work of refusing and resisting the messaging which tells us we should be fodder for the machine of misogyny, racism and the faltering capitalist democracy. We risk friendships because the alternative is madness. Mostly – my friend and I laugh! We laugh at our own foolishness, the foolishness of people who have annoyed, disappointed or angered us. We laugh about the absurdity of war and we laugh when a new binge worthy show is announced on Netflix. We remind one another not to take our jobs so seriously that we hurt ourselves, press ourselves too hard. We acknowledge that teaching in a pandemic has exacerbated the already hard struggle. On the days we want to quit, we never try to talk the other out of it.

At the heart of Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy is the dictum of “reading the word and reading the world.” As a literacy specialist who worked with Brazilian peasants, Freire learned from these students the necessity of making the connection with their lived experience. Teaching for social change takes participants beyond the “I am the teacher/you are the student” hierarchical model. I have learned that the democratic sharing of knowledges is more possible when a class connects the social justice issues, we are studying with the community just beyond our campus. Learning becomes a series of dialogues with texts and issues and the organizations who are working for immediate and systemic change. The social justice organization nearest to my campus is an emergency shelter for families less than a block from campus, Decatur Cooperative Ministry (founded in 1969). Their motto is: “Short-term shelter. Long term self-reliance.” DCM began as an interfaith response to poverty and homelessness in Decatur, GA. Their ministries grew with the gaps caused by economic inequality over the years to address needs of transitional housing, financial literacy, and food insecurity. They work toward the goal of permanent housing and family success. DCM is part of a local network of organizations addressing economic injustices in the Atlanta area. DCM’s emergency housing is aptly called “Hagar’s House.” For over twenty-five years, my introductory-level Bible class has worked in partnership with this shelter as a “practicum” or small internship that is supervised by DCM staff. Students provide various assistance: tutoring with children after school, serving as lead volunteers at weekly dinners or as overnight hosts, working the main desk, providing web and social media ideas and support, assisting in financial literacy classes, or collecting food from the local food bank. Students study poverty and housing inequities locally (through the Decatur Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights) and nationally (with the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival). My classes are diverse, with South Asian refugees, first generation college students, and a few who have experienced homelessness at some point during their lives. We take risks as we engage the social issues in the world, and we prepare for our onsite work by engaging issues of race and class, along with our stereotypes and questions. This semester we are writing blogs for the DCM newsletter on the biblical Hagar from Genesis 16 and 21 (and beyond). Blog writing emerged during the pandemic as a need identified by DCM when we had to pivot to a virtual classroom, and working with young children onsite was not an option. Our partner organization identified their needs, and they wanted to highlight our blogging as a way to give something concrete back to the staff that is useful for their member congregations, staff, board, and clients. Students are writing these blogs on Hagar along with a reduced onsite practicum. We are first engaging the scholarship on Hagar from womanist and feminist perspectives. And we are reading poetry (Mohja Kahf) and a dramatic piece (Kathryn Blanchard). Hagar as Black, Egyptian, slave, surrogate, mother, aunt, homeless, bold namer of the deity (as El Roi, the One Who Sees), and matriarch of Islam are main areas of investigation. Our community partner would like its supporters to know more about their shelter’s namesake. Students will encounter Hagar in the biblical text, in scholarship and literary imaginations, and in their work in the second half of the semester with those who live at Hagar’s House. Students will serve and share meals, open doors and supply cabinets, play with children in the community room and design programs, and begin conversations. They will explore the root and systemic causes of poverty and housing and food insecurity in the US through one nonprofit organization’s commitment to meeting emergency needs and working toward systemic social justice. We are mapping the past—the biblical stories of poverty and displacement—as well as the current ones on our campus and in our neighborhood. What I have discovered over these years of partnership is that discoveries also happen beyond the classroom walls. Engaging the complex issues of systemic poverty and homelessness takes concrete form in the faces and lives of the staff and clients at DCM. The Hagar of the Bible and Qur’an continues her story—this time in her own words.