Resources

Teaching through pandemic brought home two basic lessons to me: What happens in our students’ lives affects their performance in the classroom. Professors are mere human beings who can only do so much before our health suffers. Both seem obvious. Surely, I knew all that even before the pandemic? Perhaps. But I hadn’t internalized it, and I certainly hadn’t acted as though it was true. I see many of my colleagues do the same. The pandemic was the first time I taught in a situation where my students and I were all doing poorly at the same time. We were jittery and frightened. We were trying to carry on as usual, but nothing was normal. It quickly became obvious that the pandemic would affect our students’ ability to work. In March 2020, kids in my class who had been great students the previous week suddenly become incapable of following basic instructions. They kept emailing me with oddly clueless questions. Expectations had to change, and I began settling for my students at least learning something. I assigned easier and shorter readings, more videos, and shorter papers. I gave more extensions, excused more absences, and talked to many more students about their mental health struggles. But my own workload didn’t lighten. I worked much harder than normal. And my life was in upheaval too (along with everybody else’s!). I would have benefited from the same sort of break and support that I was giving the students. My doctor considers me high risk for pandemic-related burnout because I’m a female professor at a small college. She sees me as a member of the helping professions. I initially downplayed her concerns, pointing out that healthcare workers have it much worse. They do of course. But she is right. I see signs of impending burnout in myself and in many of my colleagues—especially younger women and especially those with children. This isn’t sustainable. We’re just like our students. We can only do so much before our performance and our health suffers. Our limitations need more attention and more action than we have been giving them so far. We are, I hope, coming out of the pandemic, but in higher education we’re emerging into an uncertain future. Many of our institutions are deep into discussions of budget cuts; the crisis of the humanities continues, and programs are being eliminated. And mental health issues among our students are at an all-time high. It won’t stop being hard. Going forward, how can we respect our own limitations and set clearer boundaries with our institutions, our students, and our colleagues? How can those of us who are tenured and more experienced help our junior colleagues do this more effectively? And how do we do all this while continuing to be there for our students? Those are big questions, and figuring out how to go forward will take collective action. Institutions need to change, junior faculty need to be protected, and we need to get better at allowing people real time off. I have no idea how to make all that happen. So, I start small. My individual actions, for now: I will do for myself what I did for my students—I will recognize that my expectations of myself have to change. I can’t continue to work at my regular pace. I’m too tired. I and the people around me will have to settle for me doing less. And I will tell them that. Over the summer, I’m going to rest. I won’t try to catch up on my research (neglected for the past two years). I won’t revise my fall courses. They are good enough. I’ll read, following my curiosity and meandering from book to book. And I’ll write if I have something to say. I’ll take a few weeks off, and I’ll stay off email when I do, away message in place. I’ll rest. In the fall, I’ll work with an eye to my limits. If I’m still drained, I’ll accept that and I’ll say “no.” A lot. I’ll think about how to shift the cultures around me in a more sustainable direction so that rest isn’t just a privilege for faculty with tenure. I’ll think about how to help junior colleagues and students to set and maintain boundaries. I’ll remember that my students won’t be back to normal in the fall either and I’ll continue to treat them with compassion and understanding. It’s been a long two years—for all of us.   References and resources: “Burnout and How to Avoid It” from one of my favorite authorities on happiness, Dr. Laurie Santos at Yale. It’s part of her podcast The Happiness Lab. Santos is going on a leave of absence. She’s noticing that she is heading for burnout and thus wisely changing course. Newspaper article about that here. For more on showing compassion to ourselves as well as to our students, see Kristin Neff and Dr. Chris Germer’s work on self-compassion. A massive number of articles in the Chronicle, including the report Burned Out and Overburdened (which I haven’t read it yet).

I am often asked some version of the following question: “How has it been teaching online now?” For those of us who teach at schools with in-person learning, I imagine this is a common query from friends, family members, and colleagues. Initially, I gave answers that highlighted the sensations of newness, uncertainty, and adventure. Over time, I either expanded my answer to share what I was specifically learning or shortened my answer to a succinct summation like “it is going okay,” or “it is what it is,” based on the context of the conversation. For example, I opted for the latter replies, despite their triteness, at the beginning or the end of virtual meetings. What else is there to say when awkwardly waiting for other participants to join a Zoom call? Now, after approximately ten months, my answer is that my transition has not been from in-person to online education. Rather, I am continuing to adapt to pandemic education, which is occurring in an online environment to ensure safe conditions for productive learning. Pandemic education and online education are not synonymous. As someone who is new to fully online instruction, I have certainly benefited from consultations with educational design experts at my seminary and engaging resources in the forms of best practice summaries, advice guides, podcasts, and more. Fortunately, wise counsel and practical guidance are a few clicks away on my web browser. At the same time, I cannot escape the multiple pandemics we are experiencing across public health, systemic racism, white Christian nationalism, and political polarization. When so many people are suffering and dying, and so much hate and falsehood infects our civic life, it feels small and strange to invest my energy in making a weekly online forum more accessible and interactive. Therefore, I find it more generative to center the notion of pandemic education in my planning. As a theological educator, my students and I are constantly engaged in a collaborative learning process that seeks both comprehensive knowledge of the subject matter and concrete inquiry of why the subject matters in everyday congregations and ministry contexts. Teaching amid multiple pandemics has sharpened my focus on cultivating a pedagogical environment that thoroughly and precisely interrogates how the content in the syllabus intersects with what is actually happening in our churches and neighborhoods. One example in my teaching as an historian of American Christianity is to trace with students the legacies of racism, sexism, nativism, and heterosexism within some of our denominations and traditions. If my students and I only study the best of the past, exclusively reading the theologies and testimonies of those striving for justice and equality, we would be ill prepared to face the hard realities and complex challenges of Christian witness and leadership today. It is not enough to express perpetual shock at what actions, whether political insurrections or public health dismissals, bear the name of Jesus Christ. We must be able to identify origins and construct counternarratives. Some counternarratives will be rooted in the past, others will be adapted from the past to meet present conditions, and yet others will emerge as new creations. I have found transitioning to pandemic education also requires a heightened awareness of the emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual health of my students. One of my teaching principles, which I share freely and often with my students, is to exhibit compassion without compromising academic integrity. I do not hesitate to grant extensions, seek creative solutions to problems with assignments, and offer as much pastoral care as I can. Yet, I also strive to fully honor the contributions of students who meet deadlines with meticulous attention to requirements and expectations. The context of theological education, with its wide diversity of adult learners, some carrying significant congregational, familial, or other personal responsibilities alongside their academic coursework, makes this principle necessary but sometimes complicated to practice. Pandemic education has certainly stretched this principle of practicing compassion without compromise. I have witnessed students produce remarkably brilliant work and experienced invigorating synchronous discussions abounding with insights over the past ten months. Yet, I have also encountered deep pain, loss, doubt, exhaustion, and hopelessness in my classroom. Not only in my interaction with students, but also in myself. In these dark moments, I am especially reminded that pandemic education is not the same as online education.