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My friend Kenneth Ngwa and I have ongoing conversations about impossible questions concerning the current malaise of education. How do you make your way and guide others when there is no clear direction, when what is next is unclear? How do you do what is needed when you do not know the sure pathway or route? In a world where change is constant and the future feels unrecognizable—what does it take to find/make your way through the shadows, past scary monsters in spaces without light? When traditions are no longer relevant, when established paradigms are no longer dependable, when infrastructures are shifting and crumbling, causing more uncertainty—which way should we go?  In our attempt to answer these kinds of questions, my discussions with Kenneth are often saturated with stories meant to illuminate possibility and point toward our building a new future.In a recent exchange between me and Kenneth, I told him this story…When my brother Brent was in the 5th grade (I was a 4th grader), he announced at our family dinner that his homework assignment was to look at the stars. My father was intrigued. Dad asked Brent what he was supposed to look for. Dad was asking which constellation or planet, or star pattern was being studied and observed. My brother reported that he was just assigned to “look at the stars.” Dad looked suspicious. Brent said that after dinner he was going outside to look up. My father, in an impatient tone, said, “You won’t be able to see the stars.”“What do you mean? I’m going outside to see the stars!” my brother insisted.My father said, “There is too much light in the city to see the stars at night. You can only see the stars when there is enough darkness.”My brother looked quizzical. So did I. We did not understand what my father knew.After dinner, with Dad, we put on hats and coats, took flashlights, and headed to our front stoop. Standing on the stoop of our rowhouse in North Philadelphia, we looked up. All there was to see was dark sky. No stars. Or so we thought.Dad drove us to Fairmont Park—about 3 miles from our house. We drove past the reservoir, past the playground, past the baseball field—all familiar places. We drove another mile then Dad pulled over on the lawn and turned off the engine. We were in a remote part of the park that I had only seen from the comfort of the car window. It was not a location where we played. Dad got out of the car. He said, “Come on.”  My brother and I were hesitant. We had been taught that isolated spaces in the city were unsafe. We had been taught not to venture too deep into the woods or away from the known spaces. Brent and I were fearful. With hands tucked into our pockets and our breath freezing in the cold air, we had less excitement about this adventure. Dad told us to look up.Shocked! We could see stars! It was amazing. There was a sprinkling of stars in the sky that were not evident at our house. Then Dad said, “Follow me.” With our flashlights turned on, we followed. We walked across a meadow, ducked under the low hanging branches of Weeping Willow trees then down a short, rocky path. As we walked, without talking, the chilly air stilled and the noise of the city quieted. We were still only three miles from our house, but it felt like a different world.Dad walked over to a downed tree, sat down and turned off his flashlight. So did we. Dad looked at us then without saying a word pointed to the sky. To our astonishment the night sky was dazzling with stars!Dad pointed out the north star, the big dipper and the little dipper. We learned about Earth’s place in the solar system and that the moon is as critical to our life as the sun. He told us about constellations, comets, planets and meteors. This was the first time the story of Harriet Tubman making use of the north star to guide herself and others to freedom made sense.On the way home we stopped for a half gallon butter pecan ice cream. When we got home, mom dished up the ice cream. Brent and I recounted to her all that we had been shown. Dad was pleased.Kenneth’s pristine insight of my story:Connecting the search for the stars with the wisdom of the trusted savant who is not reduced to a "tour guide" (which I often felt my colonial-type education was at its best) but rather is respected as a companion for whom the stakes for the journey are as high as the sight to be seen—the stars and constellations might be a way to rethink our educational system.The question that bedevils the teacher in the classroom is whether the current stakes and questions of the learner are compelling enough to get the instructors out of their comfort zones and on the road to see/show the stars. Can we teach beyond our current constellations? Can we let the questions (and even the desires) of the student guide our journey? Are the stakes high enough that even when the students ignorantly (in a neutral sense) assume they can see the stars in a highly lit space, they won't be dismissed and instead be taken on the winding journey to the place where they can see the stars?To teach effectively, we must move to the courageous position where the hermeneutic of distrust (well earned) is turned around by a hermeneutic of trust. When dad turned out the lights, you and your brother did not panic. What is more, you also turned out yours. Why? Because of the trust that held the journey together. There is something more powerful and lasting than the lights that brighten our pathways, and that is the lights that brighten our imaginations - the lights that connect us to constellations. Some lights must be turned off to see other lights. But and I think this is the critical epistemological and pedagogical line, we must be the ones who decide it is time to turn off the flashlights.  Our liberation and educational freedom are found not just by overcoming the darkness of isms that limit our minds but also in recognizing that sometimes the hindrance to our thriving is our focus on the smaller lights. To see the bigger lights, we must not be distracted, not even by the smaller lights. We need to learn how, when, and where to turn off the smaller lights. And that is something only the ancestors can teach us. That is how education connects story to imagination. Why? Because the best kinds of education bring us to encounter the big lights where we see constellations but do not feel lost.Who among us knows that just three miles from home lay a different world of stars, right past the playgrounds and familiar spaces? Whoever has this kind of knowledge, let them be our teachers. Henceforth, let those with this knowledge teach so that we come to know how to see the galaxies and the biggest lights necessary to uplift a community that has been trying to see the stars with the flashlights turned on. Let us trust the teachings of those who are trustworthy. Indigenous epistemology may yet save us. Impossible questions feel less daunting when friends, ancestors, stories and stars guide the way. Our responsibility as committed teachers is to meet the challenge of becoming better teachers by learning how “to go and see” while at the same time learning to turn off the light. Onward through the fog!

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

(And audio recording of this blog may be found here.)Creative teachers are sometimes labelled as people who run wild --- meaning we are people whose boundaries are too wide, whose disciplinary habits and practices are too flimsy, whose appetites look beyond what is safely seen, commonly known, or conventionally acceptable. I am a creative who has, for many years, made a practice of fostering wildness in my classrooms.I believe that the invitation of teaching is for students to join-in with running wild, i.e. create new worlds, grapple with unsolvable problems, cross boundaries as a gesture of connection and justice seeking, build stairways as we climb to uncharted heights. I have met many colleagues who concur with the aspiration of running wild! - but who are too afraid, too anxious, too self-conscious, too hobbled to risk shaping classrooms from this vision. Teachers fear that if they move from a content driven classroom to a classroom which is learner centered that then the students will run wild over the teachers! The fear is that the wildness will make a shambles of the intellectual endeavor, embarrass the teacher, and shame the institution. This fear can be tamed.Before joining a seminary faculty, I worked for many years as the minister of Christian Education at a NYC church. I revamped their large Sunday School. In this seven year process, I learned about teachers’ eagerness to teach freely, with creativity and openness and the ways that that eagerness can be snuffed out by fear of losing control of the classroom.Before the start of our fall classes, the church school teachers participated in three weekends of teacher-training using a laboratory method. During this training, we rehearsed the curriculum through practice sessions. This allowed us to get acquainted with one another, do lesson planning, develop new skills, and have fun. We learned to teach by teaching.At the first teacher meeting of the fall, I gathered the teachers to discuss their work and to reflect on the first three Sundays of teaching. After having observed their teaching for the first three Sundays, I had an overall negative criticism of their teaching. I was nervous about giving this feedback. I was anxious about their reaction. I decided to be straightforward. The eighteen of us were seated together at the table. I spoke in a warm but firm tone. I said,When I walk the halls listening to your classes, I mostly hear your voices. This means that, primarily, you are learning the materials you are teaching by rehearsing the lesson – out loud to the students. Remember our teacher training  sessions? We do not want classrooms filled with your voice. We practiced activities that invite the students into energetic lessons.(I paused in hopes they would remember the training and practice)I want to hear the voices of the students. I want to hear the children’s voices engaging the lesson with their questions, concerns, laughter, reading aloud, talking to you and one another. When the children are the primary speakers and doers in the classroom, they are more likely to learn, retain, and be engaged with the lesson.I felt the nervousness in the group rise. Two teachers pushed their chairs back from the table. One teacher folded his arms across his chest. The 5th grade teacher spoke up,Lynne, I need to be honest. You give us creative activities to do with the children, but I am afraid of losing control of the classroom if I let the children do too much talking or move around the room too much. If I do the talking, I am in control. I’m afraid they will run wild!I threw up my arms like someone had made a touchdown and shouted,YESSS! Thank you! You are exactly right! Thank you for your honesty and good observations. Thank you for disclosing your fear.This playfulness lowered some of the tension in the room. The 10th grade teacher still sat with his arms folded across his chest, and now a scowl on his face.I continued,You are right. We do not want chaos in the classrooms with children running amuck. Nobody learns when students are out of control. But we know that students learn best when they are the ones engaged in activity. The various learning activities allow them to take hold of the stories and learn by participating. Sitting quietly teaches them to sit quietly, and that Sunday School is an uninteresting and voiceless place. We want children to learn by doing, interacting, questioning, exploring, investigating, wondering, and playing. And I need you to teach in these ways.I paused for pushback. But no pushback came. I continued,Please, try some of the more creative activity options in the curriculum. I assure you that chaos will not ensue. The children will have fun and so will you.The fears articulated by the Sunday School teachers are the same kinds of fears I hear from colleagues about their adult students in college, university and seminary settings. That is, teachers fear that if they loosen their grip on a session that the students will say or do something Wild! - something unanticipated, unwanted, unhelpful, unplanned that will embarrass the teacher or show the lack of a teacher. Teachers fear that loosening control will put them in danger of being exposed as frauds or imposters. These fears are real. Sometimes these fears are paralyzing or debilitating. These fears can be calmed and overcome.Teaching, with practice, can be improved if you are willing to give up control. For many professors, this teaching tactic feels counter-intuitive and too risky, but my experience knows it to be true.If we surrender content driven approaches – then what will happen?I am pleased to report that none of the Sunday School teachers stormed out of the meeting that day. Each teacher, in their own way, slowly over the years of their commitment, learned to select the learning activities that involved arts, crafts, a wide assortment of storytelling methods, and even trips to other parts of the building. I noticed that the primary motivation for their risk taking was the feedback they received from their students.When the learners were invited to become the story tellers replete with costumes, paints, and instruments their glee was palpable. Enthusiasm grew when the students knew the lessons could include map making, puppet designing, interviews with pastors or baking the communion bread. Excited children began arriving at Sunday School before the start time and asking to stay after the end time. Teachers moved from being reticent to feeling confident when they discovered learners were not there to judge their efforts but were there to benefit from their teaching.Over the seven years, we moved away from being a place of instruction and toward becoming a community of learning – the teachers were the agents of that wild move!Consider these reflection questions:What are your creative or artistic interests and how might you bring those interests into your classroom’s learning activities?What amount of time do you need for course preparation when planning for learning activities that are multidimensional and creative?What funding is available for supplies, resources, excursions, and exhibits?Who can you partner with to create a more vibrant experience for your students?

In my family’s tradition, dreams, visons, symbols, and signs are part of our knowing, understanding, and meaning making apparatus. I grew up with nightly dinner table conversation which effortlessly included sharing dreams, seeking out interpretations, then the habit of reordering a decision based upon spiritual in-sight. Our “cloud of witnesses” is a vivid and active part of our spiritual practice. We depend upon prayer, ancestral visitations, angels’ interventions, the protection of guides, and warnings by ancestors.My family’s religious and cultural tradition teaches that the world is more enchanted, magical, whimsical, unusual and unpredictable than typically is made room for by the wider culture’s narrow understanding. And since our classrooms are not siloed away from the world—I think that our classrooms, if we would learn to pay attention, are enchanted spaces. Along with this provocative assertion, I want to also say that I do not know, absolutely, what coaxes adult students into learning. I suspect learning, especially for adults, might be dependent upon enchanted happenings in our classrooms.My grandmother, Vyola White Bullock, was an elementary school teacher in the early 1900s. My grandmother use-to say, “All that is is not visible.” She would say this adage is particularly important in understanding our classrooms and in seeking more effective methods of teaching.If we are to consider the dynamism of the intangible (i.e. enchantment) in our classrooms - what do we pay attention to, respect, and do? In other words, what if more is happening in our classrooms than meets the eye? What if those happenings are more responsible for student learning than we know?  What if that which we ignore, or that which we have no knowledge of, is the catalyst for student learning and our successful teaching?Some teaching is known to open doors, create bridges, inspire students to realize and participate-in enchanted endeavors of learning. Equipping students with new ways of meaning making, allowing students to access ideas of freedom, connecting students’ dreaming to actuality and healing, can create sparks of intrigue, can create the fire of imagination and wonder that immerse students in new realities. Sometimes, encounters with new knowledges are so palatable that students are moved, literally, into other spaces and other times. My experience as a student, and more recently, my experience as a teacher, has shown me that from time-to-time, portals open. Some learning causes portals to open allowing brave enough students to step through.  I have seen portals open in classrooms.As a student, I have, many times, stepped through portals which opened during my study. I was introduced to the work of bell hooks in graduate school.  Studying hooks’ work was like time travel. I had experiences of remembering what I had not previously known. Learning from hooks’ work was a dialogue across the years, across the geographic divide. The first time I read Sisters of Yam I felt as if my bone marrow recognized an ancient truth. I was transported into her world which quickly became our world. I knew what I knew, even more.As a teacher, I have learned that portals do not always invite us into elegant spaces. Some portals offer struggle, fight, confrontation. A vivid encounter happened while teaching my Introduction to Educational Ministry course some years ago. At the beginning of a lecture in the second session, a student raised her hand—interrupting my lecture. She had a scowl on her face, her lips pursed, shoulders tense with anxiety. Seeing her raised hand, I stopped my lecturing, met her glare with a faint smile and invited her to speak. She said that she had read the assigned reading by bell hooks from Teaching to Transgress. As she spoke, her voice was shrill and loud. She said the reading infuriated her. She said the reading was so maddening that she hurled the book against the wall. Her declaration of angst and anger instantly shifted the mood of the other students in the room to one of caution and concern. I heard one student sigh in impatience not wanting to give time for this woman to speak her experience of disorientation and pain.I paused before I answered her. I asked the woman what she had done after throwing the book against the wall.The student said, “I walked over, picked it up, and kept reading until the end.”I shouted, “YES!”My shout startled the class. The student’s sour expression turned to wide-eyed confusion.I said, “We must, even if it breaks a hip, wrestle with these ideas until daybreak in hopes of receiving the blessing. And you did that! You wrestled! You went through the portal and wrestled for your blessing!”  (This, for Bible reading students, was a recognition that the woman had had the experience like that of Jacob in Genesis 32:22-32.) I recognized this student’s report as an experience that had taken her into a portal.From the tradition of my family, this student had been transported and blessed and was telling the story of learning through consternation and dismay.  Some portals teach through skirmishes and brawls for understanding and growth.Portals operate through words and beyond words, with explanations and beyond explanation, with knowledge of the possibilities and beyond our imaginations. Students yearn for vivid experiences that connect them, make them more voiced and more visible. Stepping through the portals provides an immersive experience where the intangible becomes tangible with clarity and needed purpose.Reflection questions for communal dialogue:How do teachers recognize when a portal opens for learning?What would it take to plan or choreograph a portal to open for learning?If portals cannot be choreographed, what does it take to coax or summon open the doors of the portal?What kind of teaching stops portals, that would open, from opening?What do we do that closes the portals prematurely?

(An audio recording of this blog may be found here.) With people all around the globe, my attention was captured by the Paris 2024 Olympics. I tuned into the TV coverage as often as I could. Watching world class athletes perform their craft is spellbinding. Athletes performing at the highest level, pushing toward new world records and new personal best records—rising to the challenge of being the greatest—all fighting to be number one. Winning the gold! It is riveting.Track and field is one of my favorites, and this year the Olympics delivered high drama. American high-jumper Shelby McEwen along with New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr both cleared 2.36m. In these kinds of moments, the rules of the game allow for a tie. If agreed upon by the athletes, both are awarded the gold medal. If the opponents do not agree to call it a tie, the competition continues until there is a definitive winner—a gold medalist and a silver medalist. The moment was tense. The officials consulted with the athletes. Rather than preferring the tie, Shelby McEwen opted for a jump-off with Kerr. Shelby preferred to continue the competition in lieu of sharing the gold medal.In the end, Kerr of New Zealand took the higher jump to clinch gold, following eleven straight misses from the two finalists. It was a devastating outcome for McEwen, who was left with silver. McEwen went home having clenched second place.For me, McEwen’s decision was one of life’s ironies. When I heard that McEwen opted out of the shared gold medal and wanted the competition to continue, I thought YESSSS! & NOOOO! at the same time …Yeah! That’s right. Don’t settle for second best! You got this! Fight on! There’s no “sharing” on the Olympic podium! Get your medal! Buckle down, concentrate, and win!  You’ve trained long and hard for this moment!NOOOO! What are you doing? Take the gold medal! Gold is what you have been training for. It’s what you have been competing for. You earned it! Take it! Share it! There’s no shame in sharing victory! No need to continue the fight! You won … well you and the other guy won, but that’s good enough!I can understand McEwen’s decision, and while I respect his decision, it troubles me. My fear is that we have been taught that a shared victory is a lesser victory, a suspicious victory, a sullied victory.Opting out of sharing a gold medal, and then losing the gold for silver, is not a story we are used to hearing, or the story we like to tell. The silver medal is not “really” a win, and we like winners. If this had been an old Hollywood movie, McEwen, in the final, dramatic round would have taken the gold. The old Hollywood story of winning rather than sharing must be interrogated, contested, reconsidered and rewritten.Doctoral students and faculty are not athletes. But the arena of the academy is highly competitive. We are in rarified environments where, in many instances, competition is prized over cooperation. Our competition includes making arguments, defending arguments, critiquing arguments and doing our utmost at winning arguments. We are trained to compete against one another for awards, jobs, grants, and book contracts. And now, with social media, we compete for TV appearances, influencer status and royalty checks. The academic competition is not fist-to-cuffs, but it can be as abrasive as any athletic bout. Many colleagues are drawn into the academic arena because of their warrior spirit and battle skills. Others had to adapt and hone for the fight. Others, unprepared and unable, have just been beat up. Those in the academy know a fight. Given the lesson of McEwen, can we learn when to share the win?I have no disdain for the competitive spirit. I enjoy friendly competition, especially if the winner buys the beer after the game. What I disdain is the way winning at all costs eclipses the love for what we do. Our passions are more focused on winning than on the practice and art of achieving, creating, and building. Honing collaborative efforts for stronger communities, networks and relationships is more needed than fighting for the individualized win. It is not enough to train scholars to compete. Learning the skills and challenges of partnerships, collaborations, coalition building, and the sharing of wins is the way we create the path into our own future. My fear is that in our unrelenting competitiveness we lose out on or squelch the most brilliant minds or miss out on the far-reaching achievements which only occur in collaboration.As we reshape our educational ecologies, the question of teaching for and with collaboration is a critical question. In your scholarship, do you expect to win while others lose? Do you aspire to be the one-and-only, the star, while seeing little value in partnerships, collaborations and shared accomplishments?  Do you pit your doctoral students one against the other for scholarships, grades, and your time and attention? Do you reward faculty colleagues who “win” in their fields with higher salaries and additional goodies while other colleagues are invisibled or ignored? Are your course learning activities and assignments geared to teach competition or collaboration? What will it take to shift our faculty cultures to environs that support and celebrate sharing and the variety of contributions?

Lurking on social media the other day, I listened to colleagues discussing how to respond to a student paper in a philosophy class. The assignment was about our responsibilities towards (nonhuman) animals. The student argued that we can do whatever we want with animals because God has given us dominion over them. Presumably, he had Genesis 1.26 in mind, but none of the course readings mentioned Genesis—or God.People in the social media group had lots of suggestions on how to respond:Tell him that religion has no place in the classroom.Tell him that there should be no theist or atheist premises in academic writing.Just write “Irrelevant” in the margin!That last comment got a lot of likes, hopefully because people found it funny and not because they considered it good advice.The consensus was clear: Tell the student that appeals to scripture are inappropriate in college papers.I don’t think that’s good advice.My colleagues were ignoring something crucial. In this sort of situation, we can do deep damage to our relationship with our student and to the student’s relationship with higher education if we don’t tread carefully. Presumably the student who wrote this paper believes in God and the Bible. His religion will be part of his ethical decision-making going forward, and the Bible will influence his thinking and his actions.Bearing this in mind, let’s not tell this student that his thinking about right and wrong in class must be utterly divorced from his thinking about it outside the classroom.My advice would be: Before writing any comments, identify your larger goals. Here are mine:I want our class discussions to help inform my students’ thinking and actions about ethical issues, and in particular about whether it’s OK to do “whatever you want” with animals.I want students to listen when I try to teach them more things after this and I want other professors to be able to teach them even more things. If I reinforce a student’s likely skepticism about professors and religion, I make that harder.I don’t want my actions to increase the chances that my students go out in the world thinking of higher education as an enemy to religion and God.These goals suggest a different approach. Start by taking the paper seriously:Do you think that’s what the Bible means by ‘dominion’? Some people think so, but I've always thought it meant something more like ‘stewardship.’ I mean, God is the Father, right? So, I think of it like if your parents go out and put you in charge of the family dogs. If they come home and discover that you haven’t fed them or given them water, they’ll be mad at you.What do you think someone who doesn’t believe in God and the Bible would make of your argument? How would you persuade them? For instance, imagine that you’re talking to the author of our second reading or to the other kids in the class.I would count this encounter as a success if the student feels like I’m treating him and his religion with respect and if he realizes two things:“Dominion” could mean “stewardship” instead of “freedom to treat them any way I want,” and I need to think more about which one the Bible meant.I need to talk about this differently or I won’t be able to persuade people who don’t believe in the Bible.That’s a start. Much more has to happen before this student writes at college level. Later, I and his other professors will teach him more.It’s a very small step. Growth and intellectual development takes time. I probably won’t see the result of the learning process that I was part of. But occasionally I do.My greatest success story in this context is a student who came into my Intro to Philosophy class as a freshman, determined to prove that Christ rose from the dead. It was rough going, but by the end of the semester, his sources weren’t cringeworthy anymore, and he was presenting an actual argument. And he still trusted me. He majored in math but took Philosophy of Religion with me as a senior, and he explained that he wanted to continue developing his proof.I braced myself. But during the semester, the class discussed faith and reason extensively, and I was able to ask him (privately): Given that you think about faith as being the important thing, what makes it so important to you to prove that Christ rose? He thought about it for a long time and finally decided that he didn’t need to prove that Christ rose. Instead, he wrote a strong final paper in which he reflected on the meaning of faith, discussing his own experience and the course readings.I rarely get wins that size. But taking my students’ religious views seriously makes them possible.

An audio version of this blog post may be found here.It was the first morning of my vacation. The restaurant at the resort had a waiting list for breakfast patrons. The hostess took my phone number and said I would be called when a table opened. I thanked her and walked to find a comfortable spot in which to wait. Not far from the dining room, guests could choose to linger in any of three adjoining rooms--the bar, lobby, or library.I chose to wait in the library. The room was ringed with mahogany shelves carefully adorned with books and creative objects.  Statues, framed paintings, and board games were on display. The room reminded me of magazine covers from Architectural Digest or Good House Keeping. The many chairs and couches were positioned to invite guests to linger in small groups, or to simply sit and read. I picked a chair facing the wall of windows. The windows provided a view of the sprawling pasture setting. I noticed a scrabble board was set on a table near the windows and a chess game was set at another table near the entry door. I, indeed, felt as if I was visiting a friend or relative’s home.As I waited, not because they were loud or intrusive, I overheard a grandfather teaching his grandson to play chess. The boy was about six or seven years old. With the grandfather seated on one side of the board and the boy, kneeling in the chair on the other side, the granddad invited the boy to make the first move. As they played, the grandfather patiently explained the way the boy might move varying pieces. Several times, he encouraged the boy to consider a strategy. At the end of the game, the grandfather showed the boy how to reset the board for the next people who might want to play. I overheard the grandfather say he had taught his daughter, the grandson’s mother, how to play chess when she was about the same age as the boy.Even when I am on vacation, I am thinking about and identifying teaching moments. This tender teaching moment between grandfather and grandson was poignant, delicate, and beautiful. It was not extraordinary. Its beauty was in the ordinary occasion of a grandfather taking time, one-on-one, to play with his grandson.Some of the best, most tender, teaching occurs one-on-one.Classrooms can be marvelous arenas for superb teaching. Classrooms can be sites where the relationship between instructors and learners transforms. Equally ripe with possibility and beauty are the one-on-one relationships between faculty and students which happen beyond the classroom. Teaching students in one-on-one modes has the potential to assist students in ways that the classroom encounter cannot. The opportunity of a sustained conversation with one student can sometimes lead to a long-lasting, life-changing connection.While I was on a faculty, with intention, as part of my teaching agenda, each year I chose to work with a student teaching assistant (TA) and a student research assistant (RA). I considered these relationships with students as key to my teaching responsibility as the courses I taught in classrooms.My practice was to meet weekly with each of the two students to facilitate our prescribed tasks. Then, once a month, if the students were interested, I would convene them for a meal to discuss larger theological issues, hear how they were managing in the day-to-day reality of graduate school life, and encourage conversation about their occupational aspirations and dreams. My aim for these one-on-one relationships was to aid their health and success.I honed my listening skills by teaching one-on-one. Spending time in one-on-one conversations allowed my primary focus to be on the questions, curiosities, abilities, and perspectives of the student. These one-on-one relationships allowed me to make stronger recommendations for further graduate study, employment options, or give my opinion about life’s unexpected twists and turns.  A regular dimension of this kind of teaching was when I was able to write very considerate, in-depth, letters of recommendation for my students because I knew the student as a person and not just as a student who had done well in my class. Occasionally, if there was trouble, my relationship with the TA or RA allowed for convincing intervention or advocacy.My practice of intentionally constructing ways of working one-on-one with students comes from my own experiences in graduate school. When I was in graduate school, the professors for whom I was their TA and RA became my career-long mentors and friends. The three-faculty people who I worked closest with in graduate school have been influential in guiding my entire academic career.Recently, I referred one of my current mentees to my mentor for guidance on an issue for which he had expertise. I told my mentee that I was putting them in touch with their “grand-mentor.”Through these connections I know I am a better teacher and colleague. Last week, a mentee who serves on a university faculty and just received tenure, called me and asked me to talk with one of their doctoral students. I was delighted to assist. Just like grandfather was so glad to teach grandson, I am overjoyed to reach out and support a student of my student.

To recap our context, we have been working on our Wabash-sponsored project on trauma, religion, and pedagogy and have consulted with Dr. James Finley twice. In our first blog post, we reflected upon the importance of community building and reconceptualizing teaching outcomes from the perspective of trauma-informed pedagogy as cultivating intentions of life-long learning. In this second post, we delve into a possible classroom exercise focused on the practice of patience. “What is the gift you want to share with your students?” Teaching is giving ourselves away in and to Love—as mystics do to the ultimate “O/other” in their contemplation and writings. This was one of the important remarks we received from Dr. Jim Finley, a psychologist and mystic, in our consultation with him. To begin, we would like to remind ourselves that trauma-informed pedagogy aims to hold and foster the holistic being of each participant, including the instructor’s, encompassing their woundedness. Suffering and trauma are an inevitable part of our lived experiences. A trauma-informed pedagogy requires us to alter our attitude toward human limitedness: it is not something that should be overcome but a valuable opportunity for discernment. Our precarious, complex, and embodied experience of the world invites us to cultivate our sensitivities and responses to personal issues and social injustice. If we borrow spiritual language, mystery, and even emptiness, can be a locus where deep awakening may take place. Such a holistic attitude toward limitation also reaffirms the importance of teaching humanities. The death of humanities discourse is no longer a surprise and many of us have been urged to rethink pedagogy after the appearance of ChatGPT, which brought sweeping changes in student learning and writing. To acknowledge the significance of empirical science, however, is also to recognize that human experience consists of more than inventions and uses of technology. We should allow ourselves to ask unanswerable questions about the unknown and unstable dimensions of reality that both fascinate and intimidate us. Trauma is one of the very loci where we can tap into a space of the unknown, where we have an invitation to form deep intimacy within ourselves and, in some cases, with others (only if they are respectful, nonjudgmental, and can hold confidentiality). One of the important assumptions of a trauma-informed classroom is the sense that we must practice patience, gentleness, and compassion when tender experiences arise. Therefore, we need assignments and practices that help us cultivate this compassionate stance when it comes to our reading and writing. Dr. Finley suggested adapting the ancient contemplative practice of Lectio Divina as a way to approach the assigned readings. We further propose that this practice can be extended to enable a close and spiritual reading of texts, especially difficult ones about human suffering, which can empower students toward intellectual and internal growth in their reflections. This in-depth reading starts with listening to, “taking in” texts. The result of this discursive, meditative reading must be recorded in the form of ungraded journaling. In this step of the assignment, it is important for instructors to acknowledge students’ fear of writing. (Often, if not always, undergraduate students’ problematic use of technology or plagiarism comes from anxiety around making mistakes and receiving bad grades as punishment). The purpose of this ungraded journaling is to express oneself out—it is to recognize one’s own voice and to trust one’s own intuition as one listens deeply and openly to the text as well as to one’s own inner world. It is a moment when one tries to form intimacy with, be patiently present with, and gravitate toward oneself. It is also a moment when trauma might erupt unexpectedly and overwhelmingly. We acknowledge that such a moment would be the kernel of trauma-informed writing. If the student is ready, deep awareness and sensitivity toward the self and the world—and perhaps healing—can begin. Technology cannot and should not replace such profound, unpredictable, and humane learning moments. Since this exercise may invoke student anxiety, the instructor may tweak it depending on reading materials and pedagogical contexts. It could be modified into a timed writing exercise, or students may further reflect upon the writing exercise itself. Moreover, this journaling must entail editing (rewriting) processes. This is a chance for students to choose what they want to share for submission to the instructor or to the class at large: ensuring their consent and safety is paramount. As we noted in our previous post, it is extremely important to form a safe learning environment when encountering various forms of trauma in the classroom. In addition, in this writing practice students themselves are given an opportunity to actively create a safe writing space for themselves. Again, the instructor must remind students to slow down in their rewriting, since hasty editing can re-traumatize the writer: in the process, one may encounter their inner critic, a sign of perpetual violence that they have experienced and internalized. Sharing deep reflection with oneself and then another is, indeed, a courageous and possibly life-affirming act of giving ourselves to Love. Ultimately, trauma-informed teaching and learning could be a process where we learn to trust in the infinite love offered to wounded people, to borrow Dr. Finley’s expression. It is an endless process of forming intimacy with ourselves and others, trusting that we have the capacity to hold each other as broken beings. We hope that in-depth reading and writing exercises will assist students in gaining their own voices, however slowly. It is a practice built upon patience and mercy, designed to help us form nonjudgmental empathy for ourselves and extend it to others. Needless to say, this is reflected back on instructors since teaching is a mutual act (of course, there are always exceptions). Here, we return to our beginning statement, “What is the gift you want to share with your students?” We teachers are also infinitely loved and wounded beings who are invited to co-create classrooms of care and courage within imperfect institutions, circumstances, and a world in continuous motion.

How can we teach trauma and religion? If part of the human experience is the reality of imperfection, limitation, and wounding—if loss and grief are inevitable in our lives, how can we better address them in our classroom?  In this first part, we want to speak to the importance of recognizing the immense suffering which in so many cases is unresolvable yet integral to human experience. Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarō calls life a “continuity of discontinuities”[i] which permeate reality itself. This sensibility urged us to reconsider the way we typically begin each semester with “learning expectations”: it asks us to instead cultivate a posture of “collective intentions,” especially when we address trauma in our classroom. In a sense, trauma-integrating pedagogy calls for a radical alternative pedagogical practice that propels us to reconceptualize teaching processes and outcomes in a longer time frame. We believe that this practice humanizes both instructors and students and moves us toward more holistic ways of relating.  According to Jim, the intention of a contemplative community can be known as modeling to each other “a sincerity of heart,” which is the doorway to spiritual growth in a person’s life. When our intentions guide us, it does not guarantee an outcome but rather gives a posture of receptivity to witness each other’s (often subtle) “awakening”[ii]—an experience of being interrelated with that which is beyond our own individual experiences. Together, the participants are invited to tap into the unknown. Spiritual awakening is a relational journey that requires intention, devotion, teaching, and community, and these foundations lead us into both the depths and beyondness of love itself.  Through an emphasis on collective intentions rather than expectation, we invite a more gentle and nurturing way to engage the intense materials of our classes, whether they are stories of violence in sacred texts, literature, and ongoing incidents, or the woundedness that Christian mystics often perceive as invitations to contemplate with a spirit of tenderness and to write down first-person narratives. Practically speaking, cultivating collective intentions invites us to read texts in a spirit of inner silence and deep listening, which allows the text to speak to the reader, not as mere information. Emphasis on interior listening guides students to share what arises in them, however subtly, through writing and class conversation. We then transition to community sharing which must be engaged nonjudgmentally in the class, even if higher education might frame this practice as anti-intellectual.  Herein, we are beginning to see the challenges that are birthed from an attachment to learning outcomes and evaluation processes, which are often required by institutions. We recognize that those may inadvertently reproduce classrooms that do not allow us to adequately address trauma. Of course, evaluations and outcomes are important. But how do we accurately “assess” learning as deep relational “awareness” which includes trauma, justice, and religion but is not bound exclusively to it?  Perhaps a trauma integrating pedagogy calls us to co-liberate ourselves a bit from our attachment to outcomes, which are part of the social norm of productivity. If we imagine our trauma-integrating classroom as a relationally accountable container, we also need to reimagine assessments and assignments, in order to find collective ways to encourage the interior movements of each other. While this may seem to be a challenging negotiation with our institutions, we believe that it is an essential update to a pedagogy, especially in teaching trauma in our times full of massive violence, forced migration, and climate intensity. A pedagogy of collective intentions allows us to respond to and think with the lives in motion—actual human beings—within our class, within ourselves, and in this rapidly changing world. It is a pedagogy of the continuous journey of learning to trust ever more deeply in ourselves, the O/other, and the uncertain process itself.  A pedagogy of communal intention has convinced us that building a nonviolent classroom is essential in approaching difficult topics such as trauma and violence, and in our classroom practice we learn to place high value on flexibility and receptivity. For instance, silence and contemplation can be a sign of active learning. Rather than focusing on dissemination and regurgitation of information, we want to encourage students to speak in and listen to their own authentic voices. Simultaneously, instructors must always remind themselves that we cannot control or impose students’ learning or “awakening”—rather, we are powerless to empower students to heal trauma, let alone to heal it within a semester. Perhaps nothing external will seem to result from our class other than students becoming sensitive to themselves and others. But perhaps in a time of massive collective trauma, this is one of the most important lessons of all.  As ones who are called to teach theology and religion, we do not want to abandon the hope that our learning, or awakening, may come alive within students, or for ourselves much later. In an age that constantly demands immediate results, we must remind ourselves that learning is a lifelong process, particularly regarding difficult topics. Over and over, we must return to a humble spirit of sincerity that we are all imperfect beings who are continually learning to take skillful action in a world that is unstable, unpredictable, and wounded. And saying yes, we are invited to be and become patient and persevering one step at a time. Part two of our blog will address this topic in further detail.   [i] See “Theory of the Historical World” at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nishida-kitaro/#TheHisWor. [ii] A term borrowed from James Finley, which he describes as the purpose of the contemplative life and details in The Contemplative Heart (Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2000).

I think we all have met them at one point in our educational lives. I call them “A” teachers because they hold certain qualities as educators. I saw it in Mrs. Akiyama, my second-grade teacher who, by some stroke of good fortune, I had as my third-grade teacher too. You could tell there was something different about her in the way she conducted class. Sure, I wouldn’t have articulated it then as I do now some fifty-eleven years later, but I sensed, even at that young age, a deep difference in how she held herself, formed her craft, and cared for her students. She exemplified the qualities I call the four “A’s” and I am convinced of their transferability and value for any field. Available: Do you make yourself available? We often hear people say they have availability on “these days” of the week and “at these times.” They put it on their syllabi; they tell person X to get in touch with their administrative assistant to set up a time to meet. Their schedule, my schedule, says that I have time to see you in these specific moments. Given the increasing responsibilities faculty persons wear now, a schedule perhaps is more gift than curse. It can keep us sane or at least ordered enough to move along. Of course, our schedule can feel like a curse in that it reminds us of how little time in our schedule we actually have. Approachable: Can I approach you? Availability was the bare minimum of what I saw in Mrs. Akiyama. We may have an open schedule, but what vibe do we give our students that communicates that we’re approachable enough that they would want to schedule a time to meet? The academy is filled with introverts. I’m one of them. And introverts are sometimes the best at exuding an approachable vibe. Approachability is not about availability. It is about being truly comfortable enough with oneself, with others, and with the vocation of teaching that you  can build a deep level of trust with students who can tell that you are for, and not against, their growth and wellbeing. We can be approachable even if our availability is limited. Accessible: Can you access yourself? Repeat with me, “I’m not a therapist,” “I’m not a therapist,” (unless of course, you are a therapist). But for the sake of this blog, I’m going to assume that most of us in theological higher education, as smart and as well-read as we are, (even if we like to dabble in junior psychology,) are not licensed therapists. I am not asking whether a teacher can psychoanalyze a student’s inner life. Rather, I am asking whether you, the person of the teacher, can access your own self? Do you know your limitations, your boundaries, your triggers, your personality, your emotions, how to self-regulate? Notice I did not ask if you know your theories, your interlocutors, or your content. This is about knowing yourself and in doing so, maybe knowing a little more about how you show up with others and in your teaching. Parker Palmer offers teachers good reflection material to help us do this work (start with The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life). Therapy is also a great way to get a better sense of one’s emotional landscape. I find that teachers who can access their own lives more readily seem less defensive and better able to handle imperfection in themselves and in their students. I think others sense this in them even if they do not know the terminology. Attunable: Are you attuned to others’ lives? Attunement is the idea that one (e.g., a parent) is keenly aware of another’s (e.g., a child) needs. This awareness goes beyond an apparent presenting need (e.g., a baby crying for food) to include those needs that a person has not yet articulated for themselves. Emphasizing again that although teachers are not therapists, really good teachers have a sense that the person in front of them is a ball of complex realities and experiences. They are attuned to the learning need for any given student. Don’t mistake this attunement for having poor boundaries or not offering feedback on poor performance. Somehow, attunable teachers know that there are many more things worth exploring about a student than gauging the student’s interest in their class or subject matter. I imagine you have had these kinds of teachers sometime in your educational life and I hope we can fashion some of these aspects in our own lives as teachers.