teaching and emotions

In a poem entitled The World’s Feeling,[1] the Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade has a line that says: “I have only two hands and all the feelings of the world.” I love this metaphor and I feel that this is how I have been living lately. The political ...

We who believe in freedom cannot rest We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes. (1) We have had a month of intense events in the US. The killings of Black precious people, this time, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, came to the news again, as if these killings ...

Sometimes learning is accompanied by tears, theirs and mine.  The concept of mis-education is so disquieting to some students that tears are shed in the classroom.  Never has there been bold sobs or muffled cries of languished sorrow – nothing quite so dramatic.  Rather, the tears have been quiet moments of ...

Due to the racial and religious homogeneity of my institution, which is predominantly white and Christian (the University of Findlay, in rural Ohio), I have unconsciously focused on issues of greatest concern to my students, especially in the beginning of my teaching career – and this has not included race. This ...

I didn’t plan to bring it up. In fact, I had made a conscious decision to not talk about it. But, in the middle of class, I said something. I had to. I still wonder if I made the right decision. August 27 was the first day of my Theology ...