teaching moments

Sometimes classrooms feel like our family living room, with our families around, exposing all kinds of political positions and emotional responses, all of us trying to respond to some events that are going on in the world. We look at each other for help, or to hate, we hope for ...

Don’t we all have moments when we want to, or perhaps feel like we should, set aside a class session plan in lieu of discussing a pressing event or development? Despite the vast array of subjects that we teach within the broader field of Islamic studies—not to mention ...

Phil Salter, a current student and muse of this Blog, in describing himself as a seminarian, said, “I am learning on the fly.”  Intrigued by this notion, I have been thinkalating … Habakkuk has come to mind….Recorded in Habakkuk (v. 2 & 3 Recorded in Habakkuk (v. 2 & 3), “Then the Lord answered ...

As I followed the #FergusonSyllabus twitter conversation just before this semester began, I considered ways to address race in a new way in my pastoral care course.  Unmasking structures of suffering and developing anti-racist pastoral care practices are already important to both my research and my pedagogy.  What is different ...

One of my earliest experiences was my first day at school in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in The United Kingdom. Sitting in what was the equivalent of the reception or the beginner's class, I suddenly felt an intense pain in my right arm. I turned around to find that I was ...