teaching

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 ...

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 ...

In addition to the general tips on teaching mysticism presented in the previous blog posts (part 1 & part 2), I would like to share some in-class and writing assignments I have used when teaching ʻAṭṭār’s The Conference of the Birds. One of the most successful in-class activities ...

All storms are not the same. A light summer rain is not a category five hurricane. You must learn, in your context, to identify those storms that can be refreshing, and even enjoyable, and those storms that are life threatening and require you to batten down the hatches or evacuate. ...

While teaching a mystical text is deeply enriching to the classroom, I find colleagues have two primary trepidations about teaching The Conference of the Birds: (1) presenting mysticism – a subject undergraduates and nonexperts alike often find impenetrable – in a coherent, lucid manner, and (2) accurately and responsibly discussing its specific Islamic context ...