Recently, a student sent me a political news article with the comment “Things are falling apart.” I didn’t reply right away, because I sensed they were looking for reassurance—and deep down, I felt that no matter what I said, they wouldn’t believe me. It’s hard
In teaching, unaddressed countertransference has profound implications for educators and students alike. Consider the story of my past student who experienced heart-wrenching life circumstances during the semester: He lost both parents and became the primary caregiver for his younger siblings. Naturally, his GPA fell significantly
Just ahead of the spring semester’s start, I received an email from a colleague who had been on a yearlong sabbatical, and the subject read, “Returning, somewhat trembling, to that brave new world.” The body of the email went on to acknowledge the growth of
I’ve often felt that a teacher’s life is suspended, Janus-like, between past experiences and future hopes; it’s only fitting, then, that I’m preparing for this new year by looking back. Here’s a countdown of last year’s gratitude journal entries that reminded me how kind, clever,
One of the courses I am teaching this semester is a senior-level course titled Autonomic Nervous System Regulation. In this class, we examine the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which is the part of our nervous system that governs involuntary physiological processes, such as our heart
My mother was not your typical 1990s Beanie Babies collector. She didn’t care whether the little pellet-filled critters that she scavenged for at flea markets and rummage sales and on eBay were in mint condition or whether their heart-shaped name tags were still intact.
I must confess, I’ve always been skeptical about group work. Raised in East Asia, my K–16 education relied heavily, if not exclusively, on lectures. Even during my graduate studies in mathematics at a flagship public university in the US, my classmates and I rarely engaged
Why do I teach? You might as well ask, “Why are you breathing?” That’s how essential teaching has been in the daily pattern of my life since 1980. And like breathing, it is hard to figure out what the mechanics of my teaching are; they
In May 2024, Annalise Nisly graduated from Goshen College with an environmental and marine science major with a concentration in marine biology as a member of the “Covid class” of students who had started college during the height of the pandemic. Lamar Nisly has since
In Rasselas, Samuel Johnson’s philosopher Imlac offers the following bleak assessment of life: “Human life is every where [sic] a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed” ([1759] 1999, 31). Having been a teacher for more than 30 years,
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