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Educating in the Era of COVID-19: Day 16

Is it possible to get a headache from too much video conferencing?

I think it is.

Yesterday was Wednesday which means I checked in on my classes via Google Meet. Most of my students are in good spirits. Many of my students didn’t make an appearance. I’m not sure how to interpret that though. Are they doing so well they don’t need the Meets? Are they doing so poorly that they can’t get themselves to participate? Are they sleeping until 1 PM? Are they tiring of online social interaction?

The highlight of the day was my interview with Dr. Michael Barber. We talked about the Apostle Paul. I’ll be posting that video soon so y’all can watch it.

Day 15
Week 3
Week 2
Week 1

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Testing online whiteboards

As I prepare for a partially synchronous, partially asynchronous summer school class in June, I’m trying to determine the worth of an online whiteboard. I’ve been testing Miro this morning. It has a lot of nice features. Students can comment. There’s a chat feature. Links and videos can be embedded. You can create a whiteboard that students can edit. Ascetically, the website is clean and the whiteboard itself is nice.

Here’s my attempt to take this actual drawing on a whiteboard that I did last time I taught this class (The Hebrew Scriptures)…

…and turn it into a digital version using Miro:

Your work can be downloaded as a JPG as well:

I guess the big question is this: How much more useful is an online whiteboard than a Google Slide? Presumably, the chat and comments features add important versatility.

Also, my wife told me about Microsoft Whiteboard. It’s a free option as well. I haven’t tested it yet because I’m working from my MacBook and the only option for iOS is iPad and iPhone. I have both, and I have a work computer that runs on Windows, so I’ll try to test it eventually.

Any other recommendations?

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Educating in the Era of COVID-19: Day 15

Easter Weekend has come and gone. The final days of the 2019-20 school year are here. While there’s still work to do, I admit my focus has begun to shift toward summer school. I’ll be teaching my class ‘The Hebrew Scriptures’ (formerly ‘Old Testament’) from June 1st-18th. While I knew this decision was coming, it’s official that it’ll be an online class. The difference is that it won’t be an emergency response online class but a class that’s to be prepared and planned to be an online class. I have my work cutout for me!

But there’s a perk to teaching summer school during this pandemic. It’s possible that by July/August things are ‘normalizing’ (what that means precisely is TBD) but it’s also possible that we’re month, even years, from the ‘normal’ many of us expect. In fact, we may never see that normal again.

Boston University may not resume classes on campus until January 2021. I presume other schools will follow. They may not remove students from campus completely but even a schedule where there are fewer days on campus means curriculum for the fall that’s different from what we did in fall 2019.

Researchers at Harvard University are suggesting we ‘might need to practice some level of social distancing intermittently through 2022 to stop Covid-19 from surging anew and overwhelming hospital systems’. If this proves accurate, even partially so, then preparing for a hybrid learning formats for a few years is necessary.

I hope that this fall I’ll return to teaching on our campus, full-time, in-person, week-after-week. If this doesn’t happen, I’ll have experiences to share going into fall 2020. As they say, ‘Hope for the best…but prepare for the worst.’

Week 3
Week 2
Week 1

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Easter 2020

In Luke’s Gospel the two disciples who traveled to Emmaus didn’t recognize Jesus until they saw him through the breaking of the bread. For many Christians, this is how Jesus is seen and heard every week. This pandemic has taken away that experience away from them. Instead, we’re left with something closer to Mark’s open-ended account of the Resurrection. We’re trembling with fear. We don’t understand what’s happening. We haven’t experienced closure.

The Evangelist Matthew reminds us in this time that Jesus’ final words include the promise that he’ll be with us always, even to the end of the age. The Evangelist John reminds us that like Mary Magdalene, the Apostle to the Apostles, we can hear the Resurrected One’s voice if we listen as we’re addressed by name.

In our sacred Scriptures we have four similar but unique interpretations of the Resurrection. This year it’s important to remember that; it’s important to remember that we don’t experience the risen Lord the same; it’s important that even our individual experiences of Easter can change.

This Easter isn’t ruined. It’s different. It’ll add new texture to your understanding of the event and it’s meaning. Next year we’ll break bread again. But this year we experience fear and trembling, we hope for the the divine presence, and we listen for the Voice

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Good Friday 2020

I hope everyone is staying safe today. If you’re wanting some semblance of Good Friday liturgy, I know many Churches will be doing services online, and there’s even our (TMI Episcopal) chapel service recording. (I’m Judas. Also, we practiced social distancing and all the participants are residents on campus. We gathered at All Saints Chapel on our campus to do this.)

There’s a lot that can be said on this solemn day. Instead, I want to share a Facebook post and a couple of articles that stood out to me.

This 2018 Facebook post from my friend Joshua Paul Smith was a reminder of the upside-down nature of ‘Good’ Friday:

Also, I found Rev. Laura Everett’s article ‘After a Holy Week disrupted by death, an honest Easter’ to be a timely reflection on what Good Friday means in light of this pandemic. Also quite insightful is Prof. Rev. Stephen B. Chapman’s ‘This year Easter will feel more like Passover’.

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Juxtaposing the Passion Narratives

Last week I had my students work their way through the Passion Narratives using a grid to compare and contrast the four canonical Gospels’ presentation of these events. My aim was to show that the tradition highlights some thing consistently. This doesn’t necessarily verify their historicity (e.g., Barabbas appears in each Gospel) but it does show what traditions tended to have staying power from Mark’s Gospel to Matthew’s and to Luke’s. If, like me, you think the Fourth Evangelist knew of the Synoptics, then again anything that makes it into that Gospel should be included in what I’m saying.

So, what appears to be important across the Gospels? First, Judas’ role as the betrayer is mentioned in each one. Second, Peter’s denial of Jesus is too. Third, Jesus appears before Pontius Pilate every time. Fourth, during his arrest, a disciple always takes out his sword and starts swinging to defend Jesus. Fifth, Jesus is always taken to ‘Golgotha’ or ‘the Place of the Skull’. Sixth, he’s always offered something to drink. Seventh, he’s always mocked as ‘the King of the Jews’. Seventh, there are always women disciples present with him, even if at a bit of a distance. Eighth, Joseph (of Arimathea) is the one to acquire the body in each rendition.

Why are these eight things standard to the story? Is it incidental? Is there a theme I’m missing?

Equally interesting is when an Evangelists inserts their own singularly unique claims. Matthew’s the only one who mentions that that Pilate washed his hands; that bodies emerged from tombs when Jesus died; that guards were placed at Jesus’ tomb. Luke’s the only one who claims that Jesus healed the lopped off ear of the High Priest’s servant; that Pilate sent Jesus to Herod Antipas; that Jesus stopped on his way to the cross to warn women of Jerusalem’s fate; that only one of the men crucified with Jesus mocked him while the other defended Jesus and was offered a place in Paradise; that Jesus breathed a final breath. John’s the only one who has the people coming to arrest Jesus fall to the ground when Jesus self-identifies; who has Jesus and Pilate discussing the nature of power and truth in-depth; that the sign above Jesus’ head was written in Aramaic, Greek, and Latin; that Jesus’ legs weren’t broken; that there was a male disciple present who would become the adoptive son of Jesus’ mother.

It’s these little differences that make the juxtaposition interesting. Why does Matthew need guards? Why does Luke bring Herod Antipas into the story? Why is ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’ at the foot of the cross?

I’ve tried to teach my students to read the Bible using different lenses. They can ask the questions historians might ask. They can ask the questions a literary critic might ask. They can ask the questions a philosopher or theologian might ask. There’s many more lenses they can use. I hope they encounter them over a lifetime as they continue to engage these texts in all their complexity. For more than half of my life I’ve been reading these texts seriously and I can say that it’s these details, this design, that keeps me coming back over and over again.

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Maundy Thursday 2020

We hear this narrative yearly, at least. We hear it alluded to more often than that: ‘On the night that he was betrayed…’ But we hear it from different perspectives. This is the first time I’ve heard it during a pandemic. What does this do to my hearing of this story?

It emphasizes our agnosticism toward the future. Most of us didn’t know we’d be in this situation on April 9th, 2020. While there were a few people who could make decision that could’ve impacted the trajectory of this pandemic (see ‘South Korea’) most of us aren’t those people. We can respond only to the world as it unfolds before us.

This experience highlights the disciples place in the Maundy Thursday tradition. Jesus seems to have expected something. Each Evangelist gives Jesus more or less of an understanding of his fate. But in the Gospels, his disciples seems uniformly unaware. Tragedy is coming. They don’t know it. They can do nothing to stop it.

This night the disciples will be shown their inability to control things. This night most of us recognize this helplessness in ourselves. We’d like to be the masters of our destinies but we’re not. Personally, this Maundy Thursday preaches that message as loud and as clear as it ever could.

But there’s one thing we can control. Jesus commands us to do so. We’re told to love one another and he loves us. In our powerlessness, we can do something powerful; we’re commanded to do something powerful: love one another. We see this in the work of our medical professionals but they’re not alone. We can all contribute in some way for we can all love in some way.

Maundy Thursday icon of Jesus washing the feet of St. Peter
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Educating in the Era of COVID-19: Week 3

In Texas, Easter weekend is recognized as a holiday, so online school is canceled from tomorrow through Monday. This brings an end of the our third week of remote learning. This was also the week when we learned that the rest of our school year (where I work) will be done this way.

It’s Maundy Thursday. We remember Jesus’ final meal with his friends before his Passion. This year, I’m reminded that just a few weeks ago I said goodbye to colleagues as we left for Spring Break not knowing what was in front of us. This add some texture to the experience of the disciples who didn’t know what they were about to see happen to their Teacher and Lord. Life is fragile and unpredictable, then and now.

Day 13
Day 12
Day 11
Week 2
Week 1

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Why doesn’t the Jewish New Year start on Passover?

This morning I was reading Exodus 12.1-14 when something dawned on me for the first time. In Exodus 12.2, as instructions are being given to Moses and Aaron regarding the first Passover/Pesach, it’s stated, ‘This month shall mark for you the beginning of months (רֹ֣אשׁ חֳדָשִׁ֑ים); it shall be the first month of the year for you.’ This seems to be instructing Israel to celebrate the New Year at Pesach but the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, doesn’t coincide with Pesach.

I googled ‘Why isn’t Passover on Rosh Hashanah?’ and the first result, an article written by Michele Alperin for ‘My Jewish Learning’ is helpful: ‘How Rosh Hashanah Became New Year’s Day’. I won’t repeat what the article says. If you’re interested, feel free to read Alperin’s thoughts directly. On the other hand, if you know of another article worth reading, feel free to leave it in the comments.