On a recent walk across campus, I ran into a student who had taken my class last year. She is Latina and a first-generation student who I remembered being politically outspoken in class and a fierce advocate for immigrant rights. I asked how she was
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
Over the past several years, I have had the deep privilege of participating in The Way of Remembering (WOR), a spiritually grounded journey to Benin that looks at intergenerational trauma and healing through the lens of African ways of knowing. Benin is a beautiful country
The start of a new semester is an emotional experience. As a former kindergarten teacher, I vividly remember spending much of the first day of school making students feel welcome and comforting them while they cried. Whether you are teaching five-year-olds or 25-year-olds, the need
During my third year of college, another student that many of my friends interacted with, who tutored some of us, died. While I wouldn’t call him a close friend, he was an acquaintance, and his loss was felt deeply. I remember wanting to cry, but
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
Do people learn in the same way or different ways? According to cognitive science, the answer is the former. There are general principles of learning that apply to everyone, such as the importance of attention and the value of good learning strategies like spacing and
I am a political science professor. And we are in the middle of a hotly contested presidential election campaign. My classes are going about how you’d imagine: students are excited, sometimes talking over one another, and occasionally throwing out wild hypotheticals.
This semester I am teaching an undergraduate biology course on biofeedback, self-regulation, and intergenerational resilience. One of the books we read is Robert M. Sapolsky’s Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. The book’s thesis is that humans experience chronic stress in ways that animals like zebras
“When You’re Smiling (The Whole World Smiles with You),” first published in 1928 by Shay, Fischer, and Goodwin, has been recorded by many artists. My favorite is the 1929 version by Louis Armstrong. “Oh, when you smilin’, when you smilin’, the whole world smiles with
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