不良研究所

Learning in Pandemic Times: Reconsidering the Incarnate Word Scholar鈥檚 Life

As readers of this magazine know, in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced many professors and students to shift their in-person classes to remote learning. The semesters following have been a mix of learning methodologies and platforms. A Texas-sized snowstorm, the omicron variant, constant political upheaval in the United States and now a European war—in addition to the numerous other global conflicts, have all been part of our shared learning communities. Starting. Stopping. Adapting. Ratcheting up anxiety at every turn.

Teaching and forming students has taken on a completely new shape during this time. I have been personally transformed during this pandemic, as I know my students have—and therefore so has my pedagogy. It is in these moments of transformation when I feel most grateful to work at a place like 不良研究所 that has embedded within its Mission an ideal of transformation. Indeed, the Catholic intellectual tradition calls us to have a transformative, shared intellectual life. The focus in my classes has shifted in two important ways. The first way is that I have encouraged my students to participate in much broader, public facing projects— projects where they have to interact and get to know others within a broader community, often virtual. I’m an English professor, and this experience occurs in myriad ways. For instance, in my freshman composition classes, students have conducted service learning, where they record videos and read aloud to children in a local elementary schools. This class’s thematic focus is on vocational discernment, culminating in a final research paper pertaining to their major. This community outreach project helps students remember what brought them joy in reading and learning when they were children. What sparked their passions when they were children? How might they bring that feeling back, and pass it on to the next generation? College students l