As you know, my daughter had to finish her semester of college at home. This was obviously challenging for a variety of reasons. Her classes were not set up to be done in a virtual atmosphere, and both professors and students kept trying to adapt.

Today, I give a shout out to her theology professor.

Her university is Catholic and has core requirements so she must take two semesters of theology. Her theology class happened to have a large number of foreign students, so he said that being live for classes was not mandatory and that they were free to watch the lectures on tape. He also changed it to one lecture a week instead of three.

Students from as far away as the Philippine’s and Vietnam still showed up every Tuesday at 3pm EST, even though it was about 3am local time.

This past Tuesday, the last day of class, he personally called out every student by name and thanked them for making the absolute best in the absolute worst of times, highlighting their professionalism and attitude and work ethic.

Cheers to all of them, for showing up, for working hard, and for adapting the best they could. Cheers to a teacher that understood that there were greater lessons to be learned than those within the four walls of the classroom.

55 thoughts on “Funf: Theology”

  1. Lovely post, LA. There are so many stories like this playing out all over the globe right now, with professors, teachers, students and parents working their way through this fraught situation. I know my (former) colleagues have worked hard to figure out how to make distance learning work for their students. Thanks for giving them all this shoutout.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    1. There will be a few more, because I think it’s important to give credit where it’s due, because they are all trying. It’s easy to be a dissenter…not so easy to highlight the positives….

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  4. That is wonderful to read! Thanks for posting. I love the dedication of the students from overseas. I have a student in the Middle East and several from India and they always notice all my announcements, posts, and get on with me during my live lectures also. They are very dedicated. We are in the final run.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  7. I recognize your daughter’s excellent historic University from the time she misplaced Jack the Bulldog.
    But I won’t mention the name here…
    Congratulations to your daughter on successfully completing her semester. 🤗

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  8. I won’t call out everyone as some despite encouragement and follow up by myself, faltered and gave up. But I do acknowledge those who persevere and those that respond to my efforts. I did get a thank you email this morning from a student that was unexpected and also an email asking me to reconsider a grade. What can they do? Both require different addresses. Have a good day.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. What many people might not realize is that many of us are adjuncts which means we work part time with more than one college or university which makes me give a call out to all of my adjunct friends, myself included for their dedication this semester.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. I appreciate this post because it highlights not only the students but also the leadership and example of the prof. He didn’t email, he called them directly. In my mind that is the kind of example I want to see spreading, a hands-on virus of positive actions.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. Not only email, during the zoom class he personally spoke to everyone, looking them in the eye. To me, this was a beautiful example of a teacher interacting with their students and reminding them that they are important.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  12. People are adapting and while that is fantastic I am hoping that it will not take the place of in person teaching on a large scale. My son had to do his Master’s degree on line, but the class met in real time no matter where they were and it was structured to do that, worked for him though.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. I couldn’t agree more. Adapting for half a semester is one thing. This can’t be the new normal though. The students and teachers will be short changed. My daughter chose this school for its on campus resources, which she greatly missed.

      Like

      Reply

  13. Some profs inspire in the most practical ways. Sounds like she had a good one with this person. Hope she’ll be able to get back to campus next fall. That’s where you learn so much, often not from the curriculum.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  15. Thank you for such an uplifting post. I’m an instructor at our local journalism school and have been “meeting” with senior students online for a capstone class. It’s been a challenge to keep some of them engaged and hitting deadlines. Most are doing well, but I think a few have sort of checked out, which is very telling about how they may function in the real world when things become difficult. I applaud your daughter, her instructor and all the students in that class for their dedication. xoxo

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  21. So upsetting to hear of my nieces confined indoors, day after day studying from home without their friends to socialize with. I do believe by the summer children will be looking forward to school again, perhaps even appreciate the golden opportunity they’ve been given that so many aren’t fortunate to have…….. here’s hoping schools re open soon.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  24. Just spoke to my daughter today (she tutors a Masters course at a London University). She was yawning a bit as she’d got up early to do online tutorials with students based in China & India, rather than expect them to stay up late for her. Unfortunately, her daughter heard her, so her husband had to get up too to provide childcare during the tutorials. Early nights for all in her household tonight 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s