David I. Smith

Some months ago, I rode to the airport with Uber, as I have done many times before and since. I noticed before the car arrived that the driver had high ratings for “excellent conversation.” Sure enough, it was not long before he started raising topics for discussion. He was driving for Uber on his day…

I ended last year with some reflections on how to end a semester. Here I offer some reflections on how to begin one. They were provoked by a chance encounter with an introductory Spanish grammar text. It begins with these two sentences:“Grammar is one of the most difficult (read: boring!) parts of learning a language.…

“Our textbooks today are much more focused on practical things.” The student’s comment, offered in a class on world language pedagogy as we discussed historical examples of language textbooks, stood out as requiring more response than I quite knew how to pack into the moment. It was true and it was false, depending on the…

Part-way through teaching a new course on faith and pedagogy last year I noticed an emerging pattern that had not been a fully conscious part of my plan. An unanticipated trend slowly turned into a conscious strategy that threaded its way through several major topics. It started a few weeks into the semester as we…

One of the possible functions of Christian beliefs and practices in teaching and learning contexts is to act as framing devices. When concern for student wellbeing is named as pastoral care, when environmental responsibility is connected to stewardship or creation care, or when language learning is understood as a way of welcoming strangers, theological and…

DAVID: Some years ago, I was teaching an intensive graduate class in curriculum studies to a group that included students from multiple countries. The first significant written assignment came a few days into the course. I asked students to write about how their upbringing and identity were likely to bias their curriculum work. Which of…

In the preface to her recent book on theological education, Elizabeth Conde-Frazier describes some of the repeating patterns that she experienced during her childhood as a member of a Latin@ church in New York.Elizabeth Conde-Frazier, Atando Cabos: Latinx Contributions to Theological Education (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021). In her church, children were drawn into ministry early…

One morning in July I sat with some fellow faculty at the tail end of a writing retreat, and the conversation turned to the dawning realization that there is less summer before us than behind us, and a new semester is lumbering in our direction at what feels like increasing pace. Some shared their perennial…

I’ve been thinking about burdens again. Often my own, I must confess, but also the kind that I place on others’ shoulders. The question about whether I lift a finger to carry them myself. The times when the others are my students. Creating burdens for students, sometimes difficult ones, is part of the faculty's role.…

This piece is a slightly adapted version of a recent editorial written for the International Journal of Christianity and Education. In the preface to his recent book Transforming Fire: Imagining Christian Teaching,Mark D. Jordan, Transforming Fire: Imagining Christian Teaching. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021). Mark Jordan (2021) recalls his experiences as a young teacher who “found many…

In one of Grammarly’s ubiquitous advertisements, a hapless writer uses the popular AI-based editing software to improve an interpersonal communication. The furrowed brows accompanying the initial attempt (“we might be able to find a way to make this happen”) give way to gratified smiles as the sentence becomes “we can find a way to make…

During focus group research for the book Digital Life Together, two secondary school students offered the following reflections about what happens when their teachers assign reading tasks: we'll ask , "can we skim it and just look for the answers?" And they're, like, "No, I actually want you to read it".  … One of my…

I have an image pinned to the noticeboard by my desk that resulted from a moment of incompetence but seemed worth keeping in view. It was generated while working on data during a recent research project. With a team of colleagues (Steve McMullen, Kara Sevensma, and Marj Terpstra), I was investigating the impact of technological…

While browsing through some past Faith Animating Learning blog articles, I came across a helpful piece by Louis Markos on “Teaching in a Post-COVID world.” Part of the piece offers cautions regarding the effects of social media consumption on teaching: Although the algorithms are generally driven by a consumerist agenda that privileges advertising over politics,…

This morning a little space opened up in my schedule, and I have been re-reading a long-familiar book. The physical volume is old and worn. In fact, it was re-issued with a fresh title almost three decades ago, and I am holding the original edition, though I bought it used. As my eye has traveled…

I was recently provoked to fresh reflection on two very familiar passages as I prepared to share them with education students. One is about schooling; the other is about being born anew. I had admired them both, but now gained a fresh sense of their interconnection. Both are drawn from a vivid allegory that predates…

The way we pray says quite a lot about us. Our prayers and the way we form them project a story about what ought to be. When we draw upon the public prayers of others and make our own prayers part of public discourse, prayer becomes one form of teaching and learning. I have been…

This essay was published in 2012 in the book Practically Human: College Professors Speak from the Heart of Humanities Education edited by Gary Schmidt & Matthew Walhout (Grand Rapids: Calvin College Press, 2012, 133-145). It asks why we invest time and resources in learning other languages and seeks to look further than pragmatic motivations based…

This post is a slightly edited version of a recent editorial published in the International Journal of Christianity and Education.Smith DI (2021) For the birds: Absence and vision in teaching texts. International Journal of Christianity & Education. July. doi:10.1177/20569971211031437 (LINK: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20569971211031437) Birds are excellent indicators of environmental health and ecosystem integrity…Results from long-term surveys, accounting…

Some years ago, I was sitting in my campus office minding my own business when the phone rang. It turned out to be Matt, a student who had been in a sequence of required core German courses that I had taught a few years earlier. He seemed breathless with excitement. It quickly emerged that he…