Elizabeth Brewer Redwine (Lecturer, Department of English, Seton Hall University)
We are all Julian now.
Last spring, the students in my class were discussing the words of Julian of Norwich, 14th-century bubonic plague survivor and anchorite who lived alone in contemplation for thirty years. I remember writing about the plague in February 2020 on the chalkboard of our warm 19-person classroom, with no one masked and everyone seated near each other. That day, a student from China and another from Rome mentioned COVID-19, and I drew a line on the board from the plagues of Julian’s time to the word COVID-19, and then we moved on to read Julian’s writings, thinking that this new strain we were hearing about would never amount to a true plague, except for the students from China and Italy whose communications from home had them more concerned. Teaching that text in March 2021 will be so different, as Julian’s solitary years foreshadowed what we all went through this past year. We know her experience more intimately now.
Continue reading “A Year of Questions: Teaching College Students in 2020”