By: Linda Mendez on January 23, 2025
It was the second quarter of my first year; I sat in Dr. Wonil Kim’s Old Testament class and thought the earth would open up and swallow him up for the heresy he was teaching. I could not sit through the 2-hour class that day; I felt that merely sitting there would make me an…
By: Christian Swails on January 23, 2025
Things are getting better. Life is progressing towards a state of goodness. Forgotten people, abandoned places, and broken systems are being shot through with renewal. Restoration is bursting forth and breaking through the ground. Humanity is good. The Divine is in everyone and everything, more and more inhabiting reality. There is an abundance…
By: Michael Hansen on January 23, 2025
During my first year at the Yale School of Management, I found an ad in the school mailroom looking for individuals to tutor math at a middle school in a neighboring town. The paid position was for one day a week for 10 weeks. I had two objectives in mind. The first was to dedicate…
By: David Weston on January 23, 2025
When I was a boy, my mother consistently told me to take smaller bites when I ate. She would repeat over and over again that I was taking too large of bites to really enjoy my meal. Through Meyer and Land’s book Threshold Concepts in Practice. Educational Futures-Re-thinking Theory and Practice, I constantly felt like…
By: Jeremiah Gómez on January 23, 2025
Nestled between Tombstone Canyon and the San Pedro Valley is the Mule Pass Tunnel. History, lore, and confusion are all part of the story of the tunnel—this is the way to the Queen of the copper mines in the same territory where Wyatt Earp pursued vendettas, and a nearby marker erroneously claims this as the…
By: Mika Harry on January 23, 2025
I spent three years as a middle school math teacher. My students were in the “middle school,” which is between elementary and high school. Their brains were transitioning into adolescence, and it was an uncomfortable stage, to say the least. As you might imagine, they were often not very concerned with 8th-grade pre-algebra. Some of…
By: Betsy on January 23, 2025
The word threshold causes me to dream of pretty doors, gates, and entrances into new spaces, all of which, in my imagination, are places of transition into new ‘wide open spaces’ to use biblical language. My first PhD research in 2006-8, which I had to defer completing due to having my fourth child (and then…
By: Jess Bashioum on January 23, 2025
I reached a liminal space trying to understand what threshold concepts are. Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge and its companion book[i], feel like a whole lot of learning and knowledge about a whole lot of learning and knowledge (which I think may be what metacognition is about). In perfect timing,…
By: Darren Banek on January 23, 2025
There has not been a time that I can recall when I was unaware of Jesus, sin, and forgiveness. I was born to “bush missionary” parents in rural Alaska and am the youngest of three siblings. Though we moved from Alaska to Montana shortly after I was born, my earliest recollections are still of my…
By: Robert Radcliff on January 23, 2025
This week, I read two books edited by Ray Land and Jan Meyer on Threshold Concepts: Threshold Concepts in Practice and Overcoming Barriers to Student Learning: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge. The article by Syed Mohamed et al. about soldiers, liminality, ambivalence, and hybridity stood out to me. I want to share a little of…
By: Joff Williams on January 22, 2025
Around 10 years ago, I recognized the significance of the idea of shalom. Where I used to know a Hebrew synonym for “peace,” I now understand a core thread that ties together the Old and New Testament writings, is equally applicable throughout history, and addresses the common existential questions of life. Shalom as a threshold…
By: Rich on January 20, 2025
Over the past 30 years, I have developed a specialty in tubular design. No, I’m not a surfer or valley girl asserting that my designs are cool. ‘Tubular’ is short for tubular goods, the pipes used to contain pressurized fluids in the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry. The industry has tens of…
By: Linda Mendez on January 16, 2025
As a child, when solids are introduced, you’re taught things like chewing with your mouth closed, chewing enough times so you don’t choke, etc. You are not trained to eat to savor your food; you’re not taught to enjoy the different flavors you’re experiencing, probably for the first time, or the colors of the foods…
By: Jess Bashioum on January 16, 2025
I love reading! I love reading anything from pop novels to theoretical physics, from biblical commentaries to Si-Fi. I have often read 3-5 different style books at a time, options for whatever mood I may be in that moment. Despite this love of reading, I have never enjoyed reading books that go into detail telling…
By: Christian Swails on January 16, 2025
It’s pretty tough to experience astral projection with one eye open. Just for clarity, astral projection is “a practice in which an individual aims to consciously separate their ‘astral body’ or spirit from their physical body, often to explore non-physical dimensions or realms.” Afghanistan It may not surprise you as much as it did…
By: Michael Hansen on January 16, 2025
Years ago, during my stint with Amazon, I flew with my MBA intern to the Seattle Headquarters to present his summer internship project to the Senior leadership team. I had worked with him over the past 3 months, and we were both extremely proud of his efforts. While he waited patiently outside, I entered the…
By: David Weston on January 16, 2025
Reading Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren’s book, How to Read a Book brought to mind a quote I read years ago by Petrarch, “Books give delight to the very marrow of one’s bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join us in a living and intense intimacy.” Being a lifelong bibliophile,…
By: Mika Harry on January 16, 2025
I am a recovering control freak. For years, I have posed as an organizer, especially in academic settings, but control remains the dark underbelly of my organizing. As I learn new rhythms of reading, writing, and thinking, I face the disorienting challenge of loosening my grip on control. Questions swirl: How can I ensure I’m…
By: Darren Banek on January 16, 2025
It was intended to be a fun afternoon trip for a young boy and his mom—a special time when just the two of them could go and explore. For many boys, exploring is at the top of the fun list. Sticks, rocks, and a pond full of frogs quickly pop into their minds. But this…
By: Jeremiah Gómez on January 16, 2025
I grew up on my grandparents’ tiny dirt farm of a ranch in Arizona. Most of life there was hard-fought, trying to cultivate and sustain life and growth in the desert. In many ways, fostering something verdant out of the caliche clay of Cochise County seemed an impossible task: fires, floods, competition with big ranchers…
