Voices from the Past Archives

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Articles & Essays Featured Scholarship Voices from the Past

Your Work Matters. And it Doesn’t. Be Glad.

Note: This essay first appeared on the Christian Scholar’s Review blog, and is reproduced with permission. I sit in an empty computer lab, surrounded by the sleek machinery of digital existence, propped in the curvature of an adjustable office chair. I have been here all day, all…

David I. SmithAugust 13, 2025

Articles & Essays Faith and Teaching Featured Language and Culture Learning Voices from the Past

Lost in translation? Accessing past Christian educational reflection

This essay was published as the editorial for the International Journal of Christianity & Education 28:2, July 2024. Scholarly discussion of the relationship between Christianity and education is, of course, far from being a recent endeavor. The study of how faith is implicated in education…

David I. SmithDecember 5, 2024

Articles & Essays Featured Language and Culture Learning Resources Voices from the Past

Teaching for the Real World

“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.…

David I. SmithNovember 1, 2024

Articles & Essays Faith and Teaching Resources Voices from the Past

The Courage to Begin

This post originally appeared on the Christian Scholar’s Review blog, and is reproduced with permission. 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…

David I. SmithAugust 22, 2023

Articles & Essays Faith and Teaching Featured Reflection on Scripture Spiritual Development Voices from the Past

Learning to Pray

This post originally appeared on the Christian Scholar's Review blog, and is reproduced by permission. 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…

David I. SmithApril 1, 2022

Articles & Essays Faith and Teaching Featured Voices from the Past

A Tale of Two Transformations

This post appeared first on the Christian Scholar's Review blog, and is reproduced with permission. 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…

David I. SmithApril 1, 2022

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Articles & Essays Featured Voices from the Past

Reflections on How to Begin a Semester

This post originally appeared on the Christian Scholars Review blog, January 8, 2021, and is reproduced by permission. 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…

David I. SmithFebruary 11, 2021

Articles & Essays Featured Voices from the Past

Sticking with the Task: Some Reflections on Hope and Co…us.

This year, the 350th anniversary of the death of one of the most interesting educators of all time, my aim is to post a piece in each month of 2020 about John Amos Comenius. I am also writing this during the early days of state-wide…

David I. SmithMarch 30, 2020

Articles & Essays Voices from the Past

What Year Is It?

Many years ago I read a piece of advice that I have not regretted taking to heart. The advice was basically that once your studies are done and your career starts, you should choose a deep, important thinker (the advice was, I believe, in a…

David I. SmithJanuary 22, 2020

Faith and Teaching Scholarship Voices from the Past

Teaching Bonhoeffer: Pedagogy and Peripheral Practices

Some of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s major writings emerged from the experience of planning and leading an innovative seminary at Finkenwalde, where there was a strong focus on intentional communal practices. This article uses the process of designing an undergraduate course focused on Bonhoeffer’s book Life Together…

David I. SmithApril 18, 2017

Voices from the Past