Christine Hong: Silhouette Interview

Christine J. Hong, PhD is Associate Professor of Educational Ministry and Lead Professor of the DEdMin Program at Columbia Theological Seminary. 

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UNKNOWN 0:00

Thank you.

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Hello, I am Nancy Lynn Westfield, director of the Wabash Center. Welcome to Dialogue on Teaching, a Silhouette interview. The Silhouette conversations are sparked from a list of standardized questions. We have the good fortune to hear firsthand from teaching exemplars about their teaching and teaching life. Today, our Silhouette guest is Dr. Christine J. Hong. Dr. Hong is associate professor of educational ministry as well as lead professor for doctor of educational ministry program at Columbia Theological in Decatur, Georgia. Welcome, Christine, to the conversation. Thank you so

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much for having me today.

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So let's get started. Question number one. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

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I wanted to be Indiana Jones.

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Stop it. That is great.

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Say more. I don't know. The hat, the whip. Yes, everything. I loved the idea that he lived this double life. I thought that was the most fascinating part of those movies was that he was a professor by day and he taught. I love the idea of teaching always.

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And I

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always played at teaching. I think people play at teaching a lot. And so I always did that with my dolls, with my friends, with my little brother, much to his chagrin and his distaste. So I love that about him. But then I loved that he always had these side quests that he went on with his friends too. And he was fighting fascism. But I loved this double life. He got to do everything that he wanted to do and that it all connected at the end of the day. So I was always fascinated by that. And I really wanted to be him. And I really thought I was going to go to school and study archaeology. because of that.

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Well, you're not that far removed. So I think that's lovely, right? I love that. I love that. Who was proud of you when you became a teacher?

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When I became a teacher, I think I'm trying to think about when it was that I became a teacher. Because I became a pastor first. And I think I discovered my teaching ministry in the pastorate. But I think I was the only one that knew that. But when I became a professor is when I was acknowledged as a teacher, I think in my family.

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So, but when you were pastoring, don't go past that too quickly. Did you have a sense of ownership, a sense of pride, a sense of aha, or was it just another thing that you had to get done?

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When I was a pastor, I think I loved the teaching piece of it. And it was a moment of vocational discernment for me, where there were pieces of it that I really did not like. I did not, I can preach fine and I enjoy it sometimes, but it's one of those things that makes me nervous every single time. And I have learned, that when you're nervous every single time, it's not always anticipation and excitement. It's your body's fear reaction. It's your body telling you, you don't like this. And you maybe shouldn't be doing it. Dread is not good, right? You should not be moving into dread. Right. And that never went away. I don't feel that way about teaching. I'm actually excited about it. And so I learned in the pastorate that I felt differently about teaching than I do about preaching. And that's where I discerned that maybe I need to be a teacher. Maybe I need to pursue education. And I think when I discerned that and I kind of named that out loud, it was my mother that was proud of me. It was that discernment, that moment where I said, I'm leaving the pastorate to go be a teacher, to learn how to be a teacher. She just, she said, I always knew. I saw that in you. What's mom's name? Her name is Kyunghee. Hong Kyung Hee. Actually, it's Yoon Kyung Hee. So she reclaimed her Korean maiden name. So it's Yoon Kyung Hee.

UNKNOWN 4:28

Nice, nice.

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Next, what's the best thing your mother ever taught you? The

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best thing my mother ever taught me? She taught me so many things. I think to always... find the sliver of happiness in the moment that you're in. And that's so hard. That is so hard. But she is someone that had lived a very difficult life. And I watched that and I was part of that. But she was always able to find and draw out those tiny little glimmers for us as children during very, very difficult times. And I'm always reminded of that. And I think looking back at it now was a trauma response, right? It's like a trauma response and a coping mechanism in some ways, but she reminds me that her parents are ancestors and she, you know, were survivors of some very big traumas. And so those, those little glimmers of happiness, those little glimmers of hope, those are really also God moments too that remind us that there's more than just those moments of grief and sorrow, but there's more out there. So to remind ourselves that we are alive. And that's the biggest lesson that I continue to go back to, especially in moments where there's great disappointment or great pain.

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Thanks, mom. Who has influenced your teaching for the better?

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So many people. So many people. Both dead and alive. But I think consistently, it's on the daily basis, it's always my students. I learn from them all the time. I'm teaching a class right now that's an asynchronous class on spirituality. And most of my colleagues hate teaching asynchronous courses because they say they have the least contact with students. So they like that face-to-face interaction and the immediate engagement. But I actually enjoy asynchronous courses because I get to sit and really engage their words very deeply and slowly. and especially if they're making videos or making art. And I can sit and read their words intentionally over long periods of time and throughout the week. And they're always teaching me things as they cycle back through the things that they're saying and thinking about. And they teach me and they add the things that they mirror back to me about my teaching, about what I'm missing in my teaching, about the things that I thought that I didn't intend to teach. the things that I really should have emphasized that I didn't, and the things that I found that I did teach after all, right? That I probably should have explicitly taught and happily did end up teaching, but didn't intend to. So I learned from my students, I think most rigorously and daily, and they are the best teachers. And especially because so many of my students now are coming to us as second career. Many of my students are older than me and come to me with greater life experience, have lived in places I've never lived. Many of my students are international students. They come to me from contexts that I will never experience. And there's so much wisdom in every space that I'm in with them. And so they're always my teachers. So I am so aware even in asynchronous spaces that I'm in space with them that there is so much I don't know. Even though I'm teaching a particular topic that they're puzzle pieces that they're meeting me with and we're putting those puzzles together. I don't know the full picture and they're bringing those pieces to bear. So yeah, I would say my students.

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What has surprised you about teaching or the teaching life?

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How imbalanced it is.

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Say more.

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What surprised me is that we talk a lot about balance in the teaching life. Like, you know, write, teach, rest, care for yourself, care for your family, sabbaticals, things like that, work-life balance. But a lot of our institutions drive us in ways that are counter to that. And I watch myself and a lot of our colleagues pay for that with a lot of actual physical pain and illness. and mental pain and illness. And our families, by extension, and our loved ones pay too. And we don't talk about that explicitly enough. And that has surprised me that we, even though we all suffer from it somehow, or some of us more than others, that we don't talk about it out loud enough. And I've started to talk about it more, especially with mentees, as I come up to the Academy about the reality of that tax. Because I think it's only fair to know that there isn't actually relief from that on the other side of a PhD. There's not. So yeah, that has surprised me that we are still, there's still fragility in the fact that we can't talk about it honestly. Yeah,

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many institutions have not decided that grind culture is overtaxing people, right? Grind culture is a negative. I mean, many are champions of grind culture. So yeah, now I get it. Yeah. Next, what is a favorite nickname by which you are called by a loved one?

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Oh.

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Favorite nickname. I think a lot of my friends call me Siege because it's short for CJ.

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It's too much to say. The two letters. Yeah.

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Siege. I don't know why it's so hard, but yeah. But my favorite name is Amma, which is just mom in Korean.

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Nice. Yeah.

UNKNOWN 12:04

Yeah.

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So, okay, Indiana Jones, this is similar to Indiana Jones, but different. What profession other than teaching would you like to attempt now?

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Oh my gosh, I would just love to, if I could do this, I would do this for the rest of my life. I would just love to take care of senior animals

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on a

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piece of land, just on a piece of land somewhere and just be a place where senior animals could come and spend their last year. I love animals. Yeah. I love animals and I especially love senior animals. And I've always adopted all of my animals. We have five right now. And they're all senior, except I think like, I guess a couple of them are on the younger middle-aged side, but I especially love them in their senior years. So yeah. Yeah. And I kind of feel like it's the best gift you can give them is to be that last place. That's right.

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A place of dignity. Do you enjoy writing in longhand? And if so, what is your preference of ink pen or writing utensil?

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I do enjoy it, but here's the thing. My handwriting is the worst in the world. So I do love writing in longhand because it helps me remember. It's a mechanism for helping me remember things. But when I go back to it, it's like deciphering code. I don't always know what I wrote sometimes when I go back after a long time. And I really don't care for, I don't really care about the tool. So it's whatever's at hand. And it's often a hotel pen and a hotel notepad. that I've gotten at a conference.

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That's right, whatever's close by,

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right? It's usually a Wabash thing.

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Yes, a Wabash notepad. Yes, yes. They're good, right? That's good. Yes, they're good. What's your superpower?

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My superpower is, my superpower is that I have, I think a deep ability to have empathy for what someone is experiencing and to not have to identify my story with theirs to come close to it. So not have to like insert myself in their story in order to feel compassion in order to feel like I hear them. But it was a long time in practicing that and teaching myself and being taught to listen in a different way to come to that.

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Yeah, people don't need to be saved from themselves, right? So just being with rather than rescuing from is a real gift to people. So number 10 is our infamous word, our infamous question. It might be... Anyway, I'll just say it. I won't say what it might be. What's your favorite cuss word? Fuck. Why? I mean, I'm not against it. Just

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because. That's the one that comes out the most, I think.

UNKNOWN 15:57

Yeah.

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It just comes

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out the most. I get it,

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I get

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it. Number 11, how have you survived certain violences in teaching?

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I have to process it really deeply. And that is by, on multiple levels. I think I've learned to not stuff it down. I've learned that I need to talk about it with somebody. I need to process it out loud with someone who's a good and careful listener. Someone that's going to just be able to hear it and not judge. I've learned that I need to be able to not judge myself. or how I responded to it. And I've also learned that because I'm a survivor of different violences, that it's always gonna trigger me

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in

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some way, shape or form. It's gonna trigger some memory of some violence that I experienced somewhere else, even if it has no correlation. So it's always gonna dig something up. and I'm gonna have to understand what that is. I'm gonna have to take time to unpack that. So I'm gonna have to take care of like little me and big me. So I've learned that there are steps I have to take. And so it's almost like a triage situation that when it happens in teaching and it's happened a lot and it's happened often enough that I know what the triage formula is now. which is find your listener, talk about it out loud, but also find time to take care of big me and also the little me that is remembering other things that have happened.

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I think the suspend judgment is so important and so difficult to do and to find someone who will sit in that nonjudgmental space with you while you take care of big Christine and little Christine. Next, what healings have you witnessed or received in teaching or the teaching life?

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I've witnessed students really accept themselves for who they are and not who they want to be.

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And

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I think that that is one of the deepest forms of healing that I've witnessed. So many of us come from families or places where we're always reaching for the person we want to become or are told we have to become to bring everybody else along with us because we have to save everyone, bring everybody up. And that's such a weight. But there are moments where we can just kind of take that off, that weight off and just accept us for who we are in the moment and not for everything we have to become for everybody else. And in that one moment, that sense of relief, when you see that come over and wash over someone, it's like this priceless moment of healing. And when you can hold that space and when you also witness other people watching and witnessing that, Co-witnessing that, holding space for someone else to experience that, it's really sacred. And I think those moments are some of the most beautiful. And it's powerful because it could happen anywhere, anytime, in any curricula, in any class.

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That's it. So it is for me, the quintessential aha moment, right? We teach for the aha moments, at least trying to get out of the way when the aha moments are trying to happen. And so when we can witness that kind of aha moment happening, right? I do, I mean, I agree with you. It is a sense of the holy. It is a sense of the sacred. It is the presence of the divine,

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right?

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Whether you teach in a confessional location or a non-confessional location, it is an amazing thing to be a part of.

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Yeah.

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Next, what have you enjoyed most about the teaching life?

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I have enjoyed the most that I never have all the answers. The reason why I love teaching this subject that I teach, right? Spirituality and religion and interreligious education and education is because I'm never supposed to have all the answers. And I think I love that the most. There's a reason why I hate math. The reason is because there's an answer. the the the concretizing of like the singular answer always bothered me how can there be one answer what do you mean what do you mean there's you know such a precise thing I think the multiplicity and the multitude is so beautiful to me um and I love that about teaching that I can come back to the same book or come back to the same syllabus or come back to even the same students in different classes and the answers are always different and the questions are always different. And yeah, it's always a surprise and it's lovely each time.

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Last question. At the conclusion of your teaching career, so in the next 30 or 40 years, what miracles will you have performed?

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in the last 30 or 40 years?

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And then, well, anytime during your teaching

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career. Okay.

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Giving yourself years from now to still...

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Okay. I think I will have become... a more deeply grounded human being that teaches with much more porosity where the classroom is an incredibly unboundaried place where I don't see the classroom walls anymore, but it just becomes wherever I am And I also don't see the lines anymore between teacher and student in any distinct way. And I would love to experience that where I really feel like I'm just in the world as a teacher slash learner and experience other people in every space in that way, regardless of who they are. And I feel like if I can perceive in that way, that is a miracle.

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Yeah. I mean, it almost sounds like you're saying to lean into and grow into your own humanity is the miracle, right? That's fantastic, right? When I can become my most unafraid humanness, then the miracle is abundant. Yeah.

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Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Thank you. Thank you for this conversation. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me to it. To our listeners, we encourage you to subscribe to the Wabash Center newsletters. Look to our newsletters for information concerning our educational resources, our regranting program, and our workshops. Also, a special thanks to sound engineer Paul Myrie and podcast producer Rachel Mills. The music which frames our Silhouette podcast is the original composition of Paul Myrie. Wabash Center for more than 30 years is exclusively funded by Lilly Endowment Incorporated. And we are out. How was that, Paul?

UNKNOWN 24:52

Thank you.