Teaching Empathy in a World That Creates Religious 'Others'

Let me tell you what it's like to walk into a classroom studying world religions after a mass shooting at a house of worship.

I know because I've done it twice in six months. Last October, my students and I returned to class after 11 people were gunned down in Pittsburgh during Shabbat services. Last Friday, we awoke to a shooting that killed 50 people during Jumu'ah prayers at a New Zealand masjid.

In each instance, my community college students had been studying the very traditions that were terrorized. The Friday before the Tree of Life shooting, a Jewish guest practitioner had visited our classroom. A week before the Christchurch massacre, we'd taken a field trip to our local masjid.