To describe Sinclair Community College professor Amanda Hayden\u2019s desk is to describe an assortment of books and religious items: little Buddhas, a yarmulke and an African fertility doll, and a number of other items are scattered across her office space. Some of the items represent a subject she knows well \u2013 religion \u2013as she has been teaching several religion courses, including Women in Religion, at Sinclair since 2003.
\nThe 32-year-old native of St. Louis attended Belleview Area Community College for two years before transferring to and eventually graduating from Southern Illinois University with a double major in Philosophy and Psychology.
\n\u201cThe entire time I was doing my studies, I was always drawn to comparative religions, world cultures,\u201d Hayden said. \u201cI was always doing all of my projects and papers on it and so I decided to pursue (the subject) for graduate school.\u201d
\nHayden found herself in Ohio by attending Miami University in Oxford, where she received her Graduate degree.
\nHer own experience with a community college led to her wanting to teach at one.
\n\u201cI loved the teachers. They were real, they were attentive. They seemed to really love teaching,\u201d Hayden said. \u201cWhen I got to undergrad and graduate schools, I had good experiences but I never had teachers like I had at that community college.\u201d
\nHayden said she doesn\u2019t reveal her personal beliefs to her students until they have finished the course, so they won\u2019t be distracted by it.
\n\u201cFor my students\u2019 sake, I teach religion academically,\u201d Hayden said. \u201cI teach it as objective as possible.\u201d
\nHayden did say she has a tug-of-war-type feeling towards the subject.
\n\u201cI have a very yin\/yang, love\/hate struggle with religion,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to sugarcoat the negative things: the violence, the aggression, the intolerance, the ignorance caused by it.
\n\u201cOn the other hand, I also embrace religion as full of story, beauty and the human experience\u2026 music, art, all of the wonderful things in religion, too.\u201d
\nThroughout the courses she teaches, Hayden uses audio and visual aids to assist with her students\u2019 learning.
\n\u201cI always describe it and explain it, but then I like to show a visual with it\u2026 because I think that stays with the students a lot more than just reading it out of the text,\u201d Hayden said.
\nTo enhance the classroom experience, Hayden said she has gone to different religious ceremonies and visited different sites in countries, including India, where she visited the birthplace of Krishna, a Hindu god.
\n\u201cWith the traveling, it\u2019s been self-funded. It\u2019s been me working and saving and then I go (visit these places),\u201d Hayden said.
\nHayden said she is currently planning a trip to Scotland where she will visit some of the old cathedral buildings, as well as the pagan sites.
\nHayden hopes that students, religious or not, can gain an \u201cauthentic experience\u201d in what they believe in.
\n\u201cInstead of it being a faith (that they practice) because (they think) \u2018Well that\u2019s what I\u2019ve always believed in,\u2019\u201d Hayden said, \u201cthe motivation is to get them to reclaim their own voice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To describe Sinclair Community College professor Amanda Hayden\u2019s desk is to describe an assortment of books and religious items: little Buddhas, a yarmulke and an African fertility doll, and a number of other items are scattered across her office space. Some of the items represent a subject she knows well \u2013 religion \u2013as she has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[668,1959,655,121,669,14,454],"class_list":["post-2724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-india","tag-kamari-stevens","tag-professor","tag-religion","tag-scotland","tag-sinclair","tag-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-HW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2724"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2786,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2724\/revisions\/2786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}