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Winnipeg Free Press
3 days ago
- Health
- Winnipeg Free Press
Faith helps when it comes to coping with long COVID
Like many Canadians, I got COVID. Like most other people, it put me down for a couple of weeks before I recovered. But not everyone was so lucky. According to a 2023 Health Canada report, about 3.5 million Canadians reported longer term symptoms, with 58.2 per cent — 2.1 million people — continuing to have them. One of those people is Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, vice president academic and dean of seminary at Tyndale University in Toronto. Neufeldt-Fast got COVID in July, 2023 — his first time. Today, he is one of many people still struggling with long COVID symptoms such as extreme fatigue, brain fog, memory and concentration issues and pain. Any exertion, mental or physical, can incapacitate him for hours or even days. 'For some reason, the virus chose to wreak extra long havoc in my body and brain,' he said of the diagnosis, which came after three months of symptoms. Like many others with long COVID, Neufeldt-Fast — who is on long-term disability from the university — often reaches a point 'where I feel like I'm in a gloomy pit and see no way out, like a prison experience,' as he put it. So far, he said, his brain still works well most of the day. 'But brain inflammation happens so quickly. Talking, listening, thinking and looking at the same time does not work for more than 15 minutes for me — I get brain overload and I need a couch. It's all still so weird,' he said. He has had many medical appointments, done research and connected with other sufferers online. 'There are so many different ideas out there about what to do, and I've tried my share,' he said. 'But nothing seems to work. If there was a silver bullet for long COVID, I'd be the first to know.' While he is grateful for the research that is being done, it doesn't feel like much progress is being made. 'Research dollars are hard to find and the urgency to give this full attention is gone, unlike when COVID first appeared. It's like everyone has moved on,' he said. I asked Neufeldt-Fast how he is dealing with the condition from a faith perspective. 'I am so grateful that I am alive, even if I'm not well,' he said, adding he has been humbled by how many people — in his home congregation of Community Mennonite Church in Stouffville and beyond — have reached out. 'That is always a morale booster,' he said. 'They are also gifts from God.' He is also grateful for his wife, Sheri, who has been 'very supportive and patient with me. She has taken the lead on much that I might otherwise do.' But the losses have been real; there's so much he can't do, such as work. 'It is hard and humbling to see life go on, largely without me,' he said. One thing long COVID has done is made him more empathetic about people with disabilities. 'I now know that some folks out there like me may look more-or-less healthy on the outside, but are quite ill on the inside and limited in their capacities,' he said. He is also more alert to the cracks in the health care and other systems. Some Long COVID sufferers fall through those cracks and slip into poverty and homelessness, and even worse, he said. Although he continues to lean on his faith, 'I find it harder to pray than before. I wonder if that is common with many folks who have long term illness. I miss church. Even online or Zoom has real limits. The load on my brain is too much,' he said. He still believes in God, and that God is with him in all of this — that God also allows things like long COVID. 'But I haven't tried to dig down too deeply to explore the why. I'm not ready for that, and I am not convinced I will ever find an answer to that question,' he said. 'Some things are mysteries that we must carry with us. At the present, I'm OK with leaving it like that, though that might change.' At the same time, Neufeldt-Fast said he wants to be alert to 'God's activity or presence around me. I want to remain grateful for the little things and do not want to complain about what I cannot change.' Of the experience, he said that 'this is not the path that I would have chosen for myself and my family, or what I ever expected. But life is like that. It's the human condition. We are like dust. We come into being and go out of being. Perhaps, however, I am more alert than before to that spark of the eternal that is deep within me and in each of us, that spirit within that yearns for God and God's renewal of all things, including a sick body.' faith@ The Free Press is committed to covering faith in Manitoba. If you appreciate that coverage, help us do more! Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow us to deepen our reporting about faith in the province. Thanks! BECOME A FAITH JOURNALISM SUPPORTER John LonghurstFaith reporter John Longhurst has been writing for Winnipeg's faith pages since 2003. He also writes for Religion News Service in the U.S., and blogs about the media, marketing and communications at Making the News. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
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Korea Herald
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Korea Herald
[Lim Woong] Teaching is more than discipline and control
'Gyogwon' has become a fiercely contested idea in Korea. In English, this term is often glossed away simply as 'teacher authority,' yet such shorthand conceals a dense conceptual history. Since the 1970s, the term has oscillated between three poles: an expectation of quasi-Confucian reverence, a claim to classroom command and control and alternately an autonomous exercise of professional rights. Today's debate is dominated by the second pole — headlines filled with images of unruly students, outraged parents and beleaguered teachers, creating the impression that the nation's classrooms are war zones and that salvation lies in restoring the teacher's power to punish and control. This narrative, however, is both historically myopic and professionally corrosive. If teacher authority is to be rebuilt on firmer ground, it must be reclaimed as the collective autonomy of a profession, not the coercive power of an individual adult. Ken Badley, an education professor at Tyndale University in Toronto, reminds us that many people invoke the word authority without distinguishing its competing senses. Classroom authority, he argues, is not the power to compel obedience, but the credibility granted by students who consent to a teacher's intellectual and moral leadership. Put differently, genuine authority is relational and bestowed, not seized. Badley's claim resonates with my own classroom experience: When students recognize a teacher as competent, trustworthy and caring, they engage willingly; when they sense fakery, pretense and bullying, they resist or withdraw — whatever sanctions are available. The Korean story complicates this ideal. During the rapid industrialization of the 1970s and '80s, the archetype of the tireless, charismatic teacher emerged as a cultural hero and part of the nation's broader nationalist myth. Under this model, teachers' primary function was to deliver knowledge and motivate students to endure long hours of rote learning. In this context, corporal punishment was widely tolerated as proof of pedagogical zeal. Some conservative pundits romanticize that period, suggesting that undisciplined classrooms are a precursor to national collapse or educational failure. In the same vein, right-leaning tabloid-style newspapers recycle a predictable narrative formula. First, they showcase graphic footage or anecdotes of students attacking teachers. Second, they erase the broader context and the hidden buildup of tensions — students' mental health histories, family strife — to spotlight the teacher's wounded dignity. Third, they cast parents as 'education consumers' who go out of their way to shield their children, subtly implying that teachers are powerless and incompetent. Such framing commits a category error, equating authority with power rather than with professional standing. Bruce Maxwell, an education professor at the University of Montreal, argues that real authority in education lies in the profession's collective right to set standards, shape curricula, govern licensure and discipline its own bad actors. External forces — from high-stakes test rankings to political meddling in teacher education — strip teachers of that authority, reducing them to operatives of those in power. In Korea, such intrusions abound: Partisan ministries mandate curricular changes without teacher input, schools are publicly ranked by standardized scores and government elites with no classroom experience control teacher licensing and administrative procedures. Each intervention chips away at teachers' capacity to act as reflective professionals. More recently, child abuse allegations against elementary school teachers have surged, propelled by a legal framework that channels such cases directly to law enforcement. Teachers often find themselves isolated as investigations proceed, while school-based mediation lies dormant. This illustrates Korea's broader litigious turn: disputes once resolved within the school community are now outsourced to courts and expensive legal machinery. Yet public trust in the judiciary is brittle, eroded by corruption scandals and ideological rifts — brought into sharper focus by the downfall of President Yoon Suk Yeol and his associates. The lack of diversity among judges is alarming — almost every time I read about a judge whose actions or comments raise eyebrows, they turn out to be a graduate of Seoul National University. It's a painful reminder that the country's intellectual landscape remains narrow and insular, confined within a self-reinforcing coterie. Teachers thus confront a paradox: They are exhorted to rely on legal institutions that are untrustworthy and detached from the daily challenges of teaching — while their own professional judgment is sidelined. If gyogwon is to regain its legitimacy, the conversation must return to fundamentals. Teacher authority should be grounded in the profession's collective autonomy to define and sustain high standards of practice. Restoring that autonomy requires self-governing bodies capable of setting standards, enforcing ethical codes and regulating licensure. It also requires negotiated working conditions — manageable class sizes, competitive pay, uninterrupted time for planning, counseling and rest, as well as mental health and legal support — that allow teachers to feel safe from slander, blackmail and litigation threats, and to focus on teaching rather than survival. A society that demands intellectual rigor and integrity from its educators must reciprocate with dignity, resources and trust in their professional judgment. Anything less reduces gyogwon to a hollow slogan, and classrooms to battlegrounds where no one truly learns.
