Engaged Pedagogy and Rule Making

We discussed the Teaching to Transgress in class and what it means to have an engaged pedagogy based on the text. We listed all the various forms it can take and not take. For instance, it involves the teacher as a healer but not a psychologist or counselor. The goal is to have a teacher actively recognize each person's own life struggles We listed that a teacher would have to be understanding and able to relate to their students. This also involves showing your weaknesses as a teacher as well and your shortcomings, like if you do not know something or have made mistakes in your own past.

What I find about this idea is how dangerous it can be if the instructor is not thoughtful about the way in which they manage themselves. They must know their own strengths and weaknesses. They must have the right attitude and orientation before entering the classroom. When those conditions are lacking or reduced then there is potential for problematic consequences. However, acknowledging that you have a problem can actually help students emphasize with your situation. Students always know that something is awry with adults, even if they choose not to share them.

One classroom story that exemplifies this is when President George W. Bush was in a Florida classroom on 9-11. The students were reading him a story and knew something was on his mind. One student thought he looked like he had to go to the bathroom. When a Secret Service agent whispered something in his ear, they all knew it was something awful by the way in which he reacted. The former President felt that he was showing resolve by not giving an immediate response or leaving the class, yet the students all knew something was terribly wrong.

What this story tells is that even someone with charisma to convince the nation and Supreme Court that he should be President of the most powerful nation on the planet can't hide his own emotions. Even the most skilled teachers will have a difficult time lying about their internal emotions to their students. These students will know what is going on, so why not share with them in an appropriate way what might affect things in your class?

Rule Making

What I also appreciated in class was our discussion about what we expected of each other. In essence, we were creating the standards by which we would abide by. We spent about half of our class period discussing them. Often we would reduce the amount of standards by combining them with larger, vaguer concepts. This led to a few disagreements and some conciliatory resolutions.

We then discussed what the role of conflict would be in the classroom. Rather than seeing conflict as something to avoid at all costs, we can choose to resolve it and learn at the same time. We didn't delve into a longer lesson about navigating conflict  but it was a lesson nonetheless. There are various different models of conflict resolution and you could say that our instructor believes in a shared power model. Therefore, we students will have a greater share of say in how to resolve our differences than is typical. 

In a future post(s), I will return to our classroom rules and assess how the class environment fared with them. I suspect that things will go smoothly but that personality and value differences may bring up unforeseen issues. Time will tell how effectively we go about resolving them.