This is what happens when tenure-track professors are pressured to aggressively publish and apply for grants. The underlying thinking is that enrollments would never take a hit from “clumsy teaching”. There will always be students to fill the classes with. It is an environment where course development is considered wasting time.
As for making change happen. I am not sure. But if somehow the students ( = undergrads) decide they want more than what is offered, it creates a great change in the power dynamics and will definitely lead to actual change.
Author: arash
Comment on To Those Who Stole My Dreams by arash
Obedience is the scourge of innovation. Somewhere down the line the need to rule the classroom was taken one step too far into the need to rule the students minds and bodies. I am with you on that one. I also liked the example about the stigma around professors who don’t follow the traditional teaching styles. Something we all have push back against.
Comment on People-feelings by arash
I like your idea of thinking about our long term consequences. Maybe the historical sense can slow down the urgency of how and give us some time to think about the why too.
Comment on Teachers and Learners – Critical Pedagogy by arash
You make good point in this comment about bias against teachers who are more open to discussions or show their vulnerabilities more often. There is definitely a great deal of judgement against educators that are not middle aged ( too young or too old ), or people who do not answer questions in raid-fire mode.
Comment on Critical Pedagogy in Practice (Not a word cloud) by arash
Your work is a reminder for me that in striving to be a better educator innovation and risk are two good friends !
Comment on A Visual Definition of Critical Pedagogy by arash
Good job you all! This was a great post. The thing I really liked about your definition of critical pedagogy was your attention to vulnerability. Makes it so much down to earth and humane in my opinion.
Comment on Brave Spaces Are Preferred by arash
Thank you for sharing this Ernesto! I think it’s all right to think about safe spaces and wanting to improve the concept. I especially appreciate the attention given in the policy document to keeping the main features of safe spaces, as well as encouraging dialogue. This can be tricky and the policy puts it under “Owning intentions and impacts”: That individuals have to consider how exercising their freedom of expression can affect others negatively. All in all, very interesting idea.
Comment on “Racism is a structure not an event” – Robin DiAngelo by arash
I think it is fairly a good assessment that the history of civilization is narrative through the eyes of straight-white-male observers. I can think of so many characters that were marginalized: Harriet Tubman, Alan Turing, Hidden Figures and so on. Re-interpreting history is always difficult because it brings up a sense of guilt to many people ( who might associate themselves with the identities same as the historical oppressors). It is a difficult but necessary discussion.
Comment on In the dialogue about diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism, we are being racist!! by arash
Hi Shadi and Amy,
I had the same question in my mind as I was reading Shadi’s central statement about deconstructing the norm. While I don’t have a theoretical answer to the question, I can think of several practical thoughts experiments that aim to directly reverse the roles of “majority/minority” in education. One that I clearly see change people’s perspectives is Jane Elliot’s brown-eye blue experiment. because its fundamental assumption about eye color is so obviously false (to the participants) and yet it closely re-creates the problems with race in education.
Comment on My authentic teaching self by arash
I appreciate your insights as an educator with far more experience than someone like me. For example, the point that you make in your post about how students’ personal lives comes as a factor in the learning environment is so true and so important. I think I have to challenge my perception that a classroom is a stage and all a teacher has to do is perfect the teaching.
