Category: Week 8 – Inclusive Pedagogy

“Stereotypes are valuable,” he said. “But only if you use them to your advantage. They present your readers with something they’ll recognize, and it pulls them into what appears to be familiar territory, a comfort zone. But once they’re in, you have to move them beyond the stereotype. You have to show them what’s real.”

“What’s real?” I asked.

Without hesitation, he said, “You.”

It was one of those things that you instantly recognize as profound, and then, because you don’t quite understand it, try to forget as quickly as you can. It was also one of those things that you cannot forget. And so it roamed freely in my subconscious, occasionally coming into sharp focus to remind me of its presence, but I allowed myself to be consumed by it no more than I would a housefly.”

—Jerald Walker, p. 55-56 of “Dragon Slayers”

While the above excerpt is not from the “Inclusive Pedagogy” readings for the week, I couldn’t help but think of this short essay by Jerald Walker as I made my way through excerpts from Claude Steele’s Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do. (If you haven’t read Walker’s piece, you really should; you can find it in Best American Essays 2007. I find it moving every time I read it. Anyway, moving along…)

In the introduction, Steele* doesn’t take long to get to the tough stuff; it’s only on page 6 where he first tells us the story of Brent Staples, the young black man who started whistling Vivaldi (classical music) to signal to people he passed on the streets of Chicago that he meant no harm:

By the end of this page, I was reminded of the different ways people experience being “othered” based on stereotypes, and I thought back to some personal experiences that have driven me to be a more inclusive person. All I could think of was the following sentence I had heard from two people on two different occasions: “They wouldn’t even look at me.”

The first time I heard someone make this observation was in a classroom at the community college where I used to teach first-year composition. One of my non-traditional students (picture a friendly, funny, average American white guy) shared with the class that he had been homeless for over a decade of his life, and that one of the worst parts of that experience was how often people would look through him like he wasn’t there or ignore him completely. “They would’t even look at me.” And at that moment, my eyes were opened to yet another injustice the homeless often suffer: a total lack of acknowledgment from other people, even through a kindness so small as the slightest eye contact.

(I was ashamed; as an introvert and a female, I avoid a great deal of eye contact with strangers, especially men. It’s likely I wouldn’t have looked at him either.)

The second time I heard this statement was no less surprising than the first, although it made just as much sense the second it was brought up. I was attending a professional development seminar here at VT and the speaker (picture an eloquent and educated black man in a nice suit with a pretty good proclivity for jokes) told us (a mix of graduate students, adjuncts, and faculty members) that we needed to remember to acknowledge one another. That we needed to look each other in the eye. He reminded us that, even as a well-educated man who was dressed in a suit and just walking a college campus, most people still wouldn’t make eye contact with him as he walked by. “The students,” he said, “They wouldn’t even look at me.”

(At this point, I made a mental note to work on this more, but it’s not easy; I could write an entire post on the complexities of making the mistake of making eye contact with the wrong person, especially if that person is a man. Alas.)

At any rate, that one sentence is the part of each story that’s stuck most with me over time, not just because its isolating and heartbreaking nature, but specifically because it speaks to our collective tendency to ostracize (or worse, dehumanize) that which we don’t understand. And here I am, with two different times in my life that demonstrate the need to be more inclusive, both at school and life in general. Here’s hoping for some good to come of it.

To close, I would like to refer to the end of Katherine Phillips’ piece “How Diversity Makes Us Smarter,” specifically because her conclusion really summarizes what I think we’re getting at when we think about this process.

That is, the task of working toward an inclusive pedagogy is a continual one where there is still more progress to be made:

This is how diversity works: by promoting hard work and creativity; by encouraging the consideration of alternatives even before any interpersonal interaction takes place. The pain associated with diversity can be thought of as the pain of exercise. You have to push yourself to grow your muscles. The pain, as the old saw goes, produces the gain. In just the same way, we need diversity—in teams, organizations and society as a whole—if we are to change, grow and innovate.           

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*Some of my other observations from various chapters of the Claude Steele readings are included below:

• Chapter 1 – An Introduction: On the Root of Identity”
  • p. 4 – 5: Steele’s use of the term “identity contingencies” was an apt one. In summary, he’s referring to all the shit you have to deal with because of one (or more) aspect(s) of your identity. (This is how I defined it in my notes, and that’s how I would like to write here, because really, it is some shit.)
    • I couldn’t help but wonder if the term “stereotype threat” and Steele’s work on this issue would be under fire by the “this is overly PC” and “you’re just a bunch of whiny snowflakes” crowd. I don’t agree with that assessment, but I know those comments would occur.
  • p. 6 -7: Displaying knowledge of the dominant culture, especially examples of “high” culture, can help some individuals deal with stereotyping—even though they shouldn’t have to prove themselves—and that’s one of the themes that contributes to the main focus on the book:
    • “The stereotype in the air that threatened him is fended off. And the change in the behavior of those on the street, and in his own behavior, reveals the power that a mere stereotype—floating in the air like a cloud gathering the nation’s history—was having on everyone all along. Whistling Vivaldi is about the experience of living under such a cloud—an experience we all have—and the role such clouds play in shaping our lives and society.”
  • p. 14: Because everyone is capable of bias:
    • “We simply are not, and cannot be, all knowing and completely objective. Our understandings and views of the world are partial, and reflect the circumstances of our particular lives. This is where a discipline like science comes in. It doesn’t purge us of bias. But it extends what we can see and understand, while constraining bias.”
• Chapter 9 – Reducing Identity and Stereotype Threat: A New Hope
  • p.190: “You should focus on making the identity less ‘inconvenient’” with respect to creating a classroom environment.
• Chapter 11 – Conclusion: Identity as a Bridge Between Us
  • p. 218: We should use our multiple identities as bridges to get to know one another and work better together.

Inclusive pedagogy is a comprehensive topic. To discuss it, we need to fully understand diversity issues first.

I took the course, Diversity and Inclusion for a Global Society, last semester with Dean DePauw. The course talks about diversity issues from different aspects. I learned a lot from that course, I do suggest anyone who would like to learn more about diversity and inclusion can think about taking that course.

The most important lessons I learned from the course is that we always thinking about diversity issues as big, obvious aggressions, but microaggressions in daily life are more urgent for us to realize and solve. I recommend a short video from YouTube for microaggressions, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDd3bzA7450.

The video used a metaphor that comparing microaggressions to mosquito bites to emphasize how microaggressions hurt people in daily life. Sometimes, even if people think they are so nice to say something can hurt others in different ways.

 

 

I just finished reading an article by Vedantam, How ‘The Hidden Brain’ Does The Thinking For Us. My dissertation dabbles with the concepts of biased mental models and implicit bias, so I found myself nodding to all of the author’s points. However, he included an excerpt from his book, Hidden Brain. I found the details of this excerpt highly disturbing. For one, I have found myself in similar situations, and quite like some of the characters in the selected scenario, in postmortem I questioned my reaction to the moment and/or the reactions–or lack thereof–of others.

In the excerpt, a young lady by the name of Deletha jumped from a bridge as a result of a brutal assault from a stranger. While I am reading this passage, I kept asking “why didn’t anyone help this young lady.” I sat with the story and tried to apply the author’s logic of the hidden mind. This is what came up with. If the aggressor and the victim were of the same race, some people may have assumed that they were lovers. And if those people tend to operate on the wisdom my grandmother shared with me–don’t get in the middle of a lover’s quarrel–they may have been were operating with their hidden mind. I think the autopilot [hidden mind] the author is referring to is the behavior we express that isn’t always logical, useful or helpful and it can cause harm.

While I don’t anticipate the average class session to be anything like the death of Deletha, educators must make an effort to avoid operating on auto-pilot; we must stay “woke”. We must be aware when someone is being injured, ostracized, singled-out or mistreated, and create the type of environment where every student feels comfortable enough to state when they feel attacked. Sometimes, a toxic environment can be hard to detect if the facilitator of that moment is in a numbed state.

And for Vedantam’s effort to illustrate the hidden brain–I think his use of an extreme case really drove the point home.

The article that most resonated with me this week was Arao and Clemens “From Safe Spaces to Brave Places”. I believe that the increasingly visible fragmentation along racial and religious lines that we see in the US and in some European countries can only be changed (not hidden) through dialogue across those lines. Dialogue involves both speaking bravely—perhaps through fear, pain, or shame– and listening bravely–with judgement suspended and open to the possibility that you will change. Without brave listening, brave speaking ends up as words dissipated into space. Neither activity is easy, but I think that it is the listening which is most often missing even in safe spaces. Too often, we are ready to listen to another person’s story without interruption and with affirming comments only as long as we are not placed in a position of needing to change the way we see ourselves. However, the most important part of listening when talking about social justice is the effort to acknowledge the ways the story may disrupt your sense of self. I believe that we can learn to do this with practice and that we can welcome our students to brave places where they can practice, too. But if we only do this in our classrooms, then we have already excluded the majority of our neighbors. What I wonder is how we can create these brave spaces in our communities and in the world. How can we incite civility and reason and invite change?

Teaching public speaking allows me to meet a wide array of students all with immensely diverse backgrounds. My students come from a wide range of majors and places. One of my favorite things about teaching public speaking is the fact that I can allow my students so much choice and range in what topics they discuss in the class. They never fail to amaze me with the multitude of topics that they choose to cover, and I am even more amazed with the varying knowledge and experiences they back themselves up with.

I can’t imagine how bored I would be if I had to sit in a class day after day and discuss the same types of topics over and over again. I love going into the classroom on any given day and knowing that I will learn about any range of topics from utilitarianism to organ donation and from computer vision to Gestalt Psychology.

This freedom does come with responsibility on my part however. Although students generally choose to talk about things like the growing use of drones or the financial collapse of 2008, at least a few times a semester I will encounter a more controversial topic, like abortion, capital punishment, religion, or gun control. I try to give my students as much space as I can to be themselves and talk about topics that interest them, but I have to keep the class as a whole in mind. There is a fine line between giving my students freedom in the course and giving them a platform to push an agenda, especially when it’s a controversial one that has the potential to offend other students, cause arguments, or harm the welcoming environment I strive to foster.  I have felt it necessary to suggest that a student avoid a topic they chose to give a speech on. Although some teachers would say this stifles creativity and diversity, I believe it is important to teach my students that in a group as diverse as ours some topics either aren’t appropriate to talk about, or must be discussed extremely carefully, and that they do not have the time or expertise to give such sensitive topics the time that they deserve in order to be covered fully. I would never want a student to take on a difficult topic and end up giving a speech that would harm or suppress relationships with other students or hurt their credibility in the eyes of their classmates. Diversity of ideas and opinions is an essential part of my classroom; however, so is mutual respect.

I recently read an essay by Anna Agathangelou, M. Daniel Bassichis, and Tamara Spira called, “Intimate Investments: Homonormativity, Global Lockdown, and the Seductions of Empire.” Their basic thesis is that as new groups, such as the LGBTQ community, gain territory in their fights for rights, we should not be so gleeful in their victories without a much deeper criticality. The valence of power within these configurations of new rights and privileges, according to the authors, obscures the reproduction of capitalist values and neoliberal practices.

Notions of privatization, for instance, were at the core argument “dubbed the Pricacy Project,” by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, in their campaign to relinquish anti sodomy laws in Texas. They also analyze a 2003 advertisement featuring Keith Bradkowski, who testified before the U.S. senate using the argument that the terrorists of the 9/11 attack who killed his partner targeted him as an American, not a gay man. True, but the authors point out the Heteronormative logic behind Homonormalization (removal of sodomy laws, legalization of gay marriage). The ad features a white man, who pays his taxes, thus engendering him as an ideal citizen protected under the law through private property and private rights. According to the authors: “Through the stress on monogamy, devotion, and a relationship constrained within the bonds of privacy and propriety, the ad participates in demonization of all other forms of sexual expression, practices, and relationships … heteronormative logics are refueled in the production of the good gay subject” (Agathangelou 126).

All this refers to subject formation. The authors are concerned with how capitalist and neoliberal forces squeeze subjects into consent, demobilization, and rationally segmented demographics. The logics at work grant privilege to some (white) members of the gay community, while by default excluding bodies of color. This demobilizes gay communities and puts them at odds with each other by making complicit a fraction of the community at the cost of the rest of it. So diversity is great, but we must always be weary of shiny new rights at the cost of newly re-marginalized groups created out of the very winning over of said rights.

So I think the time has come to use the GEDI metaphor in more depth.  When it comes to diversity, accepting people from all cultural backgrounds, this is clearly a GEDI (Jedi) trait.  We can see Anakin specifying how unconditional acceptance in the form of compassion is essential.

Diversity is a major part of the GEDI light sabers.  Our allies could be blue, green, even purple!  The dark side… always red!  Now that’s not very inclusive is it!?

We can also see that once Darth Vader emerges, the influence of How Diversity Makes Us Smarter was apparently no longer affecting him.  His ability to consider alternatives appears to have left him.  By this point, the entire galaxy is no longer a safe space and social justice has become a concept of the past.

So if we can embrace the spirit of being a GEDI, then accepting and learning from diversity (even though it may come with its challenges) allows us to grow and help our students to be “smarter.”  Seeing the world in absolutes (black and white, all or nothing, etc.) leads down dangerous paths.  Everyone that you encounter has something to offer in terms of diversity of race, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, upbringing, etc.  It leads to a lot of aspects of culture to be aware of, but by showing incivility to diversity, we can all grow as a result.

Last semester in PFP class, I shared some of my personal encounters with diversity, and I am still open to anyone reading about how my journey of becoming a counselor has come with its challenges but an amazing amount of awareness, my story.

Fostering an inclusive environment is essential for creating a functional learning environment. Interacting with people from different walks of life only enhances our experience. Unfortunately, studies have shown that even young children are prone to unconscious bias against those who are different from themselves, and it’s not something that improves with age. The key is to be aware of our biases or the potential for bias. No matter how hard we try, bias can insidiously creep into our thought processes. This can prevent us from seeing the whole picture or from coming up with creative solutions to problems. They key is to be aware of this “hidden brain,” and to try to get out of autopilot mode. Last semester in our intro to the future professoriate course, we discussed the following riddle  which illustrates this point well:

“A father and son are in a horrible car crash that kills the dad. The son is rushed to the hospital; just as he’s about to go under the knife, the surgeon says, ‘I can’t operate—that boy is my son!’ Explain.”

People came up with all sorts of explanations for this, such as maybe the “father” was a priest, but overlooked one explanation. The surgeon was the boy’s mother! This was a group of people who prided themselves on avoiding bias, but even they had fallen for this riddle. This phenomenon has serious repercussions in the real world. Only by actively working on our biases will we improve in this area.

One might think of social justice in the realm of politics, and economics, ensuring the equal access to basic human rights and needs. But how do we teach Social Justice in a classroom in which social justice is not enacted? What does social justice in the classroom translate into?

A crucial question that was dealt by Brian Arao and Kriti Clemens in “From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces: A new way to frame dialogue around diversity and social justice” written in the Edited volume entitled “The Art of Effective Facilitation: Reflections From Social Justice Educators” by Lisa Landreman. The rest of this blog will primarily rely on their contribution.

Arao and Clemens strived to draw a distinction and advocate for a transition from Safe Space to Brave Safe. The term safe space is described as an environment in which “students are willing and able to participate and honestly struggle with challenging issues’’(Holley and Steiner, 2005). In other words, a space in which “everyone feels comfortable expressing themselves and participating fully, without fear of attack, ridicule, or denial of experience’’ (National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation).

The term “safe space” has often been used in the context of classroom environment to reassure students about their guaranteed rights in the classroom and the freedom they hold to express themselves freely and respectfully to others. Safety is therefore associated with an environment free from harm or risk. However, one knows that in the public sphere, or on social media, one is not always protected in a safe space. Unfortunately, most students will be exposed to harsh criticism, personal attacks, and unfounded judgments, and they need to be able to defend their position regardless. Establishing a safe space can be a challenge when the dialogue moves from polite to provocative as the authors remind the readers. Hence, Arao and Clemens argue for a brave space instead.

We argue that authentic learning about social justice often requires the very qualities of risk, difficulty, and controversy that are defined as incompatible with safety. These kinds of challenges are particularly unavoidable in participant groups composed of target and agent group members (…) We have found that the simple act of using the term brave space at the outset of a program, workshop, or class has a positive impact in and of itself, transforming a conversation that can otherwise be treated merely as setting tone and parameters or an obligation to meet before beginning the group learning process into an integral and important component of the workshop.

Brave space is a space not solely defined by the facilitators or the instructor, but commonly defined with students. It is a space that encourages the courageous conversation about important and controversial topics, such as race, class, etc.

By revising our framework to emphasize the need for courage rather than the illusion of safety, we better position ourselves to accomplish our learning goals and more accurately reflect the nature of genuine dialogue regarding these challenging and controversial topics.

The Brave space is based on five common rules:

• Common Rule 1: Agree to disagree
• Common Rule 2: Don’t take things personally
• Common Rule 3: Challenge by choice
• Common Rule 4: Respect
• Common Rule 5: No attacks

I found the distinction between safe and brave space extremely useful and intend to use it in my teaching. Needless to say that this blog is not about dismissing the importance of safe spaces, but emphasizing the strength of using both approaches, brave and safe space in the classroom. I hope this will help future professors!