When Pedagogy Is Painful: Teaching in Tumultuous Times

Abstract

What happens when the outside world begins to affect the classroom? Is the classroom supposed to be neutral, objective, and devoid of feelings? Or is it a space where students and teacher meet for healing, understanding, and critical thinking? From news reports of police brutality to highly publicized acts of racial aggression, students are inundated with examples of intolerance, hatred, and racial inequality. Those committed to critical pedagogy and social justice invite, embrace, and use these events to enhance classroom materials. What happens, however, when pedagogy is painful for both the student and the teacher? Several articles address the teacher's experience and others the student experience. This article is dedicated to synthesizing and discussing both experiences from one course, Race and Ethnicity, at a height of racial tensions in the United States and on campus and providing the personal and pedagogical strategies that developed from the course.

Reflections on ‘Birthing Racial Difference’ in the Classroom

“…These conversations can be difficult, and discomfort is propelled, manifest and experienced differently by students of colour and white students (Martinez-Cola et al, 2018). The race of the lecturer and racial diversity of the student body also has an impact (Bhopal, 2002;Housee, 2008;Smith and Lander, 2012).…”

“…Reading the text as a collective creates a space where lived experience is valued as having something to say about the sociology of race and racism. As a text it makes space for the emotional; the pain and proximity of racism is not minimised, as can happen in 'safe spaces', which have been criticised for being beneficial to white students, rather than students of colour (Martinez-Cola et al, 2018). Instead, the piece helps create 'brave spaces' in the classroom, where critical conversations can take place and offer possibilities for a more honest engagement with the emotional dimension of learning (Martinez-Cola et al, 2018).…”

“…In contrast to my early teaching style, we read this piece sitting in a circle, as a group. This is part of a critical pedagogy that considers the significance of the physical, emotional and institutional space to the ways in which whiteness can be embedded in the academy (Ahmet, in press;Burke, 2018;hooks, 1994;Martinez-Cola et al, 2018). Whilst never assuming that unequal power dynamics are eradicated by such approaches, working with 'Birthing Racial Difference' in the classroom has helped me to develop a critical pedagogy that seeks to destabilise the hierarchical power of the academy and to create a sense of belonging through a critical learning community (hooks, 1994).…”

Teachers’ Technology Integration and Distance Learning Adoption Amidst the Covid-19 Crisis: A Reflection for the Optimistic Future

“…Additionally, it was inevitable for parents to get involved in the learning processes to educate their children because they are studying from home. Teaching in a tumultuous time, therefore, requires a high sense of innovativeness as well as generous flexibility to promote delightful rather than painful learning activities (Martinez-Cola et al, 2018). Amidst unprecedented worldwide impacts of the COVID-19, particularly toward the education sector, it is becoming increasingly important to understand teachers' technology integration and distance learning adoption after a sudden implementation of the working-from-home policy.…”

Exploring Classroom Climate in Sociology Courses Using Syllabi

“…Syllabi have become increasingly mandatory, contractual, and elaborate and as such can provide insight into the growing challenges faced by college instructors. These challenges, which stem from structural and institutional level shifts, include: growth in classroom size; reduction in full-time and tenured/tenure-earning faculty and increase in contingent faculty who lack the prestige and protections that their tenured faculty enjoy; increase in first-generation students who may be less familiar with college culture; increased pressures on students who work, parent, and go to school; a growing sense of entitlement and consumerist attitudes among students; the politicization, divisiveness, and ideologies that characterize our culture more generally seeping into the college classroom; neo-liberal principles that put pressure on institutions to be more efficient; and so on (Brunsma, Brown, and Placier 2012; Chen and Carroll 2005; Delucchi and Korgen 2002; Laverghetta 2018; Lippmann, Bulanda, and Wagenaar 2009; Lucal 2015; Martinez-Cola 2018; National Center for Education Statistics 2017; Royce 2000; Sohr-Preston et al 2016). In particular, there has been concern about growing classroom incivility in colleges and universities (Feldmann 2001; Laverghetta 2018; Royce 2000; Weger 2018).…”