Awareness In and As Pedagogy

Another blog for me this week instead of podcast (the podcast is coming next week). And this is mainly because of what the title of this blog suggests, awareness. I am trying to use even more awareness in the ways that I make decisions and the work that I do. So let me tell you a story, because sometimes stories are how we reinforce awareness.

Usually if a topic for the blog doesn't come up during the week based on discussions I have had, or a thing I have read, then I use my walk to the farmer's market on Saturdays as my reflection time for a topic to write about. This week I had nothing to write about, and I was also becoming a bit concerned at how difficult it has been lately to come up with ideas or things to focus on. I was wondering if this was residual winter break impact or if it was simply the socio-political weight that has made it difficult to reflect on anything. 

As I was walking I started to become aware of something. We got a bit of snow the night before and some folk were out shovelling as I was walking through sidewalks that for the most part were unclear. I had gotten up early to shovel what had fallen because I come from the north and I know that if you shovel it before it starts to melt it is a lot easier to do. As I walked and watched folk shovelling the snow I realized a thing that I have often thought of since moving here, which is wow folk do not know how to shovel snow. 

And it is not that there is only one way to shovel snow, but I guess where I am from we have tried to shovel snow in a way that allows for everyone's accessibility, cars, walkers, those using mobility devices. What I saw were things that actually upset me, like the streets are already so narrow, why are you dumping your snow on the road. Also that is not how you use a bucket shovel and it should not be used like a regular shovel as it does different work. And as I was thinking and observing and becoming more aware of the different ways that folk did the shovelling I started thinking about teaching.

We often design or present learning in a way that suggests that there is only one way to do a thing. And of course as the shovelling situation has demonstrated there are definitely many ways to do a thing. Some are more holistically aware than others though. Like it became very clear to me yesterday that no mobility device user can get anywhere in this city when it snows except in the downtown core and even then is questionable. But what is at the core of how we do a thing is awareness. Awareness as foundational to teaching, and awareness as an outcome of teaching.

I wonder how many of my neighbours would have been aware of the situation they were creating for powerchair users in the way they were shovelling. I wonder how many were in access friction situations where they knew they needed to shovel to support their neighbours, but also shovelling was a bodymind impossibility for them that day. Just being aware of things is actually a massive first way in to learning or teaching something.

So many folk are actually actively wanting to be less aware of what is going on in the world because it is simply too much to process. And being aware of your bodymind needs is also important, but so is being aware that ignoring what is happening socio-politically will not make it better nor will it make it go away. What we are faced with right now is not snow; the sun won't show up and eventually melt things. Yet, there are ways in, in small or large ways that can have impact. I even wrote about that some four and half years ago already.

A lot of what is going on right now can be boiled down to a deep lack of awareness, either actively or inactively. When students don't do assignments, is it because they are not aware that there is an assignment to do, is it because there is too much to be aware about and so something has to give (often your assignment)? Awareness is a 19th century noun which is interesting, and the etymology of aware has Old English, Germanic roots around caution, vigilance, and perception.

Perception and vigilance is something that has become less and less valued in the last few years. Hypervigilance around public health, has turned into not wanting to be vigilant at all, though disability community has explained time and again why that is a problem. There was so much hope and promise, now we have meh don't care emoji.

So in a world where so much is happening, my question to you is what are you aware of today? Did you notice how your neighbours shovel? Does that matter to you? Have you noticed if you haven't seen a neighbour in a few weeks, would you check in on them, would that matter to you? 

There are so many ways that we can bring in awareness to our pedagogical design. Even asking learners a thing they noticed on their commute to campus. And if the answer is I didn't notice a thing, maybe the follow up questions are "why didn't you notice anything?" and "how do you feel about not noticing anything?" And before folk say there's no time for these kinds of questions in my class, I ask you to reflect on how much of your discipline is based on noticing a thing, noticing something being different and how that difference impacts many other things. Because if the foundations of your disciplinary inquiry practice are eroding, would you notice?