Lessons in Vulnerability

Today I want to reflect on and engage with vulnerability. Sadly I think there needs to be more discussion about vulnerability and what being vulnerable does to educational spaces or teaching and learning possibilities. It is a wrong assumption to believe that folk would necessarily have a vulnerability barometre that allows them to react and realize when a person is in a vulnerable position or how to acknowledge vulnerability- so I want to talk about ethical ways into creating that awareness in others. 

As a society, speaking and acknowledging vulnerability is not something that is part of our regular discourse and situational analysis- and yet it definitely should be. This is especially true in a pandemic situation where people work through various types of vulnerabilities each day. In an academic environment the framing of vulnerability is very often tied to concepts of disclosure and accessibility. No one wants to be in a vulnerable position, or to acknowledge widely that vulnerability, yet when one speaks their truth and puts their vulnerability out there, it is often the first step to getting others to work on their own biases, their own ableism, their own prejudices. It is sad to think that it takes someone being open, to disclosing, being vulnerable for other people to act like understanding and empathetic human beings.

There are definitely two sides to vulnerability. The side I mention above, where someone has to acknowledge their particular vulnerability for change to occur. For example, when their was an electrical fire in the classroom next to where I was teaching one semester and all my students could smell it and looked at me strangely as to why I did not seem concerned in the least, and I then had to disclose my anosmia to them and say in this particular instance those who can smell have the opportunity to help me and make sure I am not in danger. I was the instructor and they assumed that I would be the one to guide them in such as situation, but I was not, and could not, and that is okay in that situation as long as they knew why that was. 

The other side of vulnerability is when in an activity one makes themselves vulnerable in order to learn and adjust their thinking. Think of all the workshops that you may have attended where the facilitator has caused you to address the real truths that rest at the centre of your thoughts. Discussions about race and bias in particular are often spaces where in order for real acknowledgement to happen one needs to engage in deep reflection on the origins of hateful thoughts, an acceptance for the need to be in a space where you are vulnerable. To be vulnerable here is to be comfortable in your discomfort. 

What happens when, as I encountered this week, someone doesn't realize or acknowledge that others may be functioning from a vulnerable position? I guess the question is, what needs to happen in order to centre that vulnerability so that it is  hopefully obvious for everyone and that a safe space is upheld? Here are some points in relation to that which might help conversations (and no I am not going to get into some B.Brown stuff because that is whole other blog post about white cis woman capitalist feminism that I don't have the space to get into right now, this blog is squarely rooted in the kinds of conversations that happen in classrooms not boardrooms or business retreats).

1. Start by acknowledging that this is going to be a space of vulnerability. If you are facilitating the event, make it clear to all the participants that this is a space where being vulnerable is a possibility. 

2. Give others space to speak about their vulnerability. If they can share what they are feeling, the can start to process and be open to that sharing being relayed in different ways not just with words (it can be with images, with music, with motion, etc.)

3. Reinforce spaces as safe (in different ways) by having clear frameworks of what is acceptable and address things that are hurtful so that trust is built. This may end up being a conversation about how intent gets bounced around as the water proof bandage for hurtful words and actions, when it isn't. 

4. Acknowledge that processing is on going and have ways to reconnect at another point if and when necessary.

In very real ways remote teaching during a pandemic, working in higher education in any capacity during a pandemic, is a lesson in vulnerability. Some try to gloss over what we are living through with high-production value resources, carefully curated backgrounds, and no verbal error videos (on take 10). For some that is how they cope, try to make everything as close to how it used to be. But it doesn't have to be that way if you don't want it to be. In fact by being vulnerable with your students, being honest that technical issues will probably happen, that your Wi-Fi is garbage, that your cat won't stop mewing, that you have 3 kids using the Internet at home at the same time, students can see that you are also working through things as they are.

However, if you are the kind of person who is going through this by trying to embody this meme please do not assume that your students or colleagues will be doing the same, because I guarantee that a large majority are not. This would not be the ethical way to engage with your students or colleagues. Lessons in vulnerability are about knowing that your positionality is not anyone else's positionality. Lessons in vulnerability are about not being so inside yourself that you fail to realize that others are working through things and may need empathy. Lessons in vulnerability are what this whole pandemic is about and please let us try not to forget it.