Words, Words: An Ethical Pedagogy of Naming

So I am back after my one week break that wasn't a break and I am going to be honest, I thought I would be a bit more rested as I type this post, and jokes on me. I do not feel rested at all, in fact if I had to pick a singular word to describe how I am feeling right now it would be anxiety. I am the embodiment of anxiety. If you look up the symptoms of textbook anxiety, I have them: nervousness, heart palpitations, feeling tired, trouble thinking about things without worry, sleep disruptions, and panic attacks. My anxiety comes as a person who works in a support (and caring) role and I think about all the things that instructors may need in the next week or so in order to feel "prepared" (in quotation marks). It also comes as I am finalizing my own syllabus for the course I teach part time in evenings once a week and thinking about my students needs and wanting to support them.

I start here for this week's post because I want to return to something I wrote about in December which is words. More specifically I want to talk about how Higher Ed, but also the world in general, needs to be really more careful about not emptying words of their meaning when we use them. We seem to be throwing words around willy nilly, and sometimes the use of those words is to cloak meaning or a sad attempt to change the meaning of something.  I am going to give 3 specific examples below, one from HigherEd, one in relation to mental wellness, and the other in relation to discourses happening in the media.

Educational Modalities of Delivery

Hybrid. Dual Delivery. BiModal (bimodal really?). All these words to mean the same thing. TO MEAN THE SAME THING. Yes in all caps. We need to stop this. It is actually making things worse. Everyone needs to take 15-20 minutes and read this fabulous article by Valerie Irvine. It ends with this excellent quotation:

In a time of significant shifts to online learning in a variety of configurations, we should try to utilize common terminology to describe our intended designs and practices

When different institutions or even departments in institutions use different words to mean the same thing, especially if they are words that rarely, if at all, appear in any of the literature, then this is nothing but a recipe for confusion and added stress. Like Dave Cormier said on Twitter this week I feel bad for Brian Beatty and everyone who is calling Hybrid Hyflex when Hyflex is a specific thing that folk need to read more about. More often than not this change in terminology is use to try to cloak something, to make it seem that it is different that it really is. To try to bury the prep and workload of the thing that is being asked of instructors and students. Also if institutions are going to pick names for things there are a lot of people that should be at that name-picking table. People who have experience and knowledge of the literature. Words about modality matter and are part of an ethical pedagogy.

Mental Wellness

There has also been a lot of discussion about the use of the words trauma, stress, and burnout and how folk are using these at times interchangeably when they are in fact things that can build on each other or are very context specific. I was very specific in the way that I started above because I do have anxiety and I know that this anxiety is caused by stress. I was in a workshop 2 weeks ago that spoke about the stages of burnout in the workplace and it was quite good at pointing to the steps and having folk reflect on where they may be in that step process (that could include anxiety). I mention this because as someone who is very dedicated to accurate framing trauma approaches, a framing that comes from feminist and anti-oppressive pedagogy, a framing that I have used in my own teaching experiences in the past, I am seeing a lot of things floating around that are not really great at acknowledging origins and connections. Things that assume awareness and delve quickly into practices without the very important framing needed. Karen Costa released a fantastic video this week about how the carers need care too. Please take 15 minutes to watch it; it is very important to view before the semester starts (I know some of my US colleagues may have already started the term but most of us in Canada (sorry Quebec) start after Labour Day).  Words about mental health and wellness matter and are part of an ethical pedagogy. 

Media Discourse

There are two very distinct views in relation to the media discourse and narrative right now. I am speaking here about how we talk about COVID, how we talk about safety, and how we talk about educational spaces in general. The things I see happening are also at times interconnected. One is definitely call-out culture based, but the other is calling a thing a thing that is not the thing (i.e. folk need to do their homework). Basically we need to definitely start naming the things we see. BUT, we need to name the things we see accurately. We cannot just paint everything as gaslighting and call it a day. This is what is happening right now in the US about the very real need for critical theory that addresses race and how this often gets lumped together with other very specific types of educational strategies that may share the same acronym like culturally-responsive teaching. So again knowing the origin of the term (that is why I love etymology) is crucial and also how that term has been manipulated. For example, I am sure very few of you have seen that 1940s film called Gaslight (for the record I haven't).  Naming things we see is part of ethical pedagogy, but we need to name them correctly.

So in the very little time left before this school year starts, reflecting on the words we use, the meaning of those words, and using them meaningfully, is but one way we can help the confusion and build trust at a time when trust is difficult to foster.