Empty

I spent all of yesterday, in between reading books, thinking about what to write about in this week's blog and I kept coming up empty. I fluctuated between maybe writing a poem, but again I had nothing that inspired me, to maybe some sort of word association thing, but no it didn't feel right.

Then it occurred to me this morning that maybe empty is actually the thing to focus on because golly I am seeing a lot of empty right now. From my empty thought process on what to write about this week, to so many tweets from folk saying they are running on empty or full on burned out, to instructors posting screen shots showing that only 2 of many students had accessed that week's module, to journal editors demonstrating that they asked 15 people to review an article and all the responses were no. Everyone is feeling very depleted and empty. The faculty, the students, the staff. Sadly the only thing that isn't empty right now are institutional bank accounts. Extractive labour at its finest. So what do we do in our educational spaces when faced with that empty?

I know a lot of people have been working 24/7 to fight the systems that have caused this situation in the first place. Unions, individual instructors, and staff are emphasizing that this is not a sustainable situation and it is not a space where meaningful learning can continue to happen. But what happens in our classrooms? What can we do virtually (or if you are teaching in-person, and I know this is very anxiety producing situation for so many and I see you and acknowledge your feelings) with the empty? The first step is acknowledging it. Continuing on like everything is fine like that cartoon meme with the fire around is just going to create more exhaustion and empty. Folk do not have the ability to "be on" when everything feels like a lot.

This acknowledgment can be done in many ways and will be dependent on your teaching context and demographic. It can be done verbally, there can be many check-in type activities that can be done to see where students are at. After that space of acknowledgement and community has been built in whatever way is appropriate to your course, the continuation is to embed awareness and care into the pedagogy and design of your course. This again can look like different things. Policies that drop the lowest grade. Giving a 2 week window to submit assignments. Having high level documents posted that outline concepts if the student is unwell or has an emergency care responsibility that comes up. 

There has been absolutely too much written about rigour lately at a time when everyone is empty. I do not want to get into that because enough of this rigour is the antithesis to care discourse. What I want to emphasize is that feeling of empty is real and it is wide spread and it is happening now. I try to avoid thinking about the future of HigherEd too much because it feels a whole lot like the Titanic waiting for the iceberg. But that empty feeling will permeate everything, pedagogy, research, community building, social structures...all of it. 

A one day at a time approach is very appropriate here. And care. Give yourself moments of care (I know I really suck at this). Let your students know you care, in the way that feels most appropriate to you and the context of your course. Empty is endemic, let's acknowledge and work from that standpoint.