Of Trust, Academe, and Pedagogical Modelling

This will be my last blog post for 2021. I was going to do another next Sunday, but folks I am done, like done done done. The cognitive load I am working through right now is a lot and I am going into a week of consults and last minute "what the hell is going on in January" supports, I have final assignments coming in a few days to grade, and I am working on yet another project that I want to finalize in some way by the end of the week. I take on all these things to fill up my days and evenings because if left to my own devices I tend to think too much and then get overwhelmed by all the things I think. I know I am not alone; I have had this exact conversation with many of you this year.

End of year posts tend to be some sort of balance of saccharine look at all we have to be grateful for with a listy mclister soupcon of I did all these things this year look, look, Lisa Simpson needing to be graded and validated aesthetic. I am going to do neither. Because enough of that stuff. We don't have space for that right now, and that should not be where our focus is. 

I have been thinking a lot about how over the last 22 months folk have just been trying to baseline survive, and those who are out there saying they are thriving are probably being supported by a lot of visible or invisible privilege. I keep returning in my thought about the overlap of trauma awareness, harm reduction, UDL, and pedagogy. In particular, I am really focusing in on trust and the real harm that a lack of trust does. I have both thought about this extensively and heard from others in many ways about how there has been a real erosion in systems of trust in the last almost 2 years. Usually folk have a handful of people they can trust and reach out to when they need support. In some cases the pandemic has caused folk to lose that person/people they trust (for whatever reason) and there are real consequences to that. 

At the same time folk usually have groups or systems that the come to trust to support them, like community groups or social groups (online or in person). The pandemic has changed the dynamic of these groups and in some cases completely erased them. Also within that systemic framework are federal, provincial, or institutional systems that we know, and never really trusted, but these systems were always a bit more covert about their want to actively harm us each day. Now that want to harm is on the front pages of every news outlet, it is in every commspeak policy email, every thank you for the work you do if you want to have a holiday bonus you need to do more work (but we will hedge it as community building) email. I navigate the world at this point trusting very very few people and most of them are people who have demonstrated to me over the pandemic that I can in fact trust them (these are never governments, these are never institutions nor representatives of institutions). 

So what does navigating a world without trust do to the work that we do? How does that lack of trust become reflected in pedagogical choices? 

This week I had a long conversation via Teams with one of my students and it was something that made me really pause and reflect about what is going on in educational spaces. The student emphasized how grateful they were for "my energy and motivation" and how they really needed that in other classes. And that really hit me. It hit me because by the time my synchronous class happens on Tuesday evenings, I am usually pretty tired. I have been working through chronic pain for over 2 months so I am also usually in a lot of pain. But I know that the students are going through so much themselves that going into that time with that all that out there on my sleeves would not be beneficial to anyone. This is not me saying to folk fake it, because I do let them know how tired I am, we in fact do scale from 1-10 energy check ins every week, if they feel comfortable, so I can frame our time together to where they are at. As we all know this changes from week to week in the semester (were some have more due dates) and I want to be respectful of that. What I am saying is that honestly seemed to build trust with the students and that is so important. They felt they could trust me because every week they knew what to expect, every week I reminded them of their humanity, of their importance outside of all the readings and assignments. 

Building trust in our educational spaces is so important. But is also so easy to not model that trust because we are not seeing it being modelled by the systems we report to. It is so easy to just model the confuspeak we get, it is so easy to just be a person in front of a computer with no feelings left because the systems have told us our feelings are not valid. But to do this we just perpetuate the systems and I honestly work hard to break those down every single day. If it means me showing up for the students every week to have a real conversation and direct application of the concepts in our class to what is going on in the world then I will do it. I owe them that, and I owe myself that quite frankly because I started in academe because I believed (and still do) in ethical and inclusive pedagogy. A pedagogy that is about systems of trust, a pedagogy that is about awareness of context, a constructivist approach where everyone in this space is valued, acknowledged, and appreciated. 

I use this same approach with my work with instructors. I acknowledge the context, I acknowledge the feelings, I value the discussions and feedback. I trust them and I hope that they trust me. But I worry if we keep working within systems where trust becomes more and more eroded each day by decisions that don't take humanity into account, what that will do with relationships within these spaces. What will this mean for students and the learning environment? What will be the trickle down of this years later when those students are working in communities, in positions of power, or even in their day-to-day lives? 

The etymology of trust, is from Old Norse for confidence, for support, for comfort, for faith. One of my very well worn sayings to people, which has now become very dated and not readily culturally understood is: "I have faith in you, and not just the George Michael kind." (If you want to know what I'm talking about here is the lyric video.) And I think it is important to create a community of trust in the work that we do, to acknowledge feelings and ask how you can support if you can, and to remind people that you have faith in them...not just the George Michael kind.

Be safe everyone and I really wish for a better 2022 for all of us. A year where maybe trust is restored and comfort is found.