Moral Injury and Out-of-loopness

I have spent almost all of my week deeply focused on a growing To Do list that I really cut down to size before putting that long weekend Out of Office notice. And of course now since I cannot shut my brain off, and I really want to try to have a few days where I am not perpetually processing work and work adjacent things, I decided that 10pm on a Friday is an excellent time to write a blog post to the dulcet tones (sarcasm) of some sort of 1970s cover band playing at the city park rib fest that I didn't know was happening. 

And that is part of what I am processing this week, the out-of-loopness that happens in academe, but also in academe adjacent spaces like professional organizations. In the people-who-matter-deeply-to-me conversations I had this week there was a continued focus on the kinds of moral injury that folk who care sustain daily in higher education because of the systems that are set up to exclude and hurt those who understand what an ethic of care praxis is. More performance of equity and inclusion please, less actions towards that happening because the systems feel just right from my cottage in the Muskokas or vacation in the Alps or by the [insert name of any Ocean] with my family. 

There is something to be said about how moral injury in academe is a by-product of a lack of cultural and information capital.  The more you feel like your morals and values do not align with where you do work, whether that be institutionally, within professional organizations, or in community spaces, the more it is likely that you were actively excluded from having important information that would have supported different decisions and the work you are doing. 

We talk a lot in pedagogical spaces about alignment between learning outcomes, curriculum, content, and assessment, but we don't talk so much about how so many are not given the different kinds of information that would have helped support that alignment in the first place. A "need to know" culture often leads to a need to leave eduspace (I just typoed this as eduscape and that definitely that works as well). 

Co-creation is actually something we need to talk more about, not in terms of a pedagogical strategy, we do that a lot already, but how it needs to be modelled in structural practice in post-secondary spaces. The more deeply hierarchical and one-sided information sharing is, the more likely that space also works on a scarcity model when it comes to funding and resources. Scarcity of information sharing begets scarcity in resource sharing. 

So how do folk who have ethical pedagogical practice as a core belief function in these spaces? Where alliances (which comes etymology from the Old French for marriage and union, so perfect for heteronormative spaces based on such structures)  create haves and have nots in terms of opportunities to grow and learn together. Doors are shut even before people realize there was a door there in the first place. Folk are excluded because of their geography, their disability, race, queerness, lack of a dog (okay maybe that is a very specific thing that happens where I live, but honestly it is so real and scary how much that gives you cultural capital here-very strange). 

This semester is going to be hard, and anyone who says otherwise is disconnected from the pedagogical reality on the ground. Yet there are folk who are actively trying to make it even more difficult by the information cloak and dagger game, or literally leaving instructors (at one college I know well) scratching their heads at the lack of guidance they have been provided. It is hunger games out there folks, and instead of focusing on co-creating something meaningful, connected (and not just in their tiny geography), it's just more of the same. More CV padding, more you can figure-it-out-can't-yous. 

I have spoken to many people I care about about how after 20 years in academe I may really be ready to call it quits. Where would I go (shrugging shoulder emoji), maybe more focus on my writing which is what the universe seems to be pulling me towards. But what I do know is that I don't think I can stay in space that hurts the people I care about so much all time and often those who are doing the hurt are the people you have been told you are supposed to trust and supposed to be community. And it is interesting because even deep in the burnout of the beginning of the pandemic I didn't feel like this. This is a new feeling, and it burns. It comes from knowing that as one of my former colleagues said to me this week "we are bleeding trust in academe" and no one seems to care about that, and there is no grace to give apparently.  

I am not sure how many times I need to say this, but I will say it again, what is at the heart of all the things we are dealing with right now in academe is trust. Until we are willing to spend real meaningful time, REAL MEANINGFUL TIME, not rushed meetings, not lunchtime webinars, not listicle websites, addressing the crisis of trust that is absolutely everywhere in eduspace, then it will be more of the same. And we will lose good colleagues and community members, and incredibly important ideas and connections. Because there is no comfort (see etymology of trust) to be had in sharing these spaces and the only faith so many of us have left is the George Michael kind. 

PS. I was actually going to write a blog post about how in every place I have ever worked the fact that I take my holiday week (a singular week I may add) in August has been some sort of issue because everyone else (with kids ie not me) take their holiday in July and what ends up happening is everyone tries to schedule meetings that week and what used to happen is that I end up taking one or two days off instead of the whole week. But older wiser me learned that I have value as a human and deserve vacation and rest too (we all do!). That is what this post was supposed to be about, but I realized it was about more than that because who doesn't have to worry that important meetings will be scheduled while they are on holiday is also a trust issue. So to all of you trying to find time to rest this summer, I see you, enjoy your rest.