Not A Cardiologist: Pedagogical Emergencies in Context

This may be a bit of a shorter post because it is the long weekend here, and I have family responsibilities at the moment. However, I wanted to take a few moments to stop and reflect on ideas around priorities and pedagogy and how we can't continue doing what we are doing in higher education spaces acting like the everything is fine house on fire meme.

I called this week's blog not a cardiologist because that is my new favourite saying now when folk try to put some kind of forced time pressure on certain things or make it seem like everything is an emergency when really what is a real emergency is much much larger than what can be going on in our classes on-campus, hybrid, or virtual. I am not a heart doctor nor a surgeon, though I know deeply that our pedagogical actions and designs can deeply impact the hearts of many. There is a lot that is happening in this world that is also impacting learners, instructors, staff, counsellors and librarians.

As we go into a time where folk are supposed to reflect and be grateful or think about what they have gratitude for, I am really thinking about the lack of acknowledgement that is happening right now systemically on macro and micro levels. I think that gratitude would probably be more impactful if we took time to realize that as these climate, socio-political, health, and technological emergencies happen simultaneously, that something that could be considered a pedagogical emergency in context is probably a lot smaller, on a scale of cardiologist to pedagogue. 

I know that many consider what is going on with generative AI right now in relation to higher ed an absolute pedagogical emergency, but some consider it such for wildly different reasons, especially if you see it as a pedagogical emergency AND a citational emergency, or a pedagogical emergency AND a resource emergency, or a pedagogical emergency AND an accessibility/equity emergency.

I guess the point I am trying to make is we cannot keep going on like everything is fine when everything is fire. We have to stop thinking that trying to go to school during a hurricane is normal, that whole higher educational institutions ceasing to exist because of war is normal, that asking folk to teach and research as though we are not still going through a mass disabling event is normal. 

We could all do with a whole lot of perspective and context. I hope this time (and long weekend if you get one) gives you that perspective and context. (Like for example many do not ever get a weekend, or a long one at that, or have a place to call home, or actively know where their nourishment and medicine are coming from daily). Mutual aid is basically becoming the only way so many can survive and our communities of trust are getting smaller and smaller. We have to stop acting like we are cardiologists, because where we can actually help support is holding space to have the many conversations that break our hearts. The conversations they are telling us are not important and we should not have. Acting our values pedagogically is not easy, but for many of us the choice to hold space for others to share their hurt and see how it could connect to our discipline and context is a possibility I would love for us to try more- now and going forward.