You Don't Even Go Here

[Content Warning: This post contains reference to homophobia]

I used to make a joke to friends that if I ever left academe I would do some sort of pedagogical stand-up. I would book shows at comedy bars and at English professor retreats where I would make jokes about learning outcomes and Bloom's taxonomy along the lines of "did you hear the one about the learning outcome? No? That'll teach him to have a verb that isn't measurable?" I start with this silliness, because this post is actually going to be really not light, and because I am sure some people will not get the reference of the title of the blog this week. It comes from a scene in the movie Mean Girls that I have been thinking about a lot, both the scene and the whole vibe of the movie itself. It came to mind again after many conversations this week with friends and colleagues across the globe about what HigherEd is doing (about GenAi and other things), and what are we doing in relation to that framing as folk in HigherEd. 

And I was going to just leave my many thoughts about Mean Girls as just thoughts in my head, but then I read Five Manifestos for the Beautiful World today, and the YES THIS that I kept saying, made me realize that there is something there to talk about, especially in this HigherEd socio-political climate. Because the Manifestos book does the kind actionable thinking through the tensions that we definitely need more of right now. And the first Manifesto by Joseph M. Pierce was an excellent piece to read today on National Indigenous People's Day in Canada. 

Because right now we are very much in a vibe similar to the student in the Mean Girls video.  Academe wants us to "bake a cake made out of rainbows and smiles and we'd all eat be happy" whereas I am often the student yelling in the back going "do you even go here?" because we are definitely not in a cake and rainbow space right now, even if it is Pride month. [This is where I tell you the story about how I was at the liquor store today with my bottle of wine with a Pride label on it and the guy in front of me shouted at the cashier for asking "would you like to make a donation to Pride?" because "that is definitely nothing to be proud of harumph!!" he said. Yup this is where I live now]

So it is real hard even outside of academe space to accept rainbow cake and smiles when that space seems to want to actively ignore all of the things that are happening socio-politically. [This is where I stop and ask you if you have taken time to actually actively check in on your students or colleagues who may have folk they care about in active war zones? How about the queer folk in your spaces whose rights are being erased during this Pride month? Because if I did a poll I feel the majority of the answers would be No].

And it would be No because we are told that having those conversations has no place in our spaces. That somehow as soon as we geographically or virtually connect to eduspace, whatever is happening geo-politically and socio-politically is forgotten. And yes I get that for some folk they have so much going on right now that even the thought of yet another thing is too much to add to the plates. But if it has been months and years and decades of tensions and you can't even do a passing "how are you really?" and listen to the answer and give that person your attention, acknowledgment, and care in the way that attention manifests for you, that also does a certain kind of work and tells students and your peers something. As you know I acknowledge that access friction is a thing, and I acknowledge that everyone has different ways of communicating, but it is 2025 and it is almost July and things are happening in the world and we cannot ostrich ourselves out of this. This in fact is a deep learning moment. This is where we put all our "thoughts and prayers" about trauma-informed pedagogy into practice.

Because one of the reasons why that scene from the movie resonated with me (besides the toxic positivity cake) is that I often feel like that student. I mean not in a toxic positivity cake point of view (because I am so not that human) but in a I am saying a thing, more than likely a thing that will deeply impact our learning spaces, a thing that has impact on design, and wellness, and HigherEd is the student shouting in the back "you don't even go here!" Because that is what they want, they don't want a hey let's acknowledge hurt and harm happening and how some folk are carrying and embodying many truths. It is easier to just say you don't belong here, you are not like us. We like vanilla cake here, plain vanilla cake with maybe some sort of strawberries because they are in season, it is definitely not gluten-free cake. Don't you be coming here with rainbows, don't you be coming here with awareness, don't you be wanting to have hard conversations and acknowledge hurt. Yummm delicious vanilla cake. Sorry "I just have a lot of feelings" she says, "Okay go home" says academe we don't like feelings here. 

It is almost July, most of you are already deep in planning for fall (maybe) and we can make choices now, choices that will impact the need for relationality in eduspace. HigherEd talks a big game about belonging (because it sounds better to the search engines of 2025 than equity), but somewhere, that needs some praxis. How can we build more acknowledgement into our pedagogy? How can we flag the complex lives and the complex world that we are in for learners that says "hi, I see you, I know, it is a whole lot, and even though maybe you think the topic of this course has nothing to do with polar ice caps melting, wars, eroding human rights, but the person who designed our learning journey for this term does know this is happening, no ostriches here." And yes some learners (there was a great post by Karen Costa about this on LinkedIn a few weeks ago) use the learning space to actually have a moment of reprieve from the all of the polycrises, but we also cannot design in a void. As Karen says for example "all courses are climate courses."

So I guess this week I am asking for a reflection on if you are the person screaming in the back "she doesn't even go here!" and if so how is that positioned? Is it to make folk realize that the framing we are being sold has gaps? Or is it to hope that folk saying the things will just leave and go home because they don't belong here and you don't want to have the hard conversations?