Acknowledging Isolation

I have been thinking about the concept of isolation a lot this week in different ways and how some pedagogical choices can cause different kinds of isolation. But also how systemic pressures can also lead to isolation. And again how isolation often functions as the opposite of relationality. So this week's blog is going to be a bit of a reflection on the role of isolation in pedagogy and where it can pop up in ways we may or may not intend and the impact it can have on learning, learners, and teaching teams.

So an obvious place to think about isolation pedagogically is what happens in testing situations. That we want learners isolated from each other, you know in case knowledge seeps from one person to another. I think of those large gymnasiums with rows and rows of desks and chairs. Cold, isolated, not the kind of vibe that says learning is happening, and yet this is what we have deeply become used to. Now with AI more of these testing situations are happening, more isolation, no sharing of ideas, no possibility of connection. Proving learning requires isolation, no connections to others to avoid the possibility of connection to electronic technology. How strange that is is what we have normalized. I have a chapter that kind of speaks to this if you are interested. 

And now with more oral and in-class type assessments that are of a testing or midterm or summative assessment type nature, more isolation. These conversations will be done in private, or in small groups, which may be supportive of some students, but not supportive of others. But what I found myself thinking about is how these types of assessments are like the opposite of knowledge dissemination intentionally, they are about isolating people and isolating knowledge sharing. It isn't relational, and it feels a lot like an end stop to learning. But maybe it is the geography of where these assessments happen that I am getting caught up in. 

At the same time I am thinking about how the cult of productivity that lives at the heart of neo-liberal capitalism is about individualism, and about isolating. The systems want to keep us busy, distracted, so we don't connect. And you only have to look around today to see how the systems are succeeding at pulling folk apart. I know for me groups of folk that I used to be part of each term, are not happening this term, because somehow the late start means that everyone is so busy catching up that they don't have time to do the things they used to previously. So less opportunities to connect, less opportunities to share, and more isolation. And this is where I remind folk that etymologically isolation is from the French and Italian to make into an island. That is what the systems want, little islands, but never an archipelago.  

One of the ways to address the isolation is to first see it and acknowledge it. Isolation actually thrives on silence and not being pointed out. The more we are silent about how the systems and pedagogical design create tiny silos of thought, the more we perpetuate this. And this is also how the larger digital systems function as well. Not readily sharing ideas between folk who would be interested, blocking things like news accounts on certain platforms (which is what happens in Canada on social media). These are how digital systems isolate. Disabled folk have known this for years because information that could be supportive to lived experience of disability has always been gatekept and it was only through mutual aid and having the open conversations about our disabilities that we learn and support each other. This is how we move towards interdependence and collective liberation as social justice principles.

And as we talk about in the class I am teaching this term, these isolative tendencies is also part of larger social determinants of health. Isolation means not receiving health information, isolation means not having connection to transportation to take you to appointments, isolation means not having a community of folk who have experienced what you may be going through. Isolation is harm work in eduspace, in healthcare, and in the socio-cultural spaces where we strive for better connections. 

One thing we can do is reflect on where in the course design, and specifically in the assessment design have we intentionally built in isolation that is not supportive and is only present to serve some sort of policing and surveillance tendency that academe is striving for now because they realized the systems they built over centuries crumble under connection to others and technology. And sometimes the isolationist design may not be intentional because isolation also has a way of creeping into the way conversations are facilitated, or the assumptions we make about how learners work. Isolation is rarely something to strive for even contextually in eduspace because the neo-liberal systems benefit from our silence and our disconnection. So if there is something you may want to do in terms of actionable work this week, it is think about how isolation is a feature and not a bug of course and assessment design and why that is the case, and ultimately what all this disconnection does to learners but also teaching teams who engage with the work being produced.