Letting go of comfort to experience bliss
Last Friday, as we started our new semester, our department conducted a timely workshop on Pedagogy and Diversity. We invited a consultant from the Center for Teaching Excellence to lead the workshop. We had an interactive, lively discussion on power, privilege, authority and connectedness in a culturally diverse classroom.
As can be expected of a successful workshop on difficult topics, there was quite a bit of empathetic listening, free sharing of anecdotes, and passionate venting of emotions. But this open exchange, safe space environment also left some people feeling awkward and uncomfortable for various reasons.
Since I teach many courses on controversial or "hot topics" including but not limited to media's role in shaping racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, religious, and other forms of cultural identity, I could immediately see the parallels between my own classes and the diversity & pedagogy workshop that we attended. It made me understand that a safe classroom does not mean a comfortable, sterile, unemotional learning environment. In fact, moments of discomfort are often, though not always, points at which we take the "learning leap" to go from the familiar to the unfamiliar.
A strategy that has worked for me in such classes is to have students share in the very first week of class some examples of experiences that threw them out of their comfort zone. A memorable story I recall is from a student who talked about the time that she couldn't walk for a few months because she was in a car accident. She recounted how she understood the privilege of being able-bodied and how this experience gave her a new perspective on physical disability. Another student talked about the initial anxieties he experienced while moving to a new country. But they all mostly agreed that these uncomfortable experiences turned out to be great learning moments.
There is a saying in Sanskrit from Viduraneeti that says, "Where there is comfort, there is no learning. Where there is learning, there is no comfort." Of course, this is an over exaggeration because we all know that learning can also be so much fun and play. In the context of play, we are often willing to overcome some discomfort for the sake of having fun and for the sake of our team goals.
I am not only a teacher but also a learner, a seeker, a student. This very semester, I am learning a lot about teaching itself. I make it a point to learn something new all the time so I have a good perspective on the exhilarating, top-of-the-world feeling of accomplishment but also the discomforts, frustrations, and hard work of practice that goes along with learning.
This blog is an example of something new that I am learning to do. Some other new things I have learnt in the last few years are parenting (ha! I was so totally unprepared), jewelry making, yoga and meditation, organizing a national conference, composting etc. I have failed miserably at some of these but for some others I have gone past the initial discomfort stage into the bliss stage where they have become an integral part of my life.
What new things have you learnt? What are your experiences as a learner? Are there uncomfortable moments in your life that lead to significant learning? I would love to hear about your experiences as a learner and teacher
As can be expected of a successful workshop on difficult topics, there was quite a bit of empathetic listening, free sharing of anecdotes, and passionate venting of emotions. But this open exchange, safe space environment also left some people feeling awkward and uncomfortable for various reasons.
Since I teach many courses on controversial or "hot topics" including but not limited to media's role in shaping racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, religious, and other forms of cultural identity, I could immediately see the parallels between my own classes and the diversity & pedagogy workshop that we attended. It made me understand that a safe classroom does not mean a comfortable, sterile, unemotional learning environment. In fact, moments of discomfort are often, though not always, points at which we take the "learning leap" to go from the familiar to the unfamiliar.
A strategy that has worked for me in such classes is to have students share in the very first week of class some examples of experiences that threw them out of their comfort zone. A memorable story I recall is from a student who talked about the time that she couldn't walk for a few months because she was in a car accident. She recounted how she understood the privilege of being able-bodied and how this experience gave her a new perspective on physical disability. Another student talked about the initial anxieties he experienced while moving to a new country. But they all mostly agreed that these uncomfortable experiences turned out to be great learning moments.
There is a saying in Sanskrit from Viduraneeti that says, "Where there is comfort, there is no learning. Where there is learning, there is no comfort." Of course, this is an over exaggeration because we all know that learning can also be so much fun and play. In the context of play, we are often willing to overcome some discomfort for the sake of having fun and for the sake of our team goals.
I am not only a teacher but also a learner, a seeker, a student. This very semester, I am learning a lot about teaching itself. I make it a point to learn something new all the time so I have a good perspective on the exhilarating, top-of-the-world feeling of accomplishment but also the discomforts, frustrations, and hard work of practice that goes along with learning.This blog is an example of something new that I am learning to do. Some other new things I have learnt in the last few years are parenting (ha! I was so totally unprepared), jewelry making, yoga and meditation, organizing a national conference, composting etc. I have failed miserably at some of these but for some others I have gone past the initial discomfort stage into the bliss stage where they have become an integral part of my life.
What new things have you learnt? What are your experiences as a learner? Are there uncomfortable moments in your life that lead to significant learning? I would love to hear about your experiences as a learner and teacher
I love this quote, Srivi! ---> Sanskrit from Viduraneeti that says, "Where there is comfort, there is no learning. Where there is learning, there is no comfort." Thanks for sharing. I think generally living life to the fullest is a lesson in venturing out of your comfort zone. Take the plunge, no regrets - the only one is if you don't try, whether debating controversies with students in a classroom or trying something new as a hobby or basic daily routine.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Amanda! I too love that quote. You are so right about living life to the fullest this way.
DeleteI would love to hear about strategies you use in your classroom to have a free flow of discussions when discussants come from differing perspectives. Do debates work for your classes? I sometimes worry if debates don't lead to learning because the participants don't listen as much as they talk.
I am a huge fan of debates. I don't call them debates though, haha, unless it's an Argumentation & Debate class. I think that term might scare people away from open discussions. I have this one particular portion of their grade that has gone really well this academic year and is quite popular. It's called Discussion Leader and what I do is lecture first on the material and then the next class period is students' presentations extending the material beyond a summary and making it relevant to the external world by bringing in external materials (for ex. news articles, journal articles, pop culture artifacts, media texts, youtube clips, music videos, current events, hot topic issues, politics, or anything they see as having gone viral online via social network sites, etc.). Students informally present their external material and then discuss why it's important and then they pose several open-ended questions to the class. We arrange the desks in a circle so we can all see each other and be equals (I sit in the circle too but near the front by the discussion leaders so I can interject if something is unclear or the class gets too heated and order needs restoring). This allows us some context for the real world discussion of textbook concepts and ideas and also gives students lots of freedom to choose what we spend more time discussing and the opportunity to decide what they found most pressing. They like this freedom and I like to see them apply the material. Discussions are never a problem because I also spend a bit of time up front in the class doing ice-breakers or "interactive lecturing" where they dialogue with me as I lecture. Even though you'll have some students who are more talkative than others, the quite ones still are listening and I've often heard in my qual. evals. for classes where I've done this that they enjoyed the discussion days and learned a lot from hearing multiple perspectives. Some have even said the discussions extend into more discussions outside of class with their friends and family! It's awesome. I will continue doing this. I can send you more on this via email. I've developed a detailed info. sheet on how I approach this assignment and grade it. =)
ReplyDeleteP.S. I put that quote in my fb philosophy! Thanks again!