In those first few moments we had done a lot of behind-the-scenes work. You see, in those first moments there is a special opportunity. That is when we either reconcile ourselves to ‘the ways things are expected to be done’ or we commit to doing it differently: we are either complicit or we insist on change.
So, my opportunity in those first moments of class started with catching them off-guard, surprising them and (at least for a few moments) flipping the dynamic. That made everyone curious, naturally — they had no idea what would come next. It made them all look away from their phones, computers, friends. I had their undivided attention. Now what to do with it?! It wouldn’t last long…
I wanted to tell them how important I thought curiosity was — how, indeed, I thought it was perhaps the most important ingredient in learning… But, if I started with some didactic speak, I knew some would think it was all just a prank and return their gaze to their machines (expecting me to fall right back into being Instructor Windbag so-and-so). Still others were visibly excited by the looseness of it all. The risk there was that in the next moments they’d swing too far into the play and forget there are good boundaries and bad boundaries. We needed to talk about a community participation guide ASAP!
The liberation that comes from a shift in prescribed behaviours can lead to a giddiness, an unencumbering, a liberation. Some of that is desirable, some not. After all, we had just momentarily tweaked the power dynamic between them and me — we hadn’t actually dismantled anything sustainably. We were all deeply embedded in the matrix of domination from our context, our world. The moment would pass if the next actions led us to a discussion about the coercive contract between the students and me: the syllabus!
This classroom was just beginning the hard work of unlearning and undoing the dance we’d all been part of (systemic inequality, coercion of students, control by instructors). And it was all happening so quickly. If we really were going to make this room different, we’d have to address a lot in this first class. We had so much to talk about and so little time… 3 hours suddenly felt like a hiccup.
The pressure was on, their nervousness was palpable. I could feel their questions, I could see their anxiety: “What will we be doing in this class? Do I even want to do that? What will be expected of me? Will I be uncomfortable? Will I have to sit with someone other than my friends? How can I get an A? Will I have to talk to someone I don’t know? Will I have to present in front of people?! Did I already ask how to get an A?” The social, the performance, the expectations, the fears — I could feel the pressures.
So, instead of taking the lead, being that didactic teller, I asked them what they thought we’d need to do to create a community of practice in our classroom…