I found both the video we watched today as well as the subsequent discussion afterwards to be intriguing for a few reasons. My main takeaway was that I really enjoyed the concept of meeting the students where they’re at, and not forcing them to digest a lesson plan or content that they are adamantly against. Instead, use these strong feelings on the subject matter to follow them along on that emotional journey to still discuss what you sought out to teach, but maybe not in the way you thought. I imagine this will help quite a lot with our own energy and motivation as teachers, as it is takes much more effort to try and push students (especially teenagers) towards a desired goal that they have no desire to get to, than it is to follow them on their own journey and try to recontextualise it to suite our ‘hidden agenda’. I do wonder, however, what this sort of pedagogy would look like in a math course. It is easy to picture how you could apply it within an English class (as was discussed in the video), but I am struggling a bit on how one could do it if the students are vehemently against, say, trigonometry. Something to consider in the coming months.
Another question that the video raised for me, was the idea of ‘dropping the act’ and showing a more personal side to your students in order to receive a similar amount of trust and truth back, and what that could imply in terms of the burnout of teachers. It is well known that there is a decently high burnout rate among educators, and I wonder whether deciding to take a more personal philosophy when it comes to your students aids or harms that. Specifically, whether it is more taxing to maintain a professional ‘act’ when you are teaching, or to share and give more personal parts of yourself to the job. I am honestly not sure of the answer. I do believe that the latter can offer a more genuine perspective and enable you to connect with your students more, but it is also important to maintain your own boundaries and only share/give what you are comfortable with. This is a question I would be eager to hear more thoughts on, as well as spend this year reflecting on for my own practice.
I love your ideas about going with the energy and aims of the students. Reminds me of t’ai chi in some ways — if you ever learn to do ´push hands’ exercises, they are an embodied version of what you’re talking about here! We will definitely revisit that conundrum about showing aspects of yourself while maintaining professional boundaries.
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