Some Evening Thoughts
You are, you are in teaching. The whole you. Your past, your present, your envisaged future. When your learners bring something to you, challenge you, question you, ask you. They are bringing themselves to you. They are making themselves vulnerable—even if it might not feel like it to you in that moment. Because they are showing you, what matters in that moment—or even beyond. But this moment is not disconnected. Like you and your moment, they are bringing their whole selves, their pasts, presents and envisaged futures.
Just that. That is all that matters.
Anything else is decoration.
No you do not need to follow a model, a scheme, a framework. All these do is help you facilitate these moments. If your learners are online, they are still there, embodied, in front of the camera, or hidden behind the ‘off’ button. In these moments they might not bring their whole selves. Just parts of them. The parts that in that moment are save to bring. Or maybe just the part they feel socialised or guilt-tripped into bringing. Maybe they would prefer not to be there, even behind the ‘off’ button and just listen to you on a walk, or read the handout. That time being caught in a place and time that might feel dissociated from life, from the urgency of being, from peers, from places and spaces that have meaning—might be too precious in that moment to spend behind a screen.
How do your learners know that being behind the screen has value? For them, in the present, and the envisaged future? How does it relate to precious life?
Adventures in Academic Development 