Thought Vectors Activity-Patch Seven
I completed this activity based on the following excerpts from Patch Seven: Bigfoot and Blind Spots-Respecting Students.
“Students always know teachers have power. Teachers can forget this. Compassion and civility (R-E-S-P-E-C-T) are not eclipsed by asymmetrical power relations, but instructors represent institutional policies and expectations. Respect means acknowledging the power imbalance in a classroom and using authority consciously and compassionately.
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Respect is a systemic issue: do curricula honour student experience, or do we merely “do school,” reproducing academic abstractions informing our success? Respect honours the strengths and expectations of adult students. Respect addresses the (often hidden) diversity our classrooms. By definition, we can’t understand this spectrum. It’s difficult and scary to surrender the security of certainty. Teachers are trained (and like) to know. Admitting blind spots, saying “I don’t know,” is a radical act of respect allowing teachers to join students in a vulnerable activity: becoming producers, not merely consumers, of knowledge.”
The article resonated with me as I often think about questions such as: how can I demonstrate humility and vulnerability without loosing the credibility required for guiding and supporting students through their learning journey? How can I exercise compassion, consider students’ unique situations, and accommodate individual needs and at the same time maintain a sense of fairness among students? To make the “nugget” as meaningful as possible, I tried to extend the ideas by thinking about ways to implement them in class. I captured my thoughts in a mind map
(Please open the link to see the mind map https://www.mindmeister.com/1765614931?e=turtle#print). Coloured boxes show ideas borrowed from the article)
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