Orienting a Classroom

Katina

Thanks so much to Adrianna, Brie, and Nelson for compiling such interesting readings and questions. I found myself (digitally) scribbling all over “One Way to Think about Precarity in the Classroom,” the interview between Sidra Shahid and Becky Vartabedian. Some of the thoughts/questions it raised for me:

  • I was struck by this quote:
    “In the classroom setting whiteness as an orientation was still the default, not because any members of our cohort had bad intentions or were attempting to uphold it, but due to the pure nature of the system of higher education.”
    How would you describe our class’s orientation, thinking about the term in the way that Ahmed uses it (a point of departure, looking into a future direction)? What have we disrupted, and in what ways have we maintained the status quo?
  • Community agreements. I’ve often thought about developing one in a classroom or team context, but have never followed through. Have any of you used community agreements in class? How has that gone? What did your agreements look like? If we were to build a class agreement now, what might it look like?
  • The idea of “latent curriculum in every classroom that needs somebody/somebodies other than me to bring it to bear.” I love this; it articulates something that I deeply value but haven’t seen expressed in the same way, the fact that a classroom is a space of mutual and reciprocal learning that changes depending on who is present and what they bring to the space. What are some examples of “latent curriculum” that have emerged so far in our class?

Looking forward to the discussion later today!