A starting place
This is a hell of a time to start blogging.
We’ve just finished an utterly anomalous half-semester of educational triage in response to the Coronavirus pandemic.
We’ve just watched the class of 2020 graduate with no pomp, no circumstance.
We’ve just spent way too many hours staring at faces on screens that are *almost* staring back at us.
We’ve just figured out what it means to be alone. And what it means to be together.
What I’m coming to understand, in this season of culminating events, is that We’ve. Just. Started. This is a beginning. Any attempt to go back to “normalcy” now is a fantasy.
I’m finally—thankfully—in a place where I can look forward a bit and consider what might come next. Not for the virus, but for my work as a dance educator. Here are some themes that are surfacing for me now, which I’ll be dedicating this blog to in the coming months:
There is pedagogy in everything. I’m sure I’m not the first to acknowledge this. It’s everywhere if you look for it—what is the “lesson,” the “takeaway”? What do we now know about ourselves, or about the world, that we didn’t before?
People come first. Our collective humanity is more important than money and things, and yes, teachers, more important than our course content. Wellbeing must be prioritized, or educational “subject matter” simply becomes irrelevant.
Deliberate action is required. If pedagogy is everywhere, then how can we make it purposeful and meaningful? (See #1 above.) How do our actions telegraph our philosophies to students? How do we design methods and doings that support the pedagogies and ideas about education that we want to stand on? Are we willing to be boldly imaginative and resistant in a way that shakes the structures beneath our neoliberal institutions? (See #2 above.)
This seems to be where I’m living for now. I’m anticipating the waves of anger, resolve, and defeat that will come with this territory over the next several months, but I’m looking forward to the conversation.