The Pedagogy of Impossible Decisions, or How I’m Planning for Fall 2020
Four months ago I was in New York on a research trip. When the pandemic was formally declared I shuttered myself in my hotel room, caught an early flight home, and haven’t budged since. Through various stages of grief and reopening, I’ve stayed put, making the safe call. I’m incredibly fortunate, I know, as there are so many who aren’t afforded access to the basic dignity of a stay-at-home choice. I’m grateful for it, and it’s been the right decision for me—the only decision I’m confident in lately. But isolation for this long takes a toll. Socially distanced visits with those I’m closest to have been a gift, as I’ve realized that being around others in our bodies is something I took for granted until now. Dancers have always found community through our bodies in the space of the studio, just like teachers and students in our classrooms. My home has become my studio, classroom, and office; spaces that are rarely as quiet as it is here, now. Who the fuck knows how much longer this will go on.
(Dear Students, I am reaching out to you, now, because the Fall semester is beginning to take shape and I can feel everyone’s concern. I am concerned too, but I hope to offer you some comfort in the face of so many unknowns.)
Notions of propriety, of acceptability, of couth, have become slippery in the face of this who-the-fuck-knows-ness. I have lost my verbal filter in most arenas, which I balance by holding my body back and away, even when my instinct is to lean in—get closer. I feel compelled to disclose my whereabouts for the last two weeks so people might feel more comfortable around me, even with six or more feet between us. Seeking consent to approach has become a social norm. I second-guess even the thought of interpersonal contact, anticipating my awkward hesitation, or the way that touch might invoke the comfort of the familiar tinged with the fear (or thrill?) of risk. Mistakes will be made. We can be sure of it.
(If you’ve received this email, you’re enrolled in a course I’m teaching. I want you to hear from me directly that I’ve decided to teach most of my classes remotely this fall. This was a wrenching decision for me to make, although I’m grateful to be able to make the decision that’s right for me.)
After the first month of grieving in the quiet of quarantine, I panicked. I was so terrified of the prospect of being in isolation for an unknown length of time that I invited someone I’d been vaguely seeing pre-pandemic to move in with me—a deliberately reckless, fear-of-‘Rona-inspired decision. Under normal circumstances, I’d never have been so blithe about an experiment we both knew was designed to fail. Desperate times, as they say. Just two weeks later I had my quiet space to myself again, with far more ease this time around. Mistakes were made, we passively acknowledged, and we gave each other grace.
(I know that being on campus with you would introduce too much anxiety for me—that I would be so focused on trying to avoid all of us getting sick that our collective experience and your education would suffer. I am certain that your experience with me will be better if we are not in the same physical space. I hope you are considering the best options for yourselves too, given your individual contexts for this situation. I will respect any decision you make, because that decision is yours.)
Decisions have become nearly impossible, if we’re fortunate enough to have the autonomy to make them. Too often now we’re choosing between undesirables that directly affect others. Too often we don’t have enough information, but we’re forced to decide anyway. Even the better option feels unfulfilling at best, potentially harmful at worst. Our expectations haven’t adjusted to our current contexts; we’re not finished mourning. We might be, as painful as it is to suggest, just getting started.
(There is no syllabus for this, so we will build one. I am here for you.)
In the face of so many atrocious decisions lately by administrations—from those of America’s sociopath-in-chief to those of puppeteer capitalists who sit on university boards of trustees—I am discouraged. Most educators know that real learning happens when decisions to go awry, and that mistakes can be empowering when we learn from them. I love encouraging students to make decisions just to see what happens: it’s deliberately reckless; an improvisation with a tinge of rebellion. A wink, a glimmer. My hope is that they’ll fail, give themselves some grace, and figure out a new way in. My hope is that they’ll learn from it. Administrations, though, with their unearned authority over peoples and bodies, don’t learn from their failings. They double down in passive voice, absolving themselves from the decisions they make at the expense of those whose autonomy they have withdrawn. They do not deserve our grace. The dark sense of abandonment to which we all too often cannot attach a face helps us decide, through our anger, what we want to stand for. It’s the one decision they make easy for us.
(We are and will continue to be a community. I hope you’ll be willing to share your interests, ideas, and experiences, and what you’d like our course to be, or do.)
The etymologically inclined know that the word decision implies a cutting away. We risk loss when we decide; we know it might hurt; that we will have to leave something behind. And if we don’t decide, if we don’t risk loss, we don’t enable learning. It’s the place of trauma, the wound itself, where new growth appears. Or at the very least, it is a locus of hope.
(No matter what Fall ’20 looks like, we’ll make something brilliant happen—together. Will it be like Fall ’19? No. Will it have value and meaning, and maybe even be fun? Yes. We’ll make sure of it. I trust us. Looking forward, JZ)