There’s almost never a good reason to give students a mass of 1 kilogram, and doing so can reinforce misconceptions about forces and units.
If you teach high school or introductory college physics (or just know the subject well), I wonder if you can tell what I’ve done wrong here:
OK, well, I haven’t given you a lot of context.
Early in our study of forces, I make sure students see a lot of examples of objects that are not accelerating and the forces on them balance out, and conversely, a lot of examples of objects that are accelerating and the forces on them do not balance out. Sometimes we don’t even have to quantify the forces, we just have to know that some are bigger than others. Here are some examples that students see:
A person rides an elevator from the ground floor to the top floor.
An effectively frictionless car is released on an inclined track.
In the distant past, I noticed that some students left these exercises with an insidious misconception: From the kinds of examples we often look at, it’s easy to think that there’s always an up force to go with a down force, a left to go with a right, etc. And if there are any funny angles, then there’s always acceleration (because that left-right-up-down balance is upset).
So I make sure to emphasize the one in the photograph above, specifically because it involves an odd number of forces at “funny angles” that still balance out to zero acceleration.
Here it is again, but with the force vector information:
Now can you see (or calculate) what I’ve done wrong?
This course does not require that a student have taken high school physics. But of course, some have. And somewhere students learn this sing-songy mantra:
“Gravity’s always nine point eight.”
When students drill a bunch of projectile motion kinematics problems, they learn (correctly) that the acceleration of gravity here at the surface of Earth is 9.8 m/s2, downward. But the precision of that statement is lost and it gets filed away as “gravity’s always 9.8” (there are never any units in this mantra [and that’s part of the problem]).
This (more-or-less correct) idea that the acceleration of gravity is always the same number transfers to an incorrect idea that the force of gravity is the same on every object. And what is that force of gravity? “Nine point eight,” of course! So on the above diagram, where I’ve labeled “force of gravity on mass,” many students have “9.8” written on their drawing. What they should have is Fgrav = mg, where m is the mass of the object in kg, and g = 9.8 N/kg, the strength of the gravitational field here at the surface of the Earth.
So what mistake did I make? Never give students a 1 kilogram mass, because it inadvertently reinforces the misconception that the force of gravity is always 9.8 Newtons.
I have had this realization before, but I’m forgetful, and dumb. Learn from my mistake!
I was going to write about the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision. I have some sketchy notes; I was thinking about the fact that the vast majority of US students don’t attend the selective sorts of institutions where affirmative action ever applied. I was thinking about how this is a disappointing decision, but it could also be an opportunity to re-envision the whole process. I like Timothy Burke’s take on this: We should stop working so hard on various schemes to allocate the limited spaces on the lifeboats — we should get more lifeboats instead.
Then I was going to zoom in on the odd footnote 4 in the majority opinion. This is where Roberts off-handedly exempts the military service academies from the ruling. I was going to point out that the US’s amicus brief and oral arguments talked about the importance of a diverse officer corps, which is not the same thing as diversity at the service academies. In fact, fewer than 20% of military officers come from the service academies. The majority of officers go to “regular” colleges through ROTC programs. I think it’s interesting that the fraction who go to college, then later decide to join up through OCS or direct commission, is roughly comparable to the fraction who come through the service academies. All of this seems like research one of Roberts’s clerks could’ve done. The footnote strikes me as a real weakness.
Anyway. That’s what I would have written about.
But a week ago, on July 2, my Dad died. So if you’re reading this, I encourage you to let go of some notes that haven’t coalesced into whatever they were supposed to form. Go hug your kids. Or go hug your parents. Or go hug whoever’s important to you and you’re not sure you’ve let them know. I don’t have some Important Wisdom to Impart; I don’t think it works like that. It’s not like my Dad died and I was granted some epiphany and now I understand what’s really important. But I don’t think you can go wrong with some hugs (with consent, of course).
Taking some time to reflect on our teaching — before and/or after we teach a lesson or activity, at the end of each week, during and after the teaching term — is a beautiful way for us to connect with our own Inner Knowing about our teaching and our students, and to continue on our journeys as developing teachers. We can take a mindset of curiosity and self-compassion, seeking Joy in trying something new and learning from the experience. We can discover new insights, spark new questions to pay attention to next time, and feel inspired to try new ideas. It can also help us to see places where we want to keep improving and growing, and give ourselves grace as we keep learning. And it can help us to see our growth and celebrate our successes. These are all part of our beautiful teaching journeys <3
I’d like to share some ideas for ways to reflect on our teaching.
Start with a grounding practice at the beginning and/or end of your reflection. You can take a deep breath, maybe light a candle, and say words like, I’m grateful for the opportunity to reflect on my practice. I’m grateful for the teaching journey that I’m on, working on developing different parts of my practices over time. I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn from my experiences, and from feedback from my students.
Set an intention: For example, I seek to understand my students better. I seek to look at my practice with compassion (for myself and for my students) and courage. I seek to approach my reflection with openness, curiosity, and creativity. I’m grateful to myself for taking the time and space to do this reflection practice.
Choose a medium that you like for recording your reflections. Try mixing it up if you’d like. For example, typing in Evernote/Google doc, writing a blog post, writing in your slide deck, writing out long-hand in a beautiful teaching journal, recording voice notes, adding drawings. (For voice notes: it’s helpful to transcribe these later so you can browse them more easily.)
Try different spaces for reflecting: in the classroom (if it’s available), in your office, in a lounge, in a coffee shop on campus, outside under a tree. Try for somewhere friendly and inviting where you feel comfortable.
Try reflecting with a buddy, someone you feel safe and comfortable with. You can reflect with them and they can reflect with you. You could speak out loud for 5 minutes and they take notes, then they speak out loud for 5 minutes while you take notes, and then you can reflect on and give feedback on what each other said (as invited).
Before and after teaching an activity
Before you teach an activity, write notes to yourself about what aspects you’d particularly like to reflect on afterwards.
Reflect right after the activity while it’s fresh in your mind. Consider also reflecting a few days later when you’ve had a little more space to process it too.
Free-write for 5-10 minutes after the activity, anything you noticed or felt, etc. Look back at these at the end of each week.
Choose a theme to focus on each week in your reflections. For example: anti-racist teaching, connection to everyday life phenomena, encouraging student collaboration.
Similar to choosing a theme: Choose a framework of teaching and learning as a lens for your teaching. For example, you could pay attention to how today’s activity addresses teaching principles from the book How Learning Works, or a framework of equitable and inclusive teaching (e.g., Universal Design for Learning for accessibility), or a framework of supporting student agency.
Ideas for reflection prompts
How did I feel during today’s teaching activity?
What were my goals for today’s teaching activity? How do I believe the activity went, overall, and towards my specific goals?
What evidence / indicators am I using to inform my opinions? Why are those important? Brainstorm broadly: What other indicators might be relevant?
How can I gather feedback from others about today’s activity? Are there students whose voices and experiences I’m foregrounding and others I’m paying less attention to? How can I make sure I understand the experiences of all my students, not just the more privileged students?
How does today’s activity acknowledge barriers to access that some of my students have experienced and are experiencing?
In what ways did my teaching today align with my values? In what ways did it not?
What felt surprising to me? What felt scary or risky?
What would I like to know more about? How can I educate myself further?
How does today’s activity draw on my students’ resources and motivations for learning?
What suggestions do I have for myself for my future teaching (next class, next week, next year)?
What aspects would I like to pay attention to / reflect on next time I teach this or a similar activity?
How does my identity / positionality influence how I taught this activity, and how I’m seeing it as I reflect?
What was challenging, and how did I address those challenges? What might I do the same or differently next time?Where did I feel uncomfortable, and how can I breathe through any difficult feelings?
Did the activity reveal places that I or my students need to heal? What support would help our healing?
What were moments of joy during today’s activity?
What would I like to celebrate in myself? Where are some places to give myself a high-five?
What aspects of today’s teaching would I like to share with others? Are there colleagues I might like to discuss it with?
What action would I like to take for my future teaching — next class, next week, next month, next term, and beyond? What resources do I need to work on these actions?
Reflecting as a student
We are often both teachers and learners; we can develop our own teaching by reflecting as a student as well. Here are some ideas:
Free-write for 5-10 minutes about any thoughts and reactions to today’s learning activity.
How did I feel during this learning activity? Did it evolve over the course of the activity?
What did I learn?
What questions do I still have? What would I like to learn further about this topic? What resources can I draw on to learn more?
How did today’s lesson connect to my values and goals?
What was my favorite part? What would I suggest changing for next time?
What opportunities were there for me to connect or collaborate with other learners? How did those interactions feel?
What were moments of joy during today’s activity?
Focus your reflections through a framework of teaching and learning. For example:
Supporting student agency: How did this activity connect to my values and goals? Support my self-efficacy? Support my self-reflection?
Principles of teaching and learning: How did this activity connect to my prior knowledge? How did it support my metacognition?
Equitable teaching: Was this activity accessible to me? Do I think it was accessible to others? Were there multiple ways for me to demonstrate my understanding? Did the activity make me feel like a scientist?
How might I have taught this activity the same or differently?
How do I think others in the class may have experienced the activity, similarly or differently to me?
Why do I think the instructor made particular curricular design choices? What were some other possible choices they could have made? What would I choose?
What does the design of this activity say about the values and goals of the instructor? What assumptions were implicit in the activity design? How do those align/not align with my own values?
I hope some of these ideas may be helpful in your reflections as a teacher.
I’d love to hear your ideas — How do you like to reflect on your teaching? What insights have you discovered? What’s hard? What’s something new you’d like to try?
Thanks for reading. I wish you much love and joy on your continuing teaching journey <3
For this post, I wanted to share a contradiction in my work that I’ve really struggled with. I got into the work that I do – managing education-related programs with a focus on US college/university physics departments – because I wanted future physics/STEM students to have better experiences in physics and related fields. As I briefly mentioned in my last post, I was lucky to have a fairly privileged upbringing which enabled me to pursue a career in physics and astronomy. One consequence (in my opinion) is that I have a responsibility to use my position to contribute to and to empower efforts that transform and redefine STEM so that STEM can be co-created by and for more diverse communities.
However, I’ve found that in my pursuit of a career to improve student experiences in physics/STEM, I now no longer directly interact with students. I had a few conversations about this contradiction with colleagues at the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network Conference in November 2022, and those conversations have continued to rattle around in my head. For those not familiar with POD, the organization’s primary audience are staff who work in centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) or similar structures in higher education. These centers often provide faculty development, e.g., workshops to encourage instructors to use evidence-based pedagogical practices in their classrooms.
In these conversations, many of us talked about wanting a career where we could have a larger impact on STEM education than what we could do as an individual instructor. Speaking for myself, I was always troubled by the thought that if I became a professor, I could do my best to make sure the students who were in my class had a good experience, but (1) that effort didn’t ensure my students wouldn’t receive messages of exclusion from other classes or settings and (2) it meant that the students I could impact would only be those who were “lucky” enough to be in my class. I wanted to do more.
Working at a CTL often means that staff do not have direct interactions with the students in their university. Instead, CTL staff often work with the faculty and instructors in workshops, books clubs, and other activities (sidebar: some of my colleagues are involved in “students as partners” projects, but that still seems to be fairly unique). By working with faculty and instructors, CTL staff have the potential to influence entire departments. Of course, individual professors can have a department-wide impact too. As a postdoc, I had the opportunity to co-chair a Committee on Inclusive Community in my school (large interdisciplinary department, in the context of the university I was at), and we were charged with finalizing and implementing a strategic plan for the whole school. I really enjoyed this work, but was frustrated by the fact that if I did become a professor, that kind of service work often isn’t “valued” in the same way as publications for tenure and promotion.
In my current position, I do get to focus on that kind of service work on a national scale. My job involves submitting proposals and managing programs that empower people at colleges and universities across the country to do things that improve their (physics) programs. Working at this “meta” level allows me to multiply the impact I can have, but it does mean I rarely interact with the students who are the heart of our motivation. I’ve found other outlets for that motivation by volunteering with education activities and events, but it still strikes me as incongruent that those interactions aren’t a more regular part of my work.
I will also add that in a couple of my projects, we have talked about how to solicit and incorporate the students’ perspective more directly. For example, when we do site visits to departments that we fund, we often schedule a meeting with only students to hear their input. So, the students aren’t completely missing, but in the conversations I had at that POD conference, we were all intrigued by how you “lose” some of those connections in order to increase your impact.
I don’t have a specific “call to action” in mind with this post, but I’d like to invite readers to engage in these conversations. How do we weigh increasing impact versus wanting specific activities (like working directly with students) to be a part of our work? How can we design projects to try to address and/or minimize the disconnect – but perhaps more fundamentally, should we? Do you find this trend in your own careers, and did it influence your choices in which career opportunities to pursue?
I am having lots of trouble keeping up with various commitments. Being here is one of them! But when I think of this place as a conversation rather than a set of settled statements, it helps. So, this is like the quick text I might send to a friend just to keep things going, even when I wish I had time to do more.
One of Stommel’s simplest suggestions — and yet one I’m ashamed to have often skipped — is to have explicit conversations with students about grades and grading practices. I have a couple questions about this on my latest feedback questionnaire with my students. I linked to Stommel’s piece and to Kohn’s “The Case Against Grades” in the contexting for these questions, so students are invited to read those but not required to.
Here’s a (long) question and some of the responses so far:
Let's look specifically at Lab Practicals and the points/grades that go with them. Here's the 2nd lab practical from the fall semester — please review it briefly to remind yourself how points worked.
My goals were for everyone to accomplish enough on the lab practical to demonstrate they'd learned the relevant ideas. Putting points on different aspects is a way for me to signal to you what is important. It's not that I actually care about the grade. In fact, almost everyone passes the 100% line.
Would it be possible to describe what is important, lay out requirements, or some other idea that does not involve points, and achieve the same outcomes? Or are the points an essential motivation for making this work?
- I am very motivated by points because I pride myself in getting good grades
- I disagree, With my major I am very busy. If I saw something with no points to it I would add it to the last thing to do in my pile of work.
- honestly not sure
- I find the points to be motivating
- I like the points for motivation, I felt like I would look at the material more and review it more before the lab practical. I felt that this made me feel more comfortable with the material more. I wish we did more of these lab practical's. for example, if we did 4, all 4 would equal the 2 we did in points.
- the points are pretty important
I have lots of thoughts about why these (few) responses do not seem to support an ungrading approach. But what do you all think?
(Side note: If you’d like to click through to the Lab Practical assignment, you’ll see that it is very, well, “alternative graded,” I guess? There are more points available than needed for the assignment. So I’m getting some of these ideas in even if it’s not via true ungrading.)
So, what do you think about these students’ thoughts on points? What would your own students say?
When I was introduced to the practice of ungrading, I was drawn to a simple description provided by Jesse Stommel. The practice itself isn’t simple at all, but it was described, simply. I don’t even remember a super specific definition, just what it made me think about.
I remember that this description prompted me to reflect on how it felt to be graded, which was mostly bad. And when it felt good, the grade itself was still the focus of my pride, not the curiosity or problem-solving I did. I also have great memories where I don’t remember the grade, just the experience of doing good, challenging work, and the relationships with teachers who took away some of the power of grades on me.
I also remember how ungrading challenged ideas about assessment I thought I was comfortable with. I wasn’t ready to think critically about learning objectives or rubrics, as I had “already learned” how to use these tools to improve learning and set clear expectations, not just for summative assessment. But it was so worth it to examine how grades still unconsciously influenced my thinking about assessment.
This was all especially rich to ponder as I was part of a professional development program that gave people a chance to design and teach, in environments where grading wasn’t necessary.
I’m thinking about ungrading again because I recently read an article with a call to the ungrading community to be more specific about the term. It laid out a definition of ungrading that included creating student portfolios, and collaborative assignment of grades when required.
This definition was certainly more specific as an approach. But it didn’t elicit any desire for reflection and curiosity that I had when I first was introduced to the ideas. I went back to a recent definition from Stommel:
“Ungrading” means raising an eyebrow at grades as a systemic practice, distinct from simply “not grading.”
That felt much better. Beyond a general mindset, I think the ungrading community has done a lot to also drive the discussion around the context, details, and examples that are so important to put these ideas to work. There are articles about specific topics like rubrics, collections of FAQs and bibliographies to elaborate and prompt thinking, trials and lessons learned like Clarissa Sorenson-Unruh’s reflections on applying upgrading to chemistry, and collections of teacher experiences like Ungrading, edited by Susan Bloom. Again, being defined simply doesn’t mean it’s easy work. But I can raise my eyebrow at how grading influences me in many contexts. I think that’s more useful than worrying if I’m doing ungrading “right.”
I felt satisfied to be pulled back into this topic after not having thought about it for a while. I also realized that I never paid much attention to the “distinct from simply ‘not grading’” part in the definition above.
I don’t hear the word “grades” in my world anymore. I don’t have to grade in the way it’s done in higher education. And because of that, I think I resonate with ungrading even more, or at least in a different way.
What does grading leave behind when you don’t have to grade?
I’ve needed to reflect on this for a while, and I’m glad something came up in my feed to prompt me. I want to think through this more.
Even without grades:
Am I doing anything that can pit learners and trainers against each other?
Do I value “objectivity” in measurement over good feedback and the learning process itself?
Am I not questioning definitions of assessment enough? Advocating for formative assessment? Letting assessment be shorthand for grading?
Am I looking hard enough for how negative aspects of grading are laundered through requirements like compliance?
Who does my approach to assessment work for? Who doesn’t it work for? How does it feel to be assessed and what are the impacts?
I think there’s more, but it’s an ok list coming from a simple call to action. And I don’t think I’d ask these questions if ungrading was a strictly-defined best practice.
“To transform the world, education needs to be transformed.” -UNESCO Futures of Education Report
Author’s portrait, as illustrated by a second grader from MN whom I’ve never met. Note the bloodshot eye. The exhaustion is real…
This image perfectly illustrates why I LOVE my job. I truly do–even on days when I’m tired, going to work and being with kids all day is truly a gift. I love my students. I also worry about them–losing sleep sometimes. I strive to provide for my students what I want for my own two kids. I feel the weight of doing my job well, because I have a classroom full of students who are counting on me to give them my best. I don’t take this lightly. Probably because of this, I spend a lot of time in research and a lot of time in conversations with educational colleagues near and far. I know, as a system, we have much work to do.
Recently I stumbled upon a video made to highlight the work UNESCO is doing to globally reimagine and transform education systems. Clearly, I do not run in the same social or professional circles as these global leaders. However, I (and many of my colleagues around the state and country) also recognize the need for major overhaul in educational practices. In fact, I began my doctoral program journey several years ago with no specific end goal in mind, but with a very persistent urge to engage in the work of repairing and replacing a system that is broken, one that fails many of our learners and ultimately our communities and society at large. These thoughts are not meant here as hyperbole, as data upon data have illustrated how our dated systems do not meet the needs of all of today’s learners.
I know and work with a lot of truly wonderful, gifted-at-their-craft educators who pour their hearts, souls and minds (as well as freetime on many evenings and weekends) into the students in their learning spaces. I know and admire many educators who work for equity and who see the immense value of all our learners. I see colleagues who look past behaviors and meet children where they are, with what they need. I know without doubt that in countless classrooms, incredible things happen every day.
And yet, transformation of the full system seems out of reach for the students (globally) who most need it now.
As we hear about how our students are performing academically, as we see a rise in mental health crises, and we hear again and again about gun violence in schools, and on and on with issue after issue, we must reflect on how much has changed in our world since the time many of us as educators, educational leaders, and lawmakers joined the workforce. As the speed of information surpasses our mental ability to keep pace, we must question if our teaching methods attempt to address this. As we see increasing instability in our world (politically, economically, meteorologically, and in social justice), are we addressing that in our spaces? Are we teaching students to question and wrestle with the hard stuff, so they will be able to do that as adults, or do we continue on with our lessons with disregard for the impact these crises have on our communities and families?
I know that schools and districts across our state and country are wrestling with similar issues. With this in mind, I wonder: what is the lever that makes the difference for education as a whole? What is the breaking point at which we will be forced to make significant and drastic changes instead of band-aiding a geriatric system? UNESCO suggests four guiding questions for groups to gather around in these discussions: 1) what should continue; 2) what should be abandoned; 3) what should be reinvented; and 4) what will you do next?
I think to some extent, many of us are waiting for someone else to “fix” the system. While some system shifts have certainly occurred, glacially paced is probably the best descriptor for change within education as a whole. It’s imperative, I think, that more of us feel the persistent urge to get involved–at the very least to push the system, or hopefully, to thoughtfully consider and do the work toward making necessary change. We must find the lever(s), and pull. As I write, I contemplate my answer for question #4: what will I do next? I look forward to organizing conversations with colleagues around the state who are interested in systems change, reflecting on the four guiding questions above. Accountability to this change means we stop thinking about it, we agree to quit admiring the problems we face, and we work toward creating a new chapter in our educational system for generations of students to come, and more importantly for the students in our spaces who need this from us now.
It seems natural follow up that I would ask you to comment: how would you answer the four guiding questions?
I’ve been teaching at the college level for many years. My goal is for my students to learn more than they thought they could in my courses, and to be empowered by that experience. I push them to work hard and to show me what they’re learning. I have had many, many students who have impressed me with their learning, and it is a joy to see their growth. But sometimes, honestly, my students’ work disappoints me. Maybe they didn’t follow the instructions or look at the rubric (that I worked so hard on) when they were doing an assignment. Maybe they copied someone else’s work. Maybe they put ideas together in a creative but surprisingly illogical way. Maybe they asked me to tell them what to do rather than trying something out by themselves before asking for my input.
I think about these students a lot, because I want to support and encourage their growth. However, with increasing experience as an educator, I’ve found it increasingly easy to settle into my position as a subject area (astrophysics) expert. Over time, I remember less about what it was like to struggle to learn a topic or skill in my field, or to challenge misconceptions I held with new, evidence-based ideas. I work hard to improve as an educator. I am hard on myself and I don’t always get it right. But I still have a level of confidence in my subject-area knowledge that is different from that of my students.
So I thought I’d share how valuable it has been to me to become a student again. (Here I want to acknowledge several of my colleagues who post here on TMV are also students as well as educators, and they will have important and individual insight on this, too.) A few years ago, I began taking weekly classes in drawing and painting. While I have always been interested in art, I had little formal training in this area and did not consider myself “good” at art. The experience of studying and practicing drawing and painting has been extremely rewarding, often humbling, and overall very instructive (beyond painting), and it has fed into my practice as an educator.
A progression of expertise, a progression of expectations
Me, in art class circa 2018, happily accepting critique of my drawing of a hammer.
When I began taking art classes, I didn’t expect much of myself. I experienced the simple joy of finding out that I could paint something recognizable. I wasn’t too hard on myself if my composition wasn’t perfect, or if I chose the wrong background color. I was receptive to my instructor’s corrections. I was a beginner, after all. Over time, however, I began to expect more of myself. Recently, I decided to try a new medium and was frustrated by how hard it suddenly felt to mix colors or hold a paintbrush. I wanted instruction but also wanted to be able to successfully paint on my own. I’ve realized that it now takes much more bravery to begin each painting. I worry that the new painting won’t turn out well, and I go so far as to imagine that if that’s the case, it might prove that I’m not really an artist. I now have a lot of attachment to the idea of being an artist, where I didn’t before.
At these times, I can remind myself that I may be experiencing something akin to what my students feel when they are taking a test or beginning an assignment or project: if they don’t get positive feedback on this test/assignment/project, how will that reflect on them as a learner? How will their peers and instructors (like me) judge them? How will they judge themselves? How can I help them approach their learning with open-mindedness to the subject and to the outcomes of their work, especially as their expectations for themselves grow?
Bravery and the potential for failure
Sharing something you’ve worked very hard on can be an act of bravery. There is uncertainty about how it will be received; it is always possible to misunderstand the instructions or what is expected. It is possible to fail. Putting myself in the position of being a student has helped me experience for myself why a student might not try hard on an assignment or might act like a topic (or whole subject, like math) isn’t important. Among other things, this may be because they are avoiding the potential, terrible feeling of failure in the wake of hard work.
Experiencing this has made me think harder about how to make space for students to make mistakes and, occasionally, fail. How can I help them take risks? How can I help them use their mistakes, challenges, and failures to learn more? How can I make space for mistakes and failures in my own teaching, and learn more from them, so that I can get better at supporting my students?
Learning as a not-quite-linear process of growth
Although my continued art practice has improved my ability overall with respect to technique, composition, and working with color, every so often I start a painting that doesn’t come together the way I’d hoped, or I work on a painting so much that, honestly, it gets worse rather than better. These paintings are still a part of my learning process, and they have taught me a lot about learning itself: learning is not necessarily a linear process. I cannot assume that each painting will be better than the last, or that each time I use a painting technique I’ll show improvement. However, I have to practice, experience challenges, and overcome both failures and failure avoidance to become more skilled.
Similarly, I have to be cognizant that my students may experience setbacks in their learning. They may get stuck on a concept and have a hard time getting “unstuck”. Like me, they may procrastinate because it’s easier to think about the nice grade they got on the last assignment than to start all over with a new assignment. Or, also like me, they may be discouraged by a past grade or outcome they’d hoped would be better, and need some time to approach the task again.
Caveats and conclusions
I want to emphasize that experiencing these things is much more instructive than conjecturing or writing about them. Directly experiencing the uncertainties involved in learning something new has given me deeper insight into what my students’ experiences might be. A major caveat here is that I cannot assume that my experiences directly mirror those of my students.
What are some strategies and considerations for better supporting students?
It is important to let students know that we do not judge them as whole human beings based on the outcome of one test, one project, one assignment, or one course grade.
Students may feel more like we see them as whole human beings if we give them ways to let us know a little more about themselves, including what is important to them, their responsibilities outside of classes, and what their relationship is with the subject matter of the class. One way to do this is to give students surveys, and read and respond to what they write.
It can be important to give students constructive, critical feedback at times, to let them know how they can improve. This can be a sign of our respect for what they can achieve, and we can let them know this comes from a place of respect.
What are some strategies and considerations for becoming better educators?
Acknowledge and work with our positions as students and practitioners of education itself. It’s worth noticing the parallels between the fact that we are constantly learning about teaching while our students are learning about the subject we are teaching.
We can always consider ourselves students with respect to addressing equity, diversity, and inclusion in the classroom. As we aim to improve in these areas, we can keep in mind that our growth may not be linear, and may include high expectations, hard work, and failures, as well as successes.
We can remind ourselves that the point of this work is to support the incredible, whole human beings that we teach. It’s a side benefit that we get to grow alongside them.
Thank you to the many colleagues and students that I have learned from at the Institute for Scientist & Engineer Educators (UC Santa Cruz), Sonoma State University, and Santa Rosa Junior College. My sincere thanks to my art teacher, Mary Fassbinder, and my fellow art students.
Before you read any further, I need to note that this post isn’t meant for everyone, and I think that’s okay, though it does raise some inherent, unavoidable contradictions.
Some context: Last year, I was part of an NSF grant proposal related to a project that’s been around for over 20 years and is coming to the end of its current pot of funding. As a team, we all agreed that our project was behind the times when it comes to explicitly addressing equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI – as an aside, I know that’s not the typical order of the letters, but I like the reasoning of putting “equity” first as the goal of inclusion and diversity [1]). We wanted to use this new proposal as an opportunity to make EDI an explicit part of our project, so we worked with a consultant to help us critically reflect on our processes and project designs. This work was relatively new to my two White colleagues. For myself, I had some amount of experience with critical self-reflection from my prior work addressing EDI in academic departments, research involving culturally responsive and relevant curriculum, and coursework.
After the proposal was submitted, my colleagues remarked how they weren’t prepared for what it meant to do intensive EDI work, and we considered how we might share our experiences with our other colleagues.
And that brings me to this post: as part of reflecting on the process and how I might discuss the process of doing EDI work with others, I needed space to process my own thoughts and write them down. But that also brings up the aforementioned inherent, unavoidable contradictions. I identify as a multiracial cis-gender woman, as part of the LGBT+ community, and as both a scientist and a crafter/maker. Yet my “multiracial”-ness stems from the fact I am half HongKongese and half Irish/Welsh/American, with a very much White-passing complexion. In many ways I am highly privileged. Yet the goal of EDI work is to center the most marginalized voices, and so writing an article about my experience runs counter to that goal. But at the same time, as my colleagues pointed out, they felt they would have been able to engage better with the EDI work if they had a better idea of what to expect.
Separately (relatedly?), I find it hard to write or present about anything related to EDI in a way that can work for all audiences. Instead, I’d rather be clear on who I hope something is useful to (though I welcome feedback from everyone!). In this case, my imagined audience is someone with dominant/privileged identities who has some awareness of EDI and is about to begin engaging with some intensive EDI work.
And with that preamble, here’s some reflections on my experience. Not everyone will experience or react to these things in the same way as me, and there is no “this is the way” or “one size fits all” for this kind of work.
Expect to be uncomfortable
As someone from a STEM background, I’m mostly used to the idea that learning can be uncomfortable [e.g., 2, 3]: essentially, when you learn something new, you’ll initially struggle and be bad at it, whether the topic is quantum mechanics, calculus, or computer programming. It takes a lot of practice to get good at something, and that process involves a lot of failing and stumbling.
However, the “discomfort” from EDI work is a very different feeling. We live in a society that has structures and systems that were developed in a way that was biased towards certain groups, and even though the legal basis for doing so has been (largely) eliminated, those structures and systems persist to this day. A recent National Academies report [4] explored this in detail and called for STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine) organizations to actively address these systems.
Learning about these realities leads to some very harsh realizations. Those of us who have identities that are not marginalized have likely benefited from these systems, and also have probably contributed to these systems. For example, I used to advocate for STEM outreach programs that target women and people of color with the goal of “increasing interest” in STEM (which is also a deficit framing), without paying any attention to the realities of STEM that push out and exclude those students. Another example is that I’ve generally been in departments where I had access to mentors who looked like me (cis-female, White-passing), and I haven’t had to go through the thought process of how to communicate or relate to a mentor who didn’t look like me.
Those realizations are uncomfortable. How many students have I hurt by assuming they weren’t actually interested in STEM? How many students did I impact and convince to pursue STEM, only for them to then hit barriers that harmed them and pushed them out? How many students could have excelled in STEM but didn’t have the mentors to support them? How have the standards and expectations we set in STEM denied creativity and de-valued students’ skills and expertise?
Doing EDI work means making peace with the fact that there will be A LOT of uncomfortable realizations, and that is a part of the learning process. I’ve sometimes seen this sentiment framed as “be comfortable with being uncomfortable”, and that’s honestly how I first heard this bit of advice, but I personally prefer the framing of “expect to be uncomfortable”. The idea of “becoming comfortable” doesn’t sit right with me – while it is something that’s an expected and regular part of the work, I don’t like the connotation that it becomes something you’re “okay” with happening. Instead, every instance of discomfort needs to be an alarm bell or a red flag because it means there’s something there that needs to be questioned.
Separating “guilt” and “blame” from “responsibility”
This one might be the most “your mileage may vary” item in this article, but for me, this helped initially as a way to process the discomfort of EDI work. I found that the worst discomfort was over the idea I may have unintentionally caused students harm. I got involved in education research specifically because I wanted to make sure students had better experiences in STEM. How could I have done something so opposed to what I believe in?
For me, one article that helped re-frame my thinking was “White Complicity and Social Justice Education: Can One Be Culpable without Being Liable?” by Barbara Applebaum (2007) [5]. The article’s legalese-like interpretation of culpability and liability appealed to me because of my background in things like high school debate (which itself is probably something to think about, with norms of competitiveness, but that’s a separate article), and it helped me re-frame the blame and shame that I was feeling. Applebaum argued for a distinction between culpability and liability. Because we live in a racialized and biased society, dominant (White) individuals will take actions that reinforce systemic bias without knowing their actions have that impact. However, once they (reasonably) should know something has an impact, only then are they responsible and liable for doing better. So, sometimes when I’m feeling particularly uncomfortable because I realize I have helped to reinforce marginalization – like when I read about how many active learning strategies implicitly support assimilation to Western norms of debate and communication, and many of the curricula I’ve worked on emphasize active learning [6] – I ask myself whether my lived experiences would have shielded me from knowing what I was doing was wrong. Usually, the answer is “yes”, but now that I know, I have a responsibility to do better, e.g., talking with colleagues and rethinking my own approaches.
Expect to question everything
Given what I’ve learned about the ways I’ve been unintentionally complicit, I also consider it a responsibility to do what I can to identify potential blindspots gaps of knowledge (note: I left the strikethrough in because I only realized the ableist language when revising this article [7]). This responsibility can take many forms, such as reading articles or watching webinars to learn from experts, but another form is questioning everything, especially with the help of a consultant or a critical friend [e.g., 8].
For example, when designing curricular activities, I ask questions about whose knowledge is present, and what kinds of skills or knowledge is “valued” for grades. Or when designing a process for reviewing applications, I ask questions about who is able to submit applications (since the process itself can serve as a gatekeeper) and what characteristics are “valued” in the selection process. Some of these questions can get at the very foundations of a project: Who decided the particular issue being addressed is something of value? Who was included in determining this was the “best” approach to take towards addressing that issue? And honestly, sometimes, these are questions I can answer but can’t (directly) affect, but even in those cases, I think it’s important to ask the question and acknowledge the issue.
EDI work is never done
I sometimes joke that I’m attracted to the kind of work where if we were completely successful, that kind of work would no longer exist. If we could fully address EDI concerns, then someday, theoretically, we wouldn’t need to focus on EDI. But unfortunately, that’s sadly not how the world works. I don’t think it’s hopeless – I genuinely think I can make a difference – but we’ll still be doing this kind of work for a long, long time.
So, this means the process of learning (and unlearning) never ends, and we can always do more to identify ways to address systemic biases. And since there’s aspects of the system I have no agency over, I can always work on finding better ways to mitigate those systems and/or finding ways to increase my ability to affect those systems.
And all of these things can be iterated on, especially as the landscape of EDI work in general continues to evolve and change. One of the things I’ve been pushing for on my projects is to do a better job of being transparent about our successes and our failures, especially on issues related to EDI. While everyone’s path is different, sharing that information can provide inspiration and/or identify obstacles to help those who want to pursue their own EDI journeys.
Part of me wonders, and another part worries, what I will think if I revisit this article in a year or three. Will I still think this is a good article for the intended audience, or will I cringe at what I wrote and consider this article to be a “failure” on my EDI journey?
But that’s not an excuse to put off the work – I have a responsibility to do the best I can, and to keep learning so I can do better.
I was supposed to be playing ultimate frisbee with my women’s league team tonight but instead I was sitting on a bench at the playground beside the fields crying my eyes out on the phone to my father. About work. About how I had way too much to do. I was co-teaching my first semester-long course with a colleague at UBC and the pressure to be ready, prepared, on, awesome, two or three mornings a week for my students, was so much. To be awesome for my colleague, who I was supposed to be helping learn about interactive teaching methods. I knew all the things about how to design and teach a really great active learning course and we were transforming it and I was leading that, and I had beautiful plans, beautiful dreams about how to innovate and make the course awesome. And instead I was just a pile of deep sobs and stress, sitting on the bench at the playground, feeling like I couldn’t be ready, I couldn’t push myself to be ready again for tomorrow. And if I managed it one more time, I wouldn’t be able to do it again, and again, and again, and again, through the term.
Have you been there?
I invite you to take a deep breath with me.
<Breathe>
If you want, I invite you also to join me in lighting a candle, and saying a prayer as you blow out the match. That’s what I just did, to start writing this post.
It’s a beautiful thing to want to create an awesome class, an effective and supportive experience for our students, an equitable and inclusive workplace. Yes. And. We so often push ourselves too hard, and/or feel super strong pressure and expectations on us to work too hard, from our academic departments, from society. I think these pressures probably exist in most areas of work, and I think they are especially insidious in sectors that are about helping people, like teaching and equity work. We are here because we want to do awesome things to help our students, and there’s always more that can be done. We can reach out to a few students who haven’t been in class lately. We can create a new interactive activity. We can ask a colleague for feedback on a class session. We can take a workshop on incorporating Indigenous ideas into our curricula. We can brainstorm ways to grade more fairly and equitably. We can give more feedback to students on an assignment. We can read an article (or blog post!) about teaching. We can reflect and write in a teaching journal. We can advocate for more equitable admissions and hiring processes to our departments. And many folks have additional work expectations on top of teaching expectations: advising students, writing grants, doing research, serving on committees. We want to do those things well too.
But there’s too much to do. I’ve been talking with a bunch of physics and astronomy faculty who are doing EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) work through several projects I’m part of (e.g., APS-IDEA), and a very common theme is not having enough time and burnout. With the extra difficult twist that the people who care the most about EDI tend to be the most overcommitted people — they put deep care into all of their work and so are trying to do way too much, and getting exhausted. From myself, and so many friends and colleagues who are academics and educators: everyone is exceedingly busy, and tired. I’ve been there too: the scene I set above at the frisbee field in 2016 was not isolated, and in 2021 I experienced a very difficult period (of work burnout and other things) that included being unable to work for months. When I was considering taking time off to heal, I kept thinking that was “indulgent.” And it’s not just academics of course. I was struck the other day in yoga class when the instructor encouraged us all to let our stress melt into the floor. So very many of us feel stressed.
When we’re exhausted all the time, we don’t have the space to dream. Of beautiful visions of amazing and liberated worlds we want to create together. To create, for the Joy of it. To try something, change our minds, and try something else. To think outside ten boxes. To be deeply courageous. To do surprising things. To sit in silence and beingness and gratitude and even joy for exactly where we are, right now, in its fullness.
The American theologian Thomas Merton wrote,
“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
During that period in 2021, one of the spiritual gifts I received from Beyond was a set of eight spiritual principles for living my life, and one of those is Sacred Rest. It’s not easy, but I’m on a journey of slowly learning how to live it.
Here are some pieces of that journey for me, that I hope might resonate for you too.
Note: I attended a workshop a couple of weeks ago called “Liberating our Time” by Whiteness at Work. Some of the ideas and resources I’m sharing below are drawn from or inspired by that workshop. Thank you, Adaway Group!
Recognizing the capitalist and colonial origins of overwork. There are a diversity of ways of thinking about and relating to time.
In this podcast on Rest as Resistance, Tricia Hersey says, “To not rest is really being violent towards your body, to align yourself with a system that says your body doesn’t belong to you, keep working, you are simply a tool for our production.” Her message is for all of us in capitalist society; she especially focuses on the importance of rest for descendants of enslaved Black people.
So how much “should” we be working? What we in North America are used to as a “typical” 40-hour work-week is of course a human-made construct. (And of course many academics would love to work “only” 40 hours, spending 50, 60, 70+ hours on work per week.) This article describes the origins of the 40-hour work week in the US, which came from collective bargaining and laws to reduce the number of hours for overworked factory laborers.
But the way dominant culture in North America currently thinks about time is not the only way. Different cultures think about time in different ways, throughout the world and history. From the Liberating our Time workshop, I learned about the ideas of “monochronic” and “polychronic” orientations to time. Dominant culture in North America and Northern/Western Europe takes a monochronic orientation to time. There are of course diverse ways of thinking about time within each of these categories, and within any cultural group, but (acknowledging this is a generalization): Many Indigenous, African, Asian, Latin American, and Southern European cultures take polychronic orientations to time.
When I read these lists, I feel like, monochronic feels like what you’re “supposed to do,” what you have to do to be “serious,” while polychronic feels like what my heart and soul want — how my heart and soul already are, but monochronic is something imposed on top. Monochronic feels like an externally constructed system of time, while polychronic feels like listening to ourselves. What do you feel?
Monochronism is connected to capitalism and colonialism in deep ways that I’m just learning about. In monochronism, time is people’s labor, a resource to be extracted from us. Polychronism is depicted as less enlightened, less civilized. Colonial powers imposed and continue to impose monochronism on Indigenous people and societies, using it as a tool of oppression towards the goal of extraction. (My understanding is that even colonial powers that take more of a polychronic time orientation for themselves imposed monochronic time for extraction on the people they colonized and enslaved.)
For settlers as well, individual productivity is held up as an ideal for how to live our lives, and a measure of our worth. This paradigm is not quite so physically forced on us, but rather becomes insidiously part of our own psyches as we absorb it through culture all around us. This is harmful for all of us — we all feel not-good-enough, unable to reach or maintain this “ideal” level of productivity — and is particularly harmful for people whose bodies are unable to work that hard, to be that productive.
“Cripping time” is a way of thinking about time from the disability community. In Cripping Time At Work, Katie Walsh writes that “it is the idea that people simply move, think, and speak at their own pace… understanding that our value as workers—furthermore, as people—is not tied inextricably to our ability to produce on an able-bodied timeline.”
Another idea that resonates for me, inspired by reading about Indigenous ways of relating to time (e.g., Larissa Crawford’s article), is that time and work can be seasonal, moving with Nature. To me it makes sense that we might work differently, different amounts and schedules and types of work, at different points during the year. I feel differently about working in the darker, rainier winter months than I do during the summer. Isn’t there even something liberating to feel it could be totally valid — not subversive or secret — to say, it’s a beautiful sunny day today, I’m going to go for a hike instead of working, and I’ll maybe do some more work another time when it’s raining?This clear night with a beautiful full Moon and low tide would be a great night to stay up late and dance at the beach, which means not starting work early the next morning.
There’s a ton to learn here about colonialism and capitalism and time, and different ways of thinking about time. Just knowing that is a step of liberation for me.
Creating the boundaries we need, and celebrating ourselves for expressing them.
I asked at the workshop: What can I say to faculty who want to do great EDI work but feel they don’t have enough time? Desiree Adaway replied: EDI (and I could add: education) is a long game. If we burn ourselves out, we aren’t going to be able to do the work of transforming towards a more just and equitable society. We need to take care of ourselves while doing EDI work, teaching, etc. The urgency of EDI work is very real, and can feel in tension with this. It’s helpful to name and grapple with that tension.
I’m learning how to figure out what boundaries I need and want around work-time, and how to express them to relevant people around me. And not just boundaries of dire necessity, when things are starting to feel really bad and I’m super exhausted, but long before that. I recognize that I have many deep expectations about how society / colleagues think I should orient to time (whether or not I agree), and fears about both expressing my boundaries — and about not expressing them 🙂 I also recognize that my boundaries flex and evolve, and that’s awesome. I’m trying to high-five myself for saying no to things, and also for saying yes-and to things: there are lots of ways to work together with colleagues to figure out a path that works well timewise for everyone. It can all be more flexible than I realize I’ve been thinking.
Developing and gently but proudly owning my identity of how I orient to time (something two friends recently encouraged me to do) is both scary and empowering.
Healing ourselves and listening to our hearts and bodies.
Sometimes I repeat (or sing!) a mantra like I am Enough. I remind myself of my worth as a whole human being, not just/primarily my work.
Sometimes I touch my heart and ask myself the question, What do my heart and soul and body want for how I work? We are educators: it’s not that we don’t want to work, to teach, to do good things for our students and colleagues and the world. Rather it’s the question, What would that work look like if we could shape it exactly the way that our bodies and our hearts and our souls are calling for?
Since that tearful evening at the frisbee field, I’ve been reorganizing my workday, my work schedule, and my expectations for myself within my constraints, while also working to free myself from those constraints.
For example, I’ve learned that I’m usually most productive in the morning, and that I am happiest and work best when I can look out a big window and gaze at trees and sky. So I plan my “hard” work in the morning, and have found big windows where I can work. Then I need to stretch and move my body, so I often have a short walk. I plan my meetings in the afternoons when I can. I have different types of work that I do, e.g., more creative, more analytical, more individual, more social, some for my own joy (like writing this!) and some for others. During the day and week, I try to feel what kind of work I’m in the mood for and move back and forth between those, while getting done what “needs” to get done when it “needs” to. These are often affected by how well I slept the night before, and I try to take a gentler schedule if I don’t sleep well, where I can. When I transition between blocks of work in a day, I often pause a moment for some deep grounding breaths and a short prayer.
I try to have gratitude for and acknowledge the great privileges that help me be able to take these kinds of steps for myself right now. Even just in small ways, I try to help others to have more freedom and rest, too, and aspire to do that more. This is part of acting collectively (more in #4).
I’m putting all of this after #2 because I’ve found we often need to put in boundaries first, to create the space to be able to breathe and heal.
Acting collectively.
This is about societal transformation, not just about individual changes. We are not at all alone in experiencing time challenges. Talking about it normalizes that struggle. When we express boundaries and choose self-care, that’s inspiring to everyone to see, helps others feel stronger to do the same. Larissa Crawford (and others) call for decolonizing time.
As we ask others to honor our self-care, our heart-led timelines, it’s an invitation for us to honor others’ self-care and timelines as well. What could it look like to do that for our colleagues? How do I do this well in some contexts, and what resistance comes up in me in other contexts?
What could it look like to truly honor our students’ own timelines? (The Covid-19 pandemic gave us some glimpses of this.) To decolonize time in our classrooms, in our education system? I think it involves more flexibility, more compassion, and less power-hierarchy between students and teachers — and is ultimately a pretty radical transformation. Decolonization efforts should of course be led by Indigenous folks.
Experiencing joy, reflecting, and dreaming.
This is about relishing and taking great joy in my work when I have the right energy for it, and it is the right time for me to do it! I can deeply love what I get to do in my work, and that’s amazing. Watching more of that joyful work-energy flow for me when I am taking enough rest.
This is about dreaming about amazing worlds we could create, self-reflecting, and listening to others. For me as a white person wanting to do EDI work, I need to take space to really be introspective about places where I might be contributing to or profiting from white supremacy and other systems of marginalization, feeling defensive, and working with those feelings… because they are difficult and it’s hard to look at them. If we’re exhausted all the time, then we’re not going to be able to do that well. Trying to take time to educate myself, listen to people of color and other marginalized communities, engage in sensemaking, understand nuance. Dreaming myself, listening to others’ dreaming, and dreaming together.
Overlapping, not separately: This is also about enjoying the time and space that I’m setting out to preserve for myself. Dancing, meditating, praying, sitting in stillness, having an unhurried conversation with a friend, watching something silly on Netflix, cooking a nice meal, taking a long bike ride.
Remembering that it’s not just about moving away from harmful conceptions of time, but moving towards more beautiful soulful ones.
I wish you well on your journey.
“Exuberant is existence, time a husk. When the moment cracks open, ecstasy leaps out and devours space; love goes mad with the blessings… Be kind to yourself, dear.”
Rumi
I acknowledge that I live and this writing took place on the unceded, ancestral, traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, also known as Vancouver, Canada. I identify as a white-European cis-woman settler, immigrant to Canada, child of immigrants to the United States. My identity, history, experiences, and place all shape my lens on what I’ve shared here.
How do you think about time, work and rest?
I’d be grateful for any thoughts and feedback you’d like to share with me on this piece. Thank you so much for reading.
