There have been so many thoughts swimming around in my head in preparation for writing my first blog post here. I’ve been wrestling with positionality for a couple of years as a white, female body in a profession dominated by others who look like me. While the link above refers to the term positionality as “how differences in social position and power shape identities and access in society,” another very real aspect of positionality is how I am perceived by others because of my identities, and in light of others’ positionalities.
In addition to thinking about my presence and the effect it has on others in my classroom, I also think about my practices, how they are formed, and who benefits or is harmed by them.
One of my passions within the field of education is teaching (and presenting to other teachers) around critical thinking. I find myself changing as a human through the questions I wrestle with, and so my blog submission here is centered on questions we should be asking ourselves, and my meandering thoughts about each of them. For me, asking questions leads to asking more questions–until eventually I get to the questions that really need to be asked. I hope you’ll join in and add some questions of your own.
Presence in the Room
How often do we consider the power dynamics at play in our daily interactions? Even as we grow collective consciousness around positionality, power dynamics don’t yet get enough attention in many educational spaces. Partially, this is a product of our system–a Frierian concept of learning, where teachers and other adults subscribe to the hierarchical system of being the authority in the room. The other part is the pace: juggling academics, meetings, parent phone calls, dealing with social and emotional issues with students, sick kids, etc. etc. It wouldn’t be too much of a hyperbole to say that I move a hundred miles a minute some days. And yet, that autopilot allows us to ignore the perpetuation of “power over” within our spaces.
As I think about days I’ve felt most successful at my job, I’m aware that those are the days that are most dialogic with my students, the times I’ve paused the “hectic” and made adequate space for critical, student-led conversations–for all of us to be human together. Autopilot is responsible for so much of our bias creeping out from the recesses of our brains and into our practices–and ultimately, part of our bias reflects our upbringing and experiences we had as students in the classroom, including management, and teacher/student roles and relationships. I wonder what this looks like in other areas of education and in other professions entirely? How are others aware of power dynamics? How do you counter hierarchical power imbalances within your spaces?
What do students perceive / What do I want my students to see?
A few years ago, my principal asked us to give descriptors of our best teachers–what made them people we still remember today? We were also asked to describe what qualities stood out in those who were our least favorite. Teachers who were caring toward students, took time to listen, pushed students to do their best, were a consistent positive presence, and showed compassion to their students stood out as memorable. Those who just taught their content, didn’t seem to care, were sarcastic, had “favorites” or didn’t really know the students personally stood out in the opposite way–it was clear that teaching was just a job for them. First of all, I love this activity as a way to reflect on how I show up every day. Am I memorable? Have I created an environment within my classroom that I would want others to remember in positive ways? Would I as a student have remembered me as an educator? I think about what my students perceive about me, as a teacher as well as a white, middle-aged female. How do they experience my presence in the room, and what are their perceptions about how I create learning spaces for them. While I do get feedback from students and families pretty regularly, I reflect on how students’ perceptions likely vary according to their identities within my space.
Last fall I listened to a newer podcast on leadership called Disrupting Our Practice, specifically an episode that focused on positionality. It completely changed my perspective on how I’m perceived in professional spaces (I highly recommend a listen). I wonder if others wrestle with how they are perceived in their professional spaces. Does stopping to reflect on perceptions and positionality cause us to reconsider practices or change how we operate?
These discussions are happening in every field right now, and I’m curious to see specifically how it might shift educational practices in the next decade. What shifts have you noticed in your settings, and what do see as outcomes of disrupting the educational status quo?
If I’d thought of a TMV bingo board ahead of time, I’d be able to cross off “Freire” right now.
Something I think about a lot is the way we devalue teaching in many ways, yet we also lionize it. Many great college students don’t consider becoming teachers because — since they’re great college students — they have other valuable career options. In the higher ed world, most of us are conditioned in graduate school to value research-y positions and to be a bit disappointed if we end up in teaching-y positions.
And yet we also lionize teaching, we say it’s a “calling” or that you wouldn’t want to have a teacher who’s in it for the money. Your examples of the best, most memorable teachers were almost certainly undervalued and you juxtapose them against those for whom “teaching was just a job.”
There’s got to be a better way to make teaching a valued, lucrative, rewarding career, but not some kind of lottery ticket that would attract only those in it for the money.
So back to your question, you ask what shifts we’ve noticed in our settings: I do feel like I see more of the martyr-types reconsidering whether they can continue to go above and beyond all the time. We see burnout everywhere. We hear talk of “self care,” and we also hear the 2nd and 3rd order reactions to those conversations. Is “self care” selfish? Is it actually the most important thing you can do? Is it something in between?
Is, as is usually the case, capitalism really the problem with all of this?
Ugh
Re-reading my comment, I didn’t connect at all with the important topic of positionality. I’m going to stew on this a bit more.
Scott, I’m sitting with your comments about jobs vs. callings. This morning I saw a quote by Simon Sinek: “When we tell people to do their jobs, we get workers. When we trust people to get the job done, we get leaders.” And I realized that in this case semantics and connotation matter, and (somewhat related to the post) that connotation specifically matters in regard to positionality… For me, from my place of privilege, I would never want to just “have a job” because to me that term is void of meaning; for others, having a job is monumental. I need to spend some more time with this idea relating to my positionality.