stuff is messed up; empathy and pedagogy
As we briefly mentioned in the conclusion to Anarchist Pedagogies, I wanted to talk about empathy and pedagogy in the class room setting. With the current state of the world, students are facing an unprecedented amount of pressures coming from the shortcomings and failures of previous generations and societies.
The pressure is ever more monumental now, as students in America deal not only with a world that more often than not fails to recognize and empathize with their ideas and thoughts, shunning them as too young to understand anything;
what’s going on with their bodies,
what’s going on with their governments,
what’s going on with the world,
what’s going on with the environment.
As the times have become more divisive than ever, the students of this generation are left picking up the pieces.
This is more than evident when you look at the current protests and encampments set up by the students at UCLA, Yale, and Columbia University, as well as many other campuses across the world. Where tensions have grown and state violence has entered protests, fascist forces crack down on the ideals our nation previously purveyed such as free speech, right to protest, and right to demonstration. News media twists the narrative to attack the young activists as racist, hateful anarchists. Both counter-protesters and government military police attempt to beat the young and bright futures into submission.
This is not new. What we’re seeing here is not the first time we’ve seen protest, as our country has a long history with organized demonstration. We have witnessed many changes over the course of history, and it’s not much of a stretch to say that throughout those times, the young generation and student movements have historically often found themselves on the side we now view as correct.
This is no different with Gaza.
Palestinians are currently suffering a genocidal apartheid regime by the hands of the Israeli military state, of course through the investment and funding provided by American taxpayers and private institutions. The US geopolitical interests side with Israel and support this genocide due to our relationship with Israel being that of an American puppet. Without Israel, the US believes it would need an Israel within the Middle East, America continues to fund them to keep a diplomatic pressure and presence within the region.
The issues going on with Palestine is essentially the litmus test, it is the fundamental baseline for empathy and understanding, a mandate of humanity. The lens of history points sharply at this moment, in the words of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”
So in a moment such as this, how and what do you do to teach and prepare the students in this position? How do you accommodate the many different students mental states, personal struggles, and learning styles while simultaneously making forward progress in the classroom?
Mixed with the 2000s era imagery and video editing, the offspring speak to the struggle of the people growing up in modern day America in their song “The Kids Aren’t Alright”, especially coming from the abject poverty and hostile environments on the developing mind. This particularly speaks to me, as this is no different from my hometown and the downfall of the post-industrial Appalachian region, many of the friends I had and grown up with in high school suffered the same fates and circumstances as those within the song by The Offspring:
“When we were young, the future was so bright
The old neighborhood was so alive
And every kid on the whole damn street
Was gonna make it big and not be beat
Now the neighborhood’s cracked and torn
The kids are grown up, but their lives are worn
How can one little street swallow so many lives?
Jamie had a chance, well, she really did
Instead she dropped out and had a couple of kids
Mark still lives at home ‘cause he’s got no job
He just plays guitar and smokes a lot of pot
Jay committed suicide
Brandon OD’d and died
What the hell is going on?
The cruelest dream, reality
Chances thrown
Nothing’s free
Longing for, used to be
Still it’s hard, hard to see
Fragile lives
Shattered dreams.”
For people that come from this region, getting away and pursuing higher education, or escaping the abject poverty and conditions of the area alone is an accomplishment when there are little to no support systems to rehabilitate the crushing effects of those born into families affected by drugs, abuse, and neglect. The cycle consumes the next generation, conditions them in a culture unwilling to change, leaving the area stuck in the past.
When I travel back into this past, I feel as if an outsider looking in, a mixed and complicated layer of feelings falls over me. This is part of my story, which is of course only a drop in the bucket of the many various struggles and conditions experienced across America as a whole. I can’t bring this up in good conscience without recognizing my own privileges even within this region, as I have had more safety nets available to me than most in the area. I cannot even begin to imagine the struggles and increased difficulty introduced when we implement factors such as marginalization and oppression.
All this creates an even more prevalent need for understanding and mutual recognition within the classroom. As the protests rev up across the states, professors find themselves in the middle of a conflict that not only affects their classroom enviroment, but their personal lives as well. Support(or lack of support) for the situation could create a target on your back, be it from the student body of protestors or the administration.
Yet still we see many professors out on the lawns within the encampments, putting their bodies and livelihoods on the line for the sake of their students as well as their cause. On top of these, we’ve seen professors dedicated to continuing the act of learning and education within this struggle, holding open classrooms in the encampment and welcoming even other students to join. Easily it can be understood that to be a professor in this time provides an invaluable learning opportunity to students on what it means to be an activist and how to operate within that environment.
Students are in constant crises.
The mental health of students has never been at an all time low such as now, in fact we’ve seen unprecedented rises in stress, anxiety, and depression within the student base. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Poor Mental Health and How it Impacts Adolescent Well Being, we’ve seen more than 4 in 10 (42%) students that felt persistently sad or hopeless and nearly one-third (29%) experienced poor mental health. This includes more than 1 in 5 (22%) students seriously considering attempting suicide, and 1 in 10(10%) going through with their attempts. (CDC, Youth Risk Surveillance Data Summary, 2011-2021)
Because of this, students are spending signifigantly less time on their studies and instead dealing with a plethora of world problems weighing them down. Is it the responsibility of the classroom facilitator within this environment to foster a relationship built around understanding these mental and and emotional needs, and adjusting accordingly?
I believe this is essential in the modern style of teaching. Approaches such as ungrading provide more breathing room in the classroom, emphasizing personal growth in a pass/ fail system. On top of this, the role of the teacher(in my eyes) is much better suited as a guiding post, aiding in the personal growth of each individual and providing guidance to each according to their individual need in the classroom.
When noticing other approaches to professorship, often I hear that becoming “too close” to your students and not “maintaining boundaries” can lead to a lack of respect and acknowledgement in a class setting. I find myself heavily disagreeing with this, as I view the classroom as a collaboration between the “student” and the “teacher” rather than a strict hierarchy of the “expert” who’s authority within that classroom is absolute.
The problem with this style of education is that not every student within the classroom is capable of learning at the same pace, and some may not even be interested in learning the same style or approach to the topic. How do you engage a student within work they don’t enjoy or want to pursue, when there are other options in the same career field that could be applied in this situation?
Is it not better to engage the classroom as a community, in the pursuit of nurturing and learning together, as well as gaining mutual ground in the understanding of the chosen field in which we all dedicate our education to?
“Any gardener who should attempt to raise healthy, beautiful, and fruitful plants by outraging all those plants’ instinctive wants and searchings, would meet as their reward - sickly plants, ugly plants, sterile plants, dead plants.
The gardener will not do it; they will watch very carefully to see whether the plants like much sunlight, or considerable shade, whether they thrive on much water or get drowned in it... the plant will indicate itself to the gardener when he is doing the right thing...
If the gardener finds the plant revolts against these expirements, the gardener will desist at once, and try something else; if the gardener finds it thrives, the gardener will emphasize the initial treatment so long as it becomes beneficial.
But what the gardener will surely not do, will be to prepare a certain area of the ground all just alike, with equal chances of sun and moisture in every part, and then plant everything together without discrimination - might close together! - saying beforehand,
“If plants don’t want to thrive on this, they ought to want to; and if they are stubborn about it, they must be made to.””
Closing Thoughts
So, when we’ve managed to deconstruct the authority and hierarchy inherent in the current educational system, what are we left with? As we’ve learned to rely on hierarchy and authority, we’ve also created an environment that infantilizes the youth in the school system. We view students as undeveloped and unprepared to tackle the real world problems and complicated topics of theory.
Yet I believe this perspective is misguided, especially when looking at the context of the modern movements. The students in the recent protests, for example, are by any and all means extremely intelligent both in their approach and setup of the encampments. They are building incredibly well engineered barricade and feeding systems, and ensuring a strong message and declaration of the movement carries through the noise in the mass media.
They carefully pick and choose who speaks to reporters, strategically planning their action and level of protest to stay within non-violent means and avoid negative media coverage. (which comes either way in the end, however remaining true to their goals and approach avoids losing the support of the general population.) What I find to be true instead is not a narrative based on a students readiness for complex topics and academic critical thinking based upon their age and experience; but instead one of the structures of the education system actively stunting this thinking in the attempt to push a more centralized and picked-through education.
The lack of autonomy in the modern students and generation is based around an approach that emphasized authorities values and a demand for respect. There is no trust placed in the hands of the student in this case, introducing grading systems and other forms of assignment to provide a “quota” and ensure the student is staying educated.
Ivan Ilych, a pronounced Austrian philosopher, created a pedagogical philosophy known as “Deschooling” or “Unschooling,” which is commonly associated with homeschooling and phasing a child out of the government educational system. The philosophy revolves around increased levels of trust and emotional investment in each individual student, allowing them to form their own self-autonomy. The relationship and hierarchy has always been seen as authoritarian, but through analysis and application of anarchist pedagogy as well as Deschooling philosophy, might it be possible to foster a more communicative relationship with the students we encounter within our careers, leaving a caring mark on them like we would on our own children?
Matthew Hern in a 1998 published book “Deschooling Our Lives” says this about the process of education;
“...(deschooling) is about relationships, and is the antithesis of professionalism. Genuine relationships are exactly what teachers are looking to avoid. It is what they call “unprofessional.” But if adults are willing to take the time to get to know the kids they are around really well, to spend large amounts of time with their children, to listen carefully to the needs and wants, and to understand what they are capable of, then trust can’t be far behind.”
In cases such as the anarchist free school Paideia in Spain, this leads to self-governing and autonomous children aged from 5 to 16 capable of making choices for themselves.
The children within the school clean, create the food menus, order and cook the meals every day, participate in workshops of educational topics that are voted on in “asambleas” (assemblies called by the students), and when they leave and enter the government education system (since the school is not recognized as a real education, the students must leave at 16 or 17 and spend the last year in public school, taking a test to prove profeciency) they often score well over average within the schooling system.
This is of course, with little to absolutely no “adult” intervention, instead the teachers in this case help guide students who are struggling within the system and prepare workshop plans. This isn’t to say that there will never be a bump in the road when adapting to and approaching this alternative system of education, let alone the discussion on how we even advocate for the transition to this system.
Where are the limits of what I can do while working in the state education system on the university level?
What actions can I take to begin fostering this environment with my would be future students?
These are questions I look forward to searching for the answers for as I dive more into my own pedagogical process.
That being said, I truly believe that the implementation of strategies can lead to a better and brighter future, where students actively participate in academia and are taken seriously. Alternatives to the educational system seem to be rising in popularity as students become more conscientious of the worlds issues and the struggles of the modern working class within a government such as America.
Once we realize just how badly stuff is messed up, we can begin to tackle the problems and create a better world. For now, the importance is making sure that todays students can make it to that world in one piece; that they are not crushed educationally, mentally, and physically along the way.
