Good afternoon Care & Equity Crew,
This is our final week with the Care and Equity module, particularly topic #2. I will link back to the previous week’s dispatch for the suggested structure for engaging in topic #2.
This week, I’m thinking a lot about the role of boundaries in our care. In “A Pedagogy of Kindness,” Denial puts out a call for faculty to leave behind the mask of the authoritative/ suspicious teacher, and to instead embrace an approach that is kind and trusting. This article has been core reading for Design Forward since its infancy, and the CoLab has been using Denial’s language around a pedagogy of kindness for years before DF was even a twinkle in Martha’s eye. However, I think it’s time that we have this conversation with more nuance, particularly with an eye toward the realities of caring in a careLESS culture. Denial writes:
“And when we are urged to be kind within an educational setting, it’s too often to make up for a lack of institutional support for students and faculty in need, asking a particular service of women and non-binary individuals of all races, and men of color. Kindness can be a band aid we’re urged to plaster over deep fissures in our institutions, wielded as a weapon instead of as a balm.”
It’s a short part of the piece and I wish it was longer. Not only do I wish it was longer, but I also wish that Denial included some advice for resisting the institutional advantage-taking of those who are willing to care for students.
Care without personal boundaries can quickly become self-destructive; this is something that I’ve struggled with in my own teaching and that has come to light in a big way upon getting my recent OCD diagnosis. I had to learn that just because I noticed that a student had a need, it didn’t mean that I needed to fill that need (or, rather, agonize when I couldn’t fulfill that need). For example, when a student was noticeably struggling in my class and not taking advantage of all the support methods that have been communicated to them, I actively blamed myself. If a student didn’t turn in a single piece of work over the whole semester despite my emails reaching out, their failure felt like my failure. The institutional expectation to retain every student possible through herculean efforts of care breeds an environment of blame and guilt. I was drowning in that environment.
Care without boundaries is self-destructive. Care that is motivated by guilt, shame, or expectation is life-draining. Care with boundaries that is freely and joyfully given is sustaining.
Kim and I had a little mini conversation about what is needed to create a healthy culture of care (especially in a careLESS society), and I was inspired to create a new question that I’d love to direct everyone’s attention to this week: What are some personal and professional boundaries you’ve enacted in your care of students that have allowed you to approach care healthily? Especially as someone trying to be more mindful of and adopt personal and professional boundaries in my care of students, I want to know the concrete techniques that my colleagues utilize!
Have a great week, folks! Stay cool out there!