Collective Space

It is important that our spaces provide physical security, and at the same time we recognize the transformative capacity of place and space.  Place and space can nurture a sense of belonging, it can cultivate healing, and it can inspire vulnerability, growth, community, and solidarity.   Our students need settings as such, and we as educators can create and hold collective space/place realizing it is an ongoing process that we must re-examine and act upon throughout the year.  

A collective space requires all participants to take part in the process of knowledge construction and production.  Teachers, through a constructivist approach, hold a space for students to become critical co-investigators in dialogue as they are posed with problems and historical situations relating to their world and the world around them.  

Will your students be able to participate in knowledge construction and take risks?  Will they be “shot down” or ridiculed by other students, or even by the teacher, for sharing their thoughts?  How will all participants handle it when one individual personally insults or belittles another?  Will the students be respected and honored as thoughtful participants in a community of learners?

Because Ethnic Studies requires teachers to introduce issues that have contextual relevance and importance, we realize that it could sometimes lead to highly-charged, differing, and even opposing viewpoints. Ethnic Studies teachers have both the courage to raise these issues and the wisdom and skill to manage them. Some educators are concerned about raising controversial issues, afraid that a class discussion on such issues might be upsetting, get out of hand, be unmanageable, and cause hostility between students. This does not have to be the case. Learning to voice your own thinking on an issue and listening to those you disagree with is a cornerstone of a well-functioning community (and democracy). When students are able to have a conversation that involves communicating their own views and listening to diverse viewpoints, their thinking is both enlarged and enriched.  

Equally important, it is critical to be extremely mindful of the impact that diverse viewpoints can have on those that have been most impacted by traumatic experiences.  In today’s study of epigenetics, we are reminded that trauma is passed on from generation to generation, and the impacts of colonialism and enslavement show up in the lived experiences, material conditions, and histories of our students. Take care of your students in these spaces, especially those who have been forced to grow up in the margins.  Remember that diverse viewpoints do not give individuals permission to be racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, masogynistic, exploitative, etc.  

We wish you the best in co-building and holding collective space, and we hope that the following lessons will set the tone for your year and launch mutual understandings of respect and solidarity, community norms, and collective accountability.