this is How i structure my classes now: students becoming ancestors;
i offer you a writing experience of [Understanding A Problem Deeply], then of [Responding To It];
i ask you then use that experience to speak to the next generation of students, through the syllabus: that is to say, my students, as ancestors, contribute to the next syllabus together, by critiquing what came before & improving what will go after.
usually, during my regular semestersd, part of the course requirements is that each student write a Course Description in which you invite the next generation of students into the course you’ve prepared. its form comes from the Gettysburg Address, which is itself short, persuasive, a calling on ancestors, but also delivered by an unrepentant, self-proclaimed white supremacist, in which “of the people, by the people, for the people” didn’t include ALL the people; — so, you know, it’s an imperfect vessel, lots of room to grow. it’s a broken message of good hope, one we need to wrestle with & be always in dynamic tension with, since that is what Transformation always will be.
so i’m asking a lot of my students, in [vulnerability & courage & wrestle-thinking] in each class. & it’s a beautiful thing to see: you all will have been taking heartCare of each other over time, through the semesters, reflecting on your experiences as writers & thinkers in academia, challenging old assumptions, uncomfortably then wisely trusting in your own agency, & teaching those who follow you an imperfect, hopeful way forward.
together, generations of students & i have challenged everything we can think of about how academia works: about embedded assumptions of [who is centered] in each class setting; about whose language & whose voices are — & OUGHT to be — heard; about how inherently punitive this whole system is — we look around & we see punishment everywhere, present even in recording tardies & turning in work by a given deadline.
but you know how in Monster’s, Inc. they make way more energy from laughter than from screams, but they could run on the screams awhile — until they couldn’t? in the same way, we look at what it means to have agency in our writing, & we learn to critique a system that has run on screams awhile, until one day it won’t be able to. we are in search of joyful energy as we pursue new kinds of knowledge. we are in search of running the system on laughter instead.