Reimagining a Feminist Virtual Classroom Amidst a Global Pandemic
This blog post originally appeared on The Feminist Review blog.
The author has also published a piece entitled ‘Speaking up in the Age of #MeToo and Persistent Patriarchy or what Can we Learn from an Elevator Incident about Anti-Feminist Backlash’ in Feminist Review journal.
BY SIMONA SHARONI
As colleges announced the transition to virtual teaching, academics around the world have utilised social media to share questions, tips and resources, as we all scramble to move our classrooms online. It’s been truly moving to witness the generosity of colleagues. The experience has been unlike what one encounters in typical academic settings: no pretense or posturing, no visible hierarchies nor demand for credit or citations. Instead, there has been a strong sense of solidarity—of smart and resourceful people making sense of this crisis together, trying to support one another and be there for our students. Still, most of the discussions so far have been about modalities of instruction, and course content and design. What’s been missing for me is attention to pedagogy with a capital P, that is, a focus not only on the content but also on the process of creating and sharing knowledge.
Critical pedagogy in general and feminist pedagogy in particular have been my lifeline over the past four decades, since I entered higher education as an undergraduate student. There is a rich body of literature on these topics—too long to be cited here. In my view, this is not the time to dwell on theory. Even when a global pandemic is not looming, for me feminist pedagogy has always been about praxis—a mode of engagement, a coping strategy with the alienation and frustration that faculty and students experience within the neo-liberal academy. It is not a coincidence that students in women’s, gender and sexuality studies, and in other courses informed by critical and/or feminist pedagogy, often note that their experience in our classrooms is dramatically different than in most other classes. For these students and faculty, the loss of space for face-to-face engagement can be especially challenging. Perhaps there is a way to transfer some of the principles of feminist pedagogy to carve out a brave virtual space where we can survive, even thrive, during this precarious time.
There are a few key principles of feminist pedagogy that have guided my teaching over the years; these are not separate but interwoven:
Transforming the relationship between faculty and students
Nurturing community in the classroom
Engaging critically, yet lovingly, with issues of power and privilege
Making space for students to view the personal as political and the political as personal
Situating learning in context: bringing the world into the classroom and the classroom into the world.
Although feminist pedagogy emerged in the context of face-to-face conversations and as a critique of conventional methods of teaching and learning, I have tried to use the principles listed above in my online classes, though not in times of crisis. Still, since we already have to do the work involved with revising our syllabi and transitioning to virtual modes of instruction perhaps instead of lamenting the loss of what we created with our students through face-to-face engagement in the feminist classroom, we can reimagine the virtual feminist classroom.
Here’s how I plan to try and do that in my courses:
1. Transforming the relationship between faculty and students
Power is present in every classroom, including the feminist classroom, because we are paid to design the course, choose the readings, the assignments, the deadlines and ultimately to grade our students. The virtual classroom, especially when designed in response to a crisis, can be an opportunity to share power. Here are some strategies I am considering:
Invite students to be involved in generating questions and contributing readings
Revise the syllabus and giving students choice in the type of assignment they complete
Ask students to provide feedback on the new modality of instruction on a regular basis
Relax deadlines
Invite students to self-evaluate their learning amidst crisis and what grade they deserve, and take that into account when calculating their final grade
Make all of the above explicit in a note to students, explaining that these changes in how the course is taught are designed to accommodate them.
2. Nurturing community in the classroom
Let students know that I care about them beyond their performance in the particular course
Practice vulnerability: communicate regularly, honestly and authentically with students
Invite students to share how they FEEL not only what they THINK on a regular basis
Be gentle and supportive of all students but pay particular attention to students from marginalised groups and/or with special needs. Invite all students who need additional support to contact me. Remind them of my availability every time we communicate.
Relax the attendance policy but contact students who don’t participate and disappear, not to chastise them but to express care and check if there is anything I can do to help.
3. Engaging critically, yet lovingly, with issues of power and privilege
Include readings about intersecting systems of oppression and how they shape our identities and relationships
Create (with students’ input) guidelines for how to address problematic (i.e. racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic) posts in discussion forums without losing the sense of community. Note to self: this requires a separate article!
Model to students how to interrupt bigotry in discussion posts as well as in response to written work submitted to me; make explicit that students will not be penalised for an opinion but instead given an opportunity to reflect on how they expressed it and its impact on others.
4. Making space for students to view the personal as political and the political as personal
Provide students with readings and other resources designed to situate what we are experiencing as individuals in a broader sociopolitical and economic context
Help students connect personal with collective/political experience: invite students to compare and contrast how we and others experience the crisis; include student observations and analysis of how their family and community are coping, and use the class to generate more ideas to support students, families and communities
Raise critical questions that would allow students to identify key social and political problems underlying the crisis and the responses
5. Situating learning in context: bringing the world into the classroom and the classroom into the world
Include a module on feminist perspectives on the global pandemic
Encourage students to keep up with the gendered (and other intersectional) aspects of the global pandemic. Students in all my classes keep a current events journal. This is an assignment that could be added as extra credit or to replace an existing assignment
Highlight case studies from the past and present of how people transcend their personal anxiety and to mobilise to support their community
Open the virtual classroom to guests—ordinary citizens who are confined to their homes and may benefit from and contribute to the learning community.
The ideas shared here are designed to infuse feminist insights into ongoing conversations taking place among faculty everywhere. In all honesty, it is possible that this article is merely a result of my way of coping with the uncertainty by trying to be useful and sharing my experience and skills. Still, I think that feminist pedagogy allows us to turn our vulnerabilities into strengths and this crisis into an opportunity by reimagining virtual classrooms as communities, designed intentionally not only to end a semester while surviving a crisis but to also make the world a better place!
About
Simona Sharoni is Professor, Women’s & Gender Studies and director of the Interdisciplinary Institute at Merrimack College.