Sub-Category
Student interactions
Planted on:
Apr 28, 2024 5:04 PM
Last tended:
May 5, 2024 11:46 PM
Garden Sprouts
To practice kindness as a pedagogy includes two things: believe students and believe IN them. Believing in people means counting them as collaborators. With students, this means collaborating with them on syllabi, assignments, due dates, etc. We can co-write assignments and syllabi with students to give them a sense of ownership. Trust primes the brain; fears prevents the brain from learning.The norm is to expect students to be constantly trying to “get one over on us”. Like we have to be constantly watching out for them to lie, cheat, plagiarize, challenge grades, and generally not do the work.With the norm of mistrust, we are encouraged to be hard on our students, scare them, set strict standards, etc. They don’t deserve an inch because they are always trying to take a mile.The syllabus is often a place where the presence or absence of trust is visible. Is it written from a position of absolute authority? Does it allow for human realities? Does it offer choices, flexibility, etc? We have to build trust with students.
Category
Teaching