Being part of this experiment has not been easy. In taking responsibility for our own learning and each other’s, we’ve set ourselves a substantial challenge. If you’ve been lucky, you’ve had teachers who have changed the course of your life, as many teachers have changed mine; people who recognized your potential, who believed in your capabilities before you did and who found a way to elicit from you the best of what you had to offer. That’s what we’ve committed to doing for each other this semester. And in many ways, we’ve succeeded. I don’t think we’ve had any trouble recognizing the value in each other, and that’s what has allowed us to cultivate a singular sense of community.
I do think it’s fair to say that it’s been more difficult trying to figure out how best to channel what we as a group have to offer, which I believe is a lot. How would we organize ourselves, make decisions and spend our time now that it was all up to us? I would be surprised if I were alone in thinking that these aspects of the course have been the most frustrating to work through, but I understand that they were always bound to be the central challenges. I think that at times we’ve been hampered by several false dichotomies: between content and process; structure and innovation/community/the radical; and between efficiency and circumspection.
As a group, it’s clear we have some diverging opinions about the ideal ratio between content and process. We’ve fielded, but, in my opinion, not sufficiently addressed the question of how the class can incorporate both. It seems like we often end up sacrificing content for process. It’s understandable. There’s so much to do, so many decisions to make—it’s easy for us to fill up the short time we have each week with the minutiae of process. It was the opportunity to build a new process—a new way of learning and teaching—that drew me to the course in the first place. But I do think we need to carve out space for content, too, for the practical reason that few of us have ever engaged in radical pedagogy before, and would benefit from reading about and discussing how it’s been done before, what it can accomplish and why it’s necessary. We have thus far been averse to assigning readings, which I know Sean talked about in his reflection. I agree with him that we can make reading communal. And we should try, if we want to learn anything beyond what we can teach each other, and so that we don’t get stuck in an echo chamber of our own ideas.
I think the reason we’ve avoided assigning readings has had to do with our reluctance to follow more ‘traditional’ modes of learning and teaching, which makes sense given that we’re trying to build a new model. But I do think we’ve erected, to some extent, a false dichotomy between structure and innovation, community and ‘the radical’. The argument has been that learning should not involve the coercion of the ‘canon’ (‘this is worth reading, that isn’t’) or the threat of what happens when you don’t fulfill certain requirements. We’ve also talked about the benefits of spontaneous learning, or learning outside the traditional bounds of disciplines and institutions. I think these ideas are worthwhile, and I also believe we can embrace them without doing away with structure completely. In many ways, I believe structure facilitates innovation, community, and radical learning, all the things we value. For example, having set readings each week allows us to be communal in our reading. When we’ve all read one text (as a class, or within smaller groups) reading becomes communal through the discussions we are then empowered to have together. The consideration of new ideas becomes the fuel for innovation. Choosing radical texts by definition sets us outwith the normal boundaries of ‘traditional’ pedagogy. What communal reading gives us is a common jumping-off point, a half an hour to an hour of group discussion, time set aside for us to think through what we’ve read together. Suggesting readings and carving out time for meaningful discussion is a way for us to fuel the rest of our process, and is just another way for us to learn together.
One of our major limitations in this class has been time. We have two hours a week to accomplish everything we want to do. One of the challenges we faced this past semester was how best to use our time. We recognized early on that building a course from the ground-up was extremely labor- and time-intensive and many people have generously devoted time outside our scheduled class to making this course work. Time is obviously precious, not least because taking time is crucial for making sure we are being circumspect and engaging in thoughtful deliberation. But circumspection and efficiency are not inherently imposed. There were instances this semester I felt we misused our time. I know not everyone agrees. I understand the importance of deliberation, and of working out the details. But I don’t think these things are counterposed to being efficient by prioritizing what’s important. For example, we spent a lot of time working out our weekly agenda—sometimes up to twenty minutes or more. This was frustrating because we were spending a disproportionate amount of time planning to talk rather than just talking. This goes back to my discussion of content vs. process. Circumspection / Process is not incompatible with Efficiency / Content. They can exist side-by-side and working out that balance has been and will continue to be an interesting challenge.
That I’ve chosen to reflect on what’s been challenging this semester is far from an indictment of our class. From the start I expected experimentation, trial and error and certainly failure to be part of this course and the elements that ultimately make it interesting, challenging and worthwhile. Being part of this course has certainly entailed frustrations and numerous returns to the drawing board, but it’s been worth it to be active rather than passive, to engage rather than just absorb and to put ourselves out there to try and build something together.
This was a very insightful reflection for me to read, as it was quite different from the angle I reflected from. Your choice to focus on what we can improve is an important aspect to what it means to move forward in a process. Interestingly, your focus on the dichotomy between process and content works as a bridging between the two, as you suggest ways of rectifying what you would have liked to see differently in terms of readings for example. The sentence ‘I don’t think we’ve had any trouble recognizing the value in each other’ is so beautiful, and really struck me as I read your reflection. Especially as you link this with community, which I reflected on myself, but did not connect with your observation. Perhaps this is the real thing we have achieved this semester? Having a real community that we can pick apart and analysis as we leave, providing fuel for all the content we will create outside of academia in the months and years to come?
Reading about the dichotomies you identified in the course in some ways changed my perception of our past semester, as I have not felt the same frustrations around these. Especially the dichotomy between content and process. I’d be interested in hearing more about your experience of this – can they be bridged? should they be brigded? and how do we really divide them?
I hope you have enjoyed this past semester in the midst of the frustration and reflection. I am glad I got to see this perspective of the course, and hope to incorporate some of your thoughts in how we proceed in the permaculture group this semester.
Thank you for your reflection, Caroline. I see myself in what you say in your first paragraph, this experience was a challenge in many ways. One of them is to decide together what we were/are going to do with all these people, minds, energies and ideas. But I appreciate the fact that we have all brought a little something to each other like these teachers who help you recognize the value in yourselves. The diversity of ideas and perceptions on what the course could be about was exciting. As we decided to take into account every potential direction and being always open, our course was like a conversation. And conversations take time because you need to communicate what it is on your mind and what you feel. That’s what we did, communicating representations and ideas! What an adventure! Listening more, that was the basic! Whilst this time was frustrating, by stepping back we now know the importance of balancing with content. As you say, the dichotomies between content and process have been a subject talked about during the whole course. These questions were part of the definition of what the course will bring us. What radical do we want to be? What do we want to get from the course and what do we want the course to represent at the end? As you said some wanted actions and outcomes, others wanted to experience the process of creating a different course. Looking back, I feel that this is a first step into this special course.
As I explain in my reflexion of the second semester, I think that structure is important. The structure is not negative but as you say, “facilitates innovation, community and radical learning, all the things we value”. It is for me important that people reflect on what “radical” structure do they want to adopt and learn from. As you say, there is a need for people to be involved outside the expected boundaries and hours of the course itself. Preparing the course, readings and others are what fuel the course. Reading is an important topic that has come much time as being lacking. Dante wrote an interesting reflexion on the role of collective reading and the question of learning without reading (I recommend it to you;))!
Thank you very much for your participation in the course, Caroline. I really wish you all the best for the years to come for you 🙂 It is the beginning of something new!
Thanks for a great read Caroline. I’m not sure how fully we addressed some of the problems you rightly raised here throughout the second semester of the course, or how much people thought of them as problems at all, but our emphasis on categorised group projects certainly helped things feel as though they were moving with more direction. I agree that the dichotomies we struggled with were false to an extent – all dichotomies are false to me – and we’ve certainly improved at allowing circumspection to coexist with production. Finally, your conclusion is very resonant with me at the end of the course; it has been brilliant to be active and part of a great community working together on something like this.