Dr. Brene Brown\u2019s TED video<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and was drawn to her take on parenting. She said that we try to perfect our children or we expect them to be perfect. But that\u2019s not our job as parents. Brown says that we should say to our children, \u201cYou know what? You\u2019re imperfect, and you\u2019re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.\u201d<\/p>\nI think we have the same expectations for our students that we have for our children. We treat them as if to say, \u201cYou must be perfect and, if you\u2019re not, you are not worthy of a college education.\u201d What if, instead, we were open and authentic about our own academic struggles, and vulnerably showed students that failure is as much a part of learning as success? We need to show students that we endure that process as lifelong learners. \u201cWe need to share more of our own struggles with inquiry, not just the end results of what we have learned. Each time we allow our students to see that we, too, sometimes face uncertainty, or have a nagging personal experience that cannot be fitted neatly into the disciplinary wisdom, we invite our students to join in that struggle\u201d (Nofz, 1990).<\/p>\n
BEWARE: I am not suggesting that we give students a pass on completing high-quality work and meeting the learning outcomes for courses. I am saying we can create a learning environment in which error and failure are a natural and important part of the learning process. We are teaching students valuable life lessons when we help them use failure to learn and move toward success.<\/p>\n
I love this quote from Dale and Frye (2009, p. 129):<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen teachers view themselves as learners, there is a sense of vulnerability that their students are able to sense; they are open and more perceptive to the subject(s) they are teaching and to students\u2019 needs. We hope to teach our students that vulnerable and humble teachers are aware of how they personally confront difficult situations and how they make decisions, and we believe teachers are able to model this capacity for their students. Teachers who support their students as they reason through situations, ponder alternatives, see possibilities, or play them out in their imagination are teachers who develop in students an intellectual and moral capacity. This is the antithesis of those teachers controlling learners and subject matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now I don\u2019t think that being vulnerable in the classroom means that you are a Debbie Downer every time you enter the class. If you are consistently struggling to find joy when engaging with your students, I highly recommend that you find a trusted colleague or support person (read: a counselor) who can help you reconnect with joy.<\/p>\n
What I am\u00a0encouraging<\/em>\u00a0you to do, pun intended, is to approach your classroom with courage, not control. The original definition of the word courage, as I learned from Dr. Brene Brown, is \u201cfrom the heart.\u201d Dr. Brown says that courage is the willingness to tell the story of who you are, to let yourself be seen. When you approach your classroom with courage, you are willing to show students that you are not perfect, but you are enough\u2026and so are they. When you are authentic with your students, you create an environment of empathy and care.<\/p>\nThanks for continuing with me on this journey. I look forward to reading your take on vulnerability in the classroom.<\/p>\n
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References<\/p>\n
Dale, M. & Frye, E. M. (2009). Vulnerability and love of learning as necessities for wise teacher education.\u00a0Journal of Teacher Education, 60<\/em>, 123-130.<\/p>\nGordon, T. (1974).\u00a0TET: Teacher effectiveness training<\/em>. New York: Peter H. Wyden.<\/p>\nKelchtermans, g. (2005). Teachers\u2019 emotions in educational reforms: Self-understanding, vulnerable commitment and micropolitical literacy.\u00a0Teaching and Teacher Education, 21<\/em>, 995-1006.<\/p>\nNofz, M. (1990). The classroom and the \u201creal world\u201d \u2014 are they worlds apart?Teaching Forum, 12<\/em>\u00a0(pp. 1-3). Undergraduate Teaching Improvement Council, University of Wisconsin System.<\/p>\nSarton, M. (1961).\u00a0The small room<\/em>. New York: W. W. Norton.<\/p>\nImage from FlickrCC user FL4Y<\/a>, used under permissions of the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This blog post was originally published in 2011. \u201cvulnerability is not only a condition to be endured, but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[64,77],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-teaching-and-learning","tag-teaching","tag-vulnerability","content-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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