Acknowledging our student’s souls: a case for creating an equity-focused syllabus

ABSTRACT

bell hooks states that the necessary conditions for learning to begin – deep and intimate learning – requires respect and care for our students. However, educators have been told they need to enculturate into the higher education social hierarchy for generations – to be the ‘sage on the stage’ rather than creating course and classroom environments that support engaged learning. Our students are intimidated by, and sometimes even, afraid of us from day one as they read our jargon-heavy, punishment-laden, bold-faced, underlined, and all-caps syllabi. We can take steps towards decolonizing our courses, by building equity-driven syllabi that enable students to succeed from day one. This paper provides reflection and practical ideas (that you can use) to create an equity-driven syllabus, demonstrative of your love for teaching and respect and care for your student’s souls.

KEYWORDS:

• Equity
• syllabus
• decolonize
• belonging

Acknowledgments

Academia trained me, as my husband so eloquently put it once, “to defend my work, alone.” He isn’t wrong. We spend our undergraduate years learning to demonstrate our knowledge through exams and papers (alone) and move on to graduate programs where we defend our research (alone) to careers in academia (sometimes) where we must defend our existence to the review and promotion committees (alone). But nothing in my academic training or career has been (alone). Instead, I have had a wonderful community of support, who have helped me find my path in this dire place. For this work, there are far too many people to acknowledge, but let me provide you a small list of incredible colleagues, friends, and family who if you listen very closely, can be heard through the words within. Thank you, Joseph Chartkoff, for allowing me to be a teaching assistant forever ago as a young bright-eyed and bushy-tailed undergraduate student. Thank you, Larry Gallagher, for helping me become a reflexive educator, without him I would still be an asshole. Thank you, Amy Rushall, for challenging me when I needed it and helping me learn how to adapt my teaching. Thank you, Cody Canning, for validating me when I am pretty sure I was wrong and serving as an important sounding board for all ideas herein. Thank you, Rebecca Maniglia, for never making me feel inferior and asking me to put this out there. Sometimes you need someone outside the box to read what you wrote, Russ Dickerson did that for me, thank you for the help! My partner in life, John Doherty, I thank you so much for always listening to me about everything and helping me identify the path I am on now. Thank you, Meredith Heller, for reading this manuscript and providing the most supportive and kind editing conversation I have ever had. And finally, to my step-kiddos, thank you Brendan and Erin, for teaching me what a teacher needs to be.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).