Safe Space Oddity: Revisiting Critical Pedagogy

Abstract

Inspired by an incident in a social work graduate classroom in which she was a teaching assistant, the author reflects on her commitment to constructivist teaching methods, critical theory, and critical pedagogy. Exploring the educational utility of notions such as public space and safe space, the author employs this personal experience to examine the roles played by ideology and concertive control in (re)creating societal power imbalances—with surprising results. Finally, rather than attempting to avoid inherent classroom tensions through rhetoric (“safe space”) or repeatedly finding herself shocked and ill‐prepared for the inevitable facilitation of emotional topics teaching requires, the author posits that the role of the educator may be to maintain these tensions while embracing a “pedagogy of discomfort” (M. Boler, 1999).

Keywords:

• safe space
• classroom dynamics
• critical pedagogy
• concertive control
• critical theory

Notes

The author wishes to thank Elaine Bright, Kristen Berg, Barbara Muskat, and Professor Marion Bogo, for their thoughtful encouragement.

1. After the events described, I obtained this student's permission to write about her and my experiences. She has favorably reviewed this work but I have changed her name for the purposes of this piece and have referenced her submitted essay as Anonymous. Throughout the essay she is referred to as Anne because she is Anonymous.

2. I was not comfortable during this discussion. I remember thinking that students, in their enthusiasm, had come close to “ganging up” on their questioning colleague. I made a conscious decision to see if the student was alright after the class. As she left the classroom, she was chatting with another student and so I did not speak to her directly. In retrospect, I think that this was because of cowardice on my part.

As a slightly disempowered TA listening to an invited guest, I did not feel as though I could intervene in the classroom conversation. In retrospect, I wonder if my unwillingness to intervene might also have been influenced by the fact that the guest and the other students were expressing views that I, as self‐identified Black feminist, did not disagree with. I was not opposed to the discussion's basic content but its tone and form, so when Anne was not visibly upset, I was able to tell myself that my fears about the discussion's emotional impact had been unfounded. Through her final essay and subsequent conversations, I discovered how wrong I had been.

In retrospect, I realize that had she been visibly upset, I may not have felt more equipped to act but would have felt compelled to, at least, try.