A note to academic colleagues everywhere. Here’s a little thread of things it’s past time we let go of, for our own health and well-being, and that of our students.

Let go of trying to control your students’ attention— in the F2F classroom and in zoom.

If they’re not paying attention, it might not be about you. If it is, then ask yourself if what you’re doing earns their full attention.

Whatever you do...

...don’t try to force them to pay attention by banning laptops or cellphones or making them turn on their cameras during remote classes.

It is condescending and is a sign of insecurity in your own pedagogy.

Instead, try to win your students over and strive to keep them engaged.

At the end of the day, the students have paid to learn from you.

If they don’t take advantage of that opportunity, it’s their loss.

And it’s also their right.

We can’t force them to learn if they don’t want to.

Let go of concerns over recording a class session and sharing it with your students.

Everyone can benefit from having access to a recording of the class.

A class is a learning community and everyone within benefits from its discussions.

Besides...

...we should let go of paranoia.

Students are not out to get you.

Institutions worth their accreditation won’t replace you with a recording of yourself.

Other academics aren’t waiting for the opportunity to steal your ideas.

In any case, making a class available to your students is not the same as sharing it publicly.

And if you’re afraid students may share these videos out of context to discredit you, the whole video should offer enough context to protect you.

Let go of your fears.

Let go of of concerns that a student might cheat in their assignments or exams or plagiarize a paper.

When a student cheats, they cheat themselves, first and foremost, of the chance to learn something.

If you catch them, that’s a teachable moment.

If you don’t, so what?

We are not an academic police force out to catch students who break our academic laws.

A student that gets away with it doesn’t make it less fair for others.

Remember, they’re cheating themselves out of learning what they need to know.

And grades aren’t a limited resource.

Finally, let go of the idea that traditional face to face instruction is better than online or hybrid instruction.

If we’ve been doing one modality for years, it’s to be expected that we’ll be better at it than the new ones were shifting to.

The same is true of our students.

We will get better at this. So will they.

But the idea that what we’re doing is fundamentally inferior will hold us back.

Embrace and adapt to our new circumstances.

And let’s have the strength to let go of the things we cannot control.

Finally, let’s let go of the fantasy of a return to a normal college experience, at least not until we find a cure or effective course of treatment for Covid-19.

It’s an irresponsible fantasy that is going to hurt a lot of people.

Wow. This has resonated!

I owe many of these ideas to my colleagues and almost 30 years of teaching through traumatic events like 9/11, Hurricane María in PR, economic recessions, budget cuts, student strikes at UPR, and now COVID-19.

It’s empathy and respect for our students.

Please attune these musings to your circumstances.

If you’re part of a targeted group (POC, LGBTQIA+, etc) and don’t feel safe sharing a recording, then don’t.

Instead, have a small rotating team of note-takers for the class.

Find a balance between safety and accessibility.

Thanks for all the new follows! You’ll discover I mostly tweet about electronic literature (I gave a Tedx talk: ) & share artistic Twitter bots (a fave is @HaikuD2).

For more empathy driven pedagogy, follow: @HybridPed @Jessifer @slamteacher @bonstewart