As we sit at home, awaiting election results, those of us who teach may be wondering with some trepidation how we will teach our classes tomorrow. As I begin writing this post at 7:30pm, the outcome of the election is anything but certain, as is the timeline for certainty. We do not know whether we and our students will be elated, despondent, or still caught in the anxiety of waiting tomorrow. How then to approach the task of stepping into our classes? How to take on the role of leader when both we and our students are in the grip of powerful emotion?
I can’t claim to have great answers to these questions. But here are some guiding principles to keep in mind as you look to your teaching tomorrow:
- No one expects you to make things all right.
- It’s OK to show your students that you are human too, with your own feelings and reactions.
- What you can do is show up, and simply be there. We can do what we’ve been doing all throughout this unruly year of 2020: we can show up for each other. We can get through it together, better than we could get through it alone.
- Make space for what happened, for what is happening, whatever it is. Don’t pretend it didn’t happen. If you don’t know how, consider saying just that: “I want to make space for this, and I’m not sure how. What would be helpful to you?”
- Make space for silence and be OK with it. Ask your students, how are you doing? And then wait for a response. Let the response be silence for a while without rushing in to fill it. Make eye contact. Rest in your connection. There is nothing wrong with sitting in silence together.
- Make space for the appreciation of being together, being there for and with each other. Give voice to your appreciation of this simple reality.
- Remember you are modeling. Always. Tomorrow, you will be modeling grace in victory, resilience in defeat, or calm in uncertainty. Get ready for it. You can do it.
- Consider bringing a poem or photo of a favorite work of art to share.
- If your class seems to feel up to it, consider some hopeful questions oriented to future positive action, such as: Among the many challenges our country faces, what issues matter most to you? What role do you think colleges and universities play in solving these challenges? How can organizations help solve these challenges with or without the help of the federal government?
- If your class doesn’t seem to feel up to constructive discussion, that’s OK. After you’ve made space, and let the silence be silence for a little while, feel free to move on to your content of the day.
- Plan to rely less on your students’ participation than you normally would. As a literature teacher, I’m telling myself, it’s OK for you to ramble on longer than usual about that particular passage of Flaubert tomorrow, or about why literature is important, or how art will save us in the end. I suspect it may be very comforting to your students to listen to you ramble on enthusiastically about your interests tomorrow, so if you’re up to it, go for it. A little or a lot of lecture will take the pressure off of them, and even you, and remind everyone that there are still many other things in this world to wonder at.
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