Having had a positive experience of the pgcert so far, I was looking forward to this unit. I also thought that living in a diverse house of 9 people that runs much like a co-op, where conversations around gender, race, sexuality, ability and class are prominent (and challenging) would have primed me to receive the material of this unit in an open way. My housing situation has taught me to be accepting and supportive of diverse circumstances and to exist in discussions that can be uncomfortable, make me aware of my bias, and taking accountability.
However when the unit started I became uncomfortable. Partly because I was overwhelmed by the fact that no one explained what the unit was asking me to submit / produce. There was no induction to the content, the sessions were online and the material was beautiful yet challenging. I found myself mixing the pre-tasks of the sessions with the blog posts, making it hard to contribute to sessions. At the same time, there were remarks on how this unit would enable transformation, which I found equally hard to believe as I didn’t feel present in the sessions in order to have a transformative experience due to having done the wrong preparatory work.
I became even more uncomfortable when I realised that my peers were feeling the same. We were all getting stuck on logistical tick-boxing problems of word counts and submissions. I started wandering if we were pre-occupied with such as a way of avoiding or expressing discomfort with the content of the sessions. My stomach turned in the inability of myself and the cohort to focus on the material. I noticed also the tone of the tutors at times being tired or frustrated with our questions. Were we somewhat boycotting the sessions without realising? Were we exhausting the teaching team? And this was just additional to the teaching taking place online to ‘protect’ the teaching team from discriminatory behaviour. Our tutor after one session decided to not teach on this unit anymore. In her email she mentioned that it was due to her finishing her PhD studies and not being ready to teach just yet, but maybe in the one tutorial we had she felt overwhelmed herself and sensed the wrong attitudes in the room?
Thinking about all of the above has made me feel that this is a particularly difficult unit not just to undertake but also to structure and facilitate. Speaking to one of the tutors I asked if we could have had an inductive session and they said there was not time to do this. Is the university structure not supporting properly this unit either?
It is hard to tell who wants this unit to take place and how. For some, it is more of a tick boxing exercise, for others it is seminal ground work, and for others it might be something they want to engage with but not sure how. In all of this I am sure everyone feels a bit weirded out.
I have been thinking about:
How is transformation to be aided? (In an administrative capacity / emotional capacity etc)
How to support everyone involved in the process? Or how is one to support themselves in this process
What does discomfort evidence? How does it come out
Who wants change?
Who can bring change?