Are introductions a productive use of class time? What kinds of lived experiences are valuable in the classroom? Is being transparent and vulnerable for our students useful? How do we get our students excited about learning? At the first meeting of Lehman College’s “Writing Across the Curriculum Anti-racist Pedagogy Seminar,” these were some of the questions that arose after reading the “Introduction” and “Chapter One: Engaged Pedagogy” of bell hooks’s Teaching to Transgress.

Engaged Pedagogy

Drawing on her experience as a Black female student, hooks emphasizes the importance of bringing our lived experience into the classroom. She explains that beginning in a segregated school cultivated a sense of “excitement” that was lacking in white schools, an observation that inspired her future pedagogy. For hooks, learning should be “the practice of freedom and education,” not merely striving “to reinforce domination.” (pg. 4) A radical pedagogy must be “deeply affected by our interest in one another, in hearing one another’s voices, in recognizing one another’s presence.” (pg. 8)  

Even before discussing hooks’s writing, her ideas permeated our Zoom space. Brought together to explore how we might decolonize our classrooms and practice anti-racist pedagogy, our introductions were impacted by hooks’s insistence on acknowledging everyone’s presence.

Introduction Activity

The introduction activity was inspired by Eugenia Zuroski’s “Where Do You Know From?: Placing Ourselves in the Classroom.” Writing first in a shared Google doc, we answered the following prompts:

• What is your name? What are your pronouns?
• What are your intellectual/pedagogical interests, and where did they come from?
• How has your location/positionality affected your interests, writing, and/or teaching?
• How has your location/positionality affected your perspective on care, compassion, the meaning of a life-giving space?

Once the allotted time was finished, we reviewed each other’s answers, noticing broad themes including the impact family, multiculturalism, and multilingualism had on the way we construct our classrooms and would like to mold them.

We then reflected on the effectiveness of the exercise, asking:

• What did we get from it?
• Would it be useful in the classroom?

The result was an illuminating discussion about our fears, concerns, and obligations in the classroom, one that can be facilitated among colleagues or students.

Introduction Debrief

We first discussed how participants described their positionality. What did they include, intentionally leave out, or overlook and how might these choices reflect what teachers and students deem relevant, valuable, or safe to disclose? The classroom is a place of power, and how one presents themselves, especially in the first class, can drastically change the dynamic between a teacher and their students as well as the students with each other.

In our Lehman petri dish, it was interesting to see who disclosed visible and invisible characteristics, such as race or sexuality, for example. As the conversation unfolded, some participants revealed more than they did on the Google Doc. For some, they felt more comfortable as the discussion continued. Others didn’t realize some aspects might be relevant, such as a learning disability.

Reflecting on the assumptions we brought into the space about how we should represent ourselves was a process, one that changed the environment. It drew in new perspectives, exposed concerns, and inspired solutions. By critically thinking about a ritual as seemingly harmless and simple as an introduction, we created a space where a multiplicity of identities were seen, valued, and welcomed; an attempt at hooks’s claim that, “any radical pedagogy must insist that everyone’s presence is acknowledged.” (pg. 8)

Concerns

Our conversation lasted more than an hour, prompting concerns about the relevance of introductions to content or the applicability of the exercise to a room of one hundred students. Alternatives were considered. Students could send the professor a letter or co-write one in pairs or small groups.

There were also questions about power. For some participants, introductions were an opportunity to establish academic credibility, especially if the professor is a visible minority. Sharing too much about oneself, even with the intent of decolonizing the space, could reduce the professor’s control. One participant brought up the concept of radical honesty, a pedagogical practice of declaring and disclosing one’s identities to the classroom at the beginning of the first class. This practice establishes the professor’s beliefs and draws attention to embodiment, assuring the students that identity will be recognized in the classroom. We might see a similar approach in hooks:

“Any classroom that employs a holistic model of learning will also be a place where teachers grow, and are empowered by the process. That empowerment cannot happen if we refuse to be vulnerable while encouraging students to take risks. Professors who expect students to share confessional narratives but who are themselves unwilling to share are exercising power in a manner that could be coercive. In my classrooms, I do not expect students to take any risks that I would not take, to share in any way that I would not share.” (pg. 21)

There were also conversations about whether asking students to disclose their identities might be harmful. It has become common practice to demand that students declare their pronouns, a gesture toward equity. But classrooms are not yet, and may never be, places where everyone can feel safe to disclose how they identify. Cis-gender individuals, whose representation does not challenge traditional notions of gender, may be happy to reveal their pronouns. But for those who are questioning or only beginning their journey, demanding their pronouns may force them in the open when they are not ready or worse, to claim a pronoun that they no longer feel comfortable with. Introductions can be a space to explore these issues openly with your students, acknowledging their capacity as knowledge producers with lived experience.

Final Thoughts

Having these conversations at the beginning of the semester outline the dimensions of the space, its possibilities and limitations, while also questioning the space itself. It offers the opportunity ask: How can we invite others in to construct a safe and generative space and how might this process create excitement about learning? It can begin with an introduction, or as hooks puts it:

“To begin, the professor must genuinely value everyone’s presence. There must be an ongoing recognition that everyone influences the classroom dynamic, that everyone contributes. These contributions are resources.” (pg. 8)