The following statements are excerpted from the nomination files of TAs and faculty members who were nominated for York's University Wide Teaching Awards. They represent the thoughts of some of our most committed teachers, who can offer insight into the challenge of integrating diversity/equity concerns into curriculum development and classroom practices.
Inclusive practices are at the core of what I teach, and how I teach my students. My courses address a variety of interests, needs, learning styles, and work styles. On the first day of class, I encourage my students to let me know of any accommodation they may need during the course. I have now included this on the course outline. Over the years I have accommodated assignment topics to address students' work and interest areas; had oral reports rather than written, helped students gather materials, addressed proximity issues, gave flexible assignment schedules, pre-read assignments for students with learning disabilities, and addressed the needs of students experiencing emotional, physical and familial difficulties. I have brought inclusivity to all my courses, undergraduate and graduate. I extend this beyond the usually addressed issues of race, class, and gender and include ability, culture, and sexual orientation.
As I understand it, teaching is not separate from learning. We are each the teacher and the learner. I understand teaching and learning as a dialectical process.
I have been inspired by many, not the least of whom are Howard Gardner, bell hooks, Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon, and my students, all of whom elaborate my head, heart and hands approach to teaching and learning. My teaching philosophy recognizes that the institution of education inscribes a white Western intellectual tradition. This tradition that privileges some is challenged in the work of bell hooks. For hooks, social location matters; that we are, for example, raced, classed, and gendered is consequential to our teaching and learning. Being mindful of one's privilege and power in the classroom is the first step to appreciating diversity and encouraging students to 'talk back' to me and to the system that perpetuates privilege and division. Also consistent with teaching and learning as a dialectic, for bell hooks teaching is a performative act that allows for passion, spontaneity and the specificities of each class.
Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon problematizes the notion of 'critical thinking', offering instead the possibilities of 'constructive thinking.' Critical thinking, says Thayer-Bacon, is also rooted in and reinforces Western intellectual tradition as it assumes a value neutral distinction between the knower and the known. Rather, through constructive thinking, we also recognize and value vital qualities such as emotion, imagination, intuition, and experience in intellect. Additionally, Thayer-Bacon offers the advantages of a relational epistemology where it is through a grounding in experience and interaction that we, as social beings, develop a sense of self, of others, and of the world. Thus, she reinforces my philosophy that teaching and learning should be reflective, active and collaborative.
My philosophy, however, is barren without the challenge of practice. And my practice is nourished by my students who manifest many intelligences, who occupy many social locations, and who highlight the responsibility, opportunity and the challenge of teaching to, and learning from diversity.
Over the past three decades, postmodernism, feminism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism and other cultural discourses have dramatically impacted the epistemology and methodology of art. Cutting edge research has shifted the focus away from the teleological canon of masterpieces towards the ideological functions and social histories of art. As a graduate student and now a faculty member, my teaching developed in dialogue with those changes. I want students to leave the classroom with an enriched ability to read images critically and to express those interpretations verbally and in written form. They should also depart with a better understanding of the participation of images in histories of oppression and of resistance and agency, and how images can represent and invite different subject positions inflected by historical moment, gender, race, sexual difference, class, or nationality. These issues can only really be explored through dissonance and by challenging assumptions, hierarchies and long held beliefs, but the traditional forms of teaching in the discipline do not necessarily suit these goals.
Traditional surveys are predominantly organized around a line of Western male artists and elite, high culture objects. Lectures would often include as many slides as possible while the professor offered varying degrees of biography, description, analysis and evaluation of the images. As a graduate teaching assistant for traditional survey classes, I found politicized teaching to be an almost "natural" process. Picasso and Georges Braque were presented in lecture as men whose work almost single-handedly turned Western art on its ear through their daring use of "primitive" inspirations. In section, we would then consider what it means to designate some cultures and their art as "primitive" and whether such borrowing practices could ever be the basis of really innovative artistic development. I included the work of "marginal" groups to be examined alongside mainstream practices, but this was all done in relation to an unchanged canon. Mine was a reactive pedagogical practice and, as such, could do little more than give lip service to the fundamental critiques of feminism or post colonial theory with minimal disruption to "business as usual."
As course director, I have struggled with how to disrupt the expected or inherited narrative of the subject at hand in a way that still offers students the unique analytical tools of art history and maintains a sense of history. Canons are crucial to intellectual history but their existence should provoke questions, not reverence or acceptance. In most of my courses, the result of my struggle is a balance of a fairly cohesive historical overview and critical case studies. As much as possible, both my lectures and the small group discussions are grounded in concrete texts and images. I find that tethering abstract debates to something tangible gives every student an entry point into the discussion. First, I try to model various approaches to the critical articles, historical texts, artists' statements or visual objects we are studying. Deconstructions, comparisons and contrasts are followed by very specific group discussion activities that will enable students to develop their comprehension, critical thinking, risk taking and confidence in the course. In my experience of teaching visual culture, eliciting a response from students about images or films is rarely a problem.
To maximize the quality of student involvement, I try to teach students to challenge the material and my presentation of it in ways that are both thoughtful and respectful. My interest is not just in provoking but in shaping debate. By breaking them down into small groups to apply a "jigsaw" instructional strategy to a reading or to discuss the way a particular 1940s film about Tom Thomson constructs the myth around him, each student has a chance to bring his or her own voice to the discussion. By hearing back from groups as a class, I can use their insights to funnel discussion towards the larger intellectual debates of art history in the latter part of my lecture.
Those are the nuts and bolts of my pedagogical strategy but the most powerful overarching tools for my purposes are transparency and a desire to make students' own voices a fundamental part of every course. The process of destabilizing the canon can be uncomfortable but it can also be empowering. If what we find in art has much to do with the questions we ask of it, there is a great deal for scholars of every stage to contribute.
We can see that political economy's focus on production, consumption and class is vital, but the addition of anti-racist and feminist elements to the approach make it more dynamic, vital and pertinent in a contemporary classroom environment. Why would I approach material from an anti-racist and feminist perspective? Within the contemporary university environment, there is a grwoing preponderance of female undergraduate students, and a culturally diverse student body has become the norm. This is particularly true when considering many sociology programs. Currently, my student count is 125, with approximately 75% of those students being women and approximately 85% of them being visible minorities. Consequently, it is more important than ever to tailor the classroom experience to the educational needs of these previously neglected cohorts who are most directly affected by issues of gender and race in their daily lives. This is the impetus behind my choice to shape my course offerings in this fashion. One must work to recognize these demographic factors structurally, but to leave them out of individual interactions and considerations. This is not to negate them, but to ensure that I do my best to consider no student individually through the veiled ideologies of race and/or gender.
Throughout more than two decades of teaching in different parts of the world and at different levels, I have never experienced a tougher course than "War and Peace in the Middle East" at York University. The reasons are obviously related to the sensitivity of the topic and the configuration of the students taking this course. The vast majority of the students have deep roots in the region, both Jewish and Muslim, and are also from different ethnic origins. All are extremely passionate, and understandably biased towards their own and others' backgrounds. The heightened tensions in the region are immediately felt in the classroom.
Throughout the course by addressing the controversial and deeply sensitive issues, I try to get the students to explore the sources of the conflicts. To do this, I need to be fair and considerate of the sensitivities, but at the same time be able to provide the objective information and knowledge through providing various viewpoints and perspectives on a specific topic. Many students come to the class believing that they know their side well, and are only interested in learning about the other. Soon, however, they learn that this might not necessarily be the case, and start learning new things about themselves.
Fairness begins with reading materials. Every year I have to spend a fair amount of time choosing the material for the course. Most writings on the Middle East are either biased or written from a particular perspective. Lectures follow the same policy. Inevitably I have my own views. Students are encouraged to argue with and challenge every viewpoint including my own, and they boldly do so. The lectures, while structured, are interactive and many students participate in discussions. Another aspect of fairness relates to giving equal chance to different groups to express themselves. Maintaining a critical balance is the most difficult part of teaching this course.
One thing that I make clear from the beginning is that I cannot be intimidated. Neither would I allow one student or a group to intimidate and silence others. All students feel they are free to say whatever they want, and to take any political position. There are few restrictions with zero tolerance; no anti-Semitic (which is also anti- Arab) and no sexist and racist remarks are tolerated. On days of hyper-tension, often resulting from a specific event either in the region or on the campus, students are asked not to respond to each other and only address me.
Two practices in this course are very appealing to students. One is that at the beginning of each class we spend a few minutes discussing major events of the week, which sometimes is accompanied by hot debates. The other is the group debate exercise at the end of the year. Each year, two groups of students (five students on each side) organize a debate on major issues facing Israel and Palestinians, such as land, water, refugee, economy, etc. At the end of the course, relations among students are usually improved, as both sides have learned more about each other and tensions are lower. Nevertheless, the debates are extremely hot and passionate. At times students invite their friends or parents to attend the debate.