MCC Daily Tribune

TCC: Announcing the Teaching and Creativity Center's Theme for 2021-22: Pedagogies of Care

“The student is infinitely more important than the subject matter.” (Nel Noddings, from Caring: A Relational Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, p. 176)

When the TCC settled on Committing to Equity-Minded Pedagogy as our theme for last year, we did so with this important understanding: that the focus would not be a one-off. It is with that in mind that the TCC offers this year’s programming theme as an extension of equity work: Pedagogies of Care.

By looking closely at pedagogic care and what that means specifically within higher education, including all the ways in which individuals and institutions fall short, we hope to bring care—as a value, an ethic, a practice, and an essential outcome—out of the periphery. That we tend to categorize some disciplines and professions as caring and others not, shows how easy it is to see care as secondary to whatever we consider to be our “real” jobs or institutional mission.

Care ethics and care in education as a practice of justice, hope, and transformation are not new concepts. Much of the scholarship about care in education is centered on childhood and adolescent education, and it’s only recently that the concept of care in higher education is being studied—perhaps because it’s usually not seen as “rigorous” or “academic.” Perhaps because care is often disparaged as hand-holding or coddling (which in turn are perceived as too “feminine” and “touchy-feely” for academe). Or even perhaps because care, or caring, is perceived as something innate or automatic for teachers. But it’s not innate, nor is it guaranteed. And as we’ve seen, both the immediate disruption caused by COVID and the lingering impacts as the pandemic continues over 1.5 years later make it clear that policies and practices that are not rooted in care (of others, of self) will exacerbate existing inequities and systemic dysfunction. And if we place a statute of limitations on caring practices, if we treat them as one-offs, as temporary measures to be discarded in favor of some eventual “return to normal,” then we will have missed an opportunity to “be better,” as Dr. Eddie Moore, Jr., implored us last year.

The theme of care raises key questions for reflection, both individually and collectively:

What does genuine, deep care mean as a pedagogical ethic and practice, and what does it not mean?
Do we perceive some people (students, employees, colleagues) as “deserving” of care and others as not, or as less deserving? What do we base those notions on?
At institutional and departmental levels, as well as within relationships, do we expect care work of some and exempt it of others?
Where, and how, does care sit at the tangly intersections of race, class, and gender?
In what ways is care required (for some) but not reciprocated or rewarded professionally?
What does it mean to care—or belong to a caring profession—in a society that undervalues care?
What does care look like across the curriculum?
What does care look like in online spaces?
Which policies and procedures actively undermine a caring ethic?
Is care ever harmful, and is there such a thing as “caring too much”? If so, what is the tipping point, and what do we base that on?
How do we maintain ethical and professional boundaries with students and each other?
What would a truly equitable, caring campus look like?

The TCC’s programs won’t answer all of those questions, but we hope they spark your interest in learning about Pedagogies of Care. Here's an overview of some of our professional learning opportunities:

Book groups for Relationship-Rich Education by Leo Lambert and Peter Felten (Trib announcement forthcoming)
TCC Conversations series:
- Fall 2021:
  - Monday, Sept. 20: Pandemic Lessons (facilitated by Amanda Colosimo and Donna Burke)
  - Tuesday, Oct. 19: The CARE Framework for Student Retention (facilitated by Gena Merliss)
  - Wednesday, Nov. 17: Higher Ed, Care, and Black Women Faculty (facilitated by Tokeya Graham and Melany Silas)
Adjunct Professional Development Series (Suppers for Success)
- Fall 2021:
  - Monday, Sept. 13: Tutoring and Academic Assistance Center (TAAC) (facilitated by Jason Parker)
  - Tuesday, Oct 12: Practices That Promote Retention (facilitated by Gena Merliss)
  - Wednesday, Nov. 10: Difficult Conversations (facilitated by Tokeya Graham and Dina Giovanelli)
Reflective Practice Groups
Additional cross-College collaborations with student services and others
The 2022 June Teaching & Learning Conference, with guest speaker and facilitator Dr. Isis Artze-Vega
The TCC’s Blackboard space where resources relating to Pedagogies of Care will be posted and updated regularly

All programs will be remote, on Zoom, for the fall semester. Details will be published in the Trib.

We can’t wait to see you, and we look forward to working with you to create a caring, relationship-rich community at MCC.

In the meantime, let this poem by Danusha Laméris be a kind of salve during these frenetic and still-worrying days:

Small Kindnesses

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk

down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs

to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”

when someone sneezes, a leftover

from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.

And sometimes, when you spill lemons

from your grocery bag, someone else will help you

pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.

We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,

and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile

at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress

to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,

and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.

We have so little of each other, now. So far

from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.

What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these

fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,

have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”

Amy Burtner
Teaching and Creativity Center
08/31/2021