{"id":234,"date":"2021-08-10T15:22:39","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T19:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/facultyhub\/?p=234"},"modified":"2021-08-10T15:22:39","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T19:22:39","slug":"back-to-class-but-not-back-to-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/facultyhub\/2021\/08\/10\/back-to-class-but-not-back-to-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to Class, But Not Back to Normal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even though I had a relatively \u201ceasy\u201d pandemic, my body is feeling the effects of the past year. While I stayed intentional about exercise, I also found myself sitting far more than I did in my pre-pandemic life, when I might have stood and paced about a classroom, walked across campus for a meeting, or even stood at my desk. While I fashioned a standing desk in my home office, I quickly discovered that it didn\u2019t work well for Zoom teaching, which required me to stay put a little more than I like to while standing.<\/p>\n

So I sat. And that sitting has taken a toll, and my right hip, especially, requires attention. Daily home PT and a monthly massage are now on my required maintenance schedule (and, yes, I am over 60, thanks for asking!).<\/p>\n

But as I was on the massage table the other day, I realized that therapeutic massage is a good metaphor for the kind of pedagogy we may need to practice on our return. Because\u2014much as some of us might wish it[1]<\/a>\u2014this will not be a return to normal. We will all have sore spots. Some will have injuries, both visible and hidden. And attending to one spot may trigger an unexpected response in another, just as sometimes my massage therapist simply holds my head and my shoulders and even hips respond.<\/p>\n

Some painful areas will require work\u2014and here, too, the massage therapy metaphor seems apt. Not every injury can be addressed by direct attention or deep tissue massage. Some require a lighter touch. Sometimes just acknowledging the pain and the fact that it may affect performance will go a long way toward healing. Ignoring and denying the pain, and trying to use the muscles as we always have, will cause greater damage\u2014rest, hydration, and gentle attention are far more likely to lead to healing. [Note: I am neither a doctor nor a trained massage therapist. Deploy metaphors literally at your own risk.]<\/p>\n

What might this mean for the classroom, and for our own return, though?<\/p>\n

I think there are two sets of responses. First are the things that are sort of like home PT: the things we can do ourselves, though they do require attention. Second are the ones that are more like therapeutic massage or PT on-site (take your pick of metaphor): things that require the attention of an expert, but that we can learn to do with some help.<\/p>\n

So, for the first, we need to start just by paying attention: to our bodies, our feelings, and the feelings of our students. Some of our students have never been on campus before. Some finished out high school remotely. Some got sick\u2014I had more than one Covid-19 case among my own students, and at least one is still struggling with long Covid symptoms. What accommodations might those students need? What might we?<\/p>\n

Paying attention, checking in mindfully with ourselves and our students, will give us a baseline to work from. Perhaps the syllabus accommodations that we made last year should continue going forward, for example. I learned in one class that reducing the number of texts we read did not reduce learning outcomes, because the students had more time to read, reflect, and write. Maybe we need to check in more frequently with students, whether that\u2019s simply through low-stakes assignments that keep them engaged with the material between classes, or actual emails and invitations to office hours. I know, too, that I’ll be keeping my Zoom office hours to supplement in-person ones, as they offer a low bar to entry for many students who are nervous about entering my office. But we may especially benefit from attending to trauma-informed pedagogy<\/a> strategies, including transparency (talking about what we\u2019ve all been through), mindfulness (remembering why we\u2019re here, and taking time to focus and breathe), and inclusiveness (incorporating strategies that center student learning needs).<\/p>\n

So that brings us to the second kind of response\u2014the massage, as it were. At the Faculty Hub, we\u2019ve spent the summer talking about our return. We\u2019ve got a lovely new space to share with you, and we are eager to support faculty in the return to whatever the new normal looks like. We can consult with you on anything I\u2019ve mentioned above, of course (except massage\u2014though we do have campus resources<\/a> for that!). We will also have some specific programs that may be of particular interest as we negotiate our return:<\/p>\n