A microcosm of the world we want, in our classrooms

How I do my small part, as a professor

I am a college professor. I’ve been a critic of higher-education-as-usual for the second half of my career, though I was a true believer for the first half (as a China anthropologist). And as an anthropologist, I’ve become clear that one of the ways our aspirations conflict with our practices is in the structures of our classrooms. I’m not the first to notice it. John Dewey wrote Democracy and Education in 1916.

In my books on higher education (My Word, 2009, “I Love Learning; I Hate School”, 2016, Ungrading, 2020, and Schoolishness: Alienated Education and the Quest for Authentic, Joyful Learning, 2024), I’ve challenged the teacher-centric structures and the focus on metrics-as-goals, as well as the assumption that students should be passive, dependent individuals out for their own achievement, and have tried to place this within a moral, political, and social framework, not just as a matter of individual cognition and achievement.

I talked recently with Karen Christensen about the importance of humane school.

One dimension I especially aim to emphasize is the precious opportunity we have of gathering with others for learning. In this sense, the emphasis on intentional creation of meaningful moments when people gather, as Priya Parker noted in her The Art of Gathering, is a taste of what is possible: interacting meaningfully to figure something out, to learn from the diverse members of the community of learners, to honor voices, including those uncomfortable speaking publicly, and to leave with something just a little different from how we began.

And in this political moment, when authoritarian voices are aiming to shut down dissent, and when education seems to be a game of outsmarting the AI-detection devices and suspicion, and when everyone is on edge, I am committed to offering an oasis of dignity and connection, as much as possible. It’s conviviality, in Ivan Illich’s term, rejecting the industrial model of production and speed, and insisting on humanistic values.

Illich writes (in 1973)

“For a hundred years we have tried to make machines work for men and to school men for life in their service. Now it turns out that machines do not “work” and that people cannot be schooled for a life at the service of machines….The crisis can be solved only if we learn to invert the present deep structure of tools; if we give people tools that guarantee their right to work with high, independent efficiency, thus simultaneously eliminating the need for either slaves or masters and enhancing each person’s range of freedom….I choose the term “conviviality” to designate the opposite of industrial productivity. I intend it to mean autonomous and creative intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons with their environment; and this in contrast with the conditioned response of persons to the demands made upon them by others, and by a man-made environment. I consider conviviality to be individual freedom realized in personal interdependence and, as such, an intrinsic ethical value. I believe that, in any society, as conviviality is reduced below a certain level, no amount of industrial productivity can effectively satisfy the needs it creates among society’s members.” (Illich, 1973, pp. 16-18)

I bring food, play music, ask students to know each other’s names, and do as many activities as I can to enliven our class sessions. At the end of the semester, I ask, “Did you make a friend?” as one of the potential outcomes of the course.

Last week, in one of my courses, a class on media from a linguistic anthropology perspective, a team of students led the class in activities. Each student is part of a four-member team, and they will lead class twice. The leaders put us into groups of three to actively contrast the ways we remember and transmit information and stories orally, or in writing. I sat with my two group members, and we worked hard to remember what one person told us, but without writing.

One of the students said in surprise, “You’re going to do it too?”

“Yes of course. I’m curious too.”

“Wow. I’ve never seen this before.”

“What? A professor learning with students?”

“Yes. I don’t know why I shouldn’t have, but I’ve never experienced it before.”

So as I aim to honor all of us as engaged in the adventure of learning, as I emphasize that everyone is a learner, moments like this teach far more than would be possible just through a lecture on the theoretical equality of all members of society.

If we mean it, we have to act as if we are all equal.

This is not just a matter of effective “evidence-based” learning practices. It’s a matter of moral commitment.