– Michèle le Roux –
In her recent piece in the THES, Rachel Moss suggests that “precarity…[is] as much a state of mind as a state of employment.” She shares her own and others’ experience of the lasting toll that precarity takes on the mind, even for those who do eventually find more secure employment in higher education (Moss, 2020). This week, others will be commenting in this forum on the material, practical and legal aspects of our predicament; my focus is the psychological and spiritual impacts of precarity. In Guy Standing’s analysis, the experience of the precariat is characterized by the “four As”: anger, anomie, anxiety and alienation (Standing, 2011, p. 22). Standing expands on the “frustration at the seemingly blocked avenues for advancing a meaningful life”, the “passivity born of despair”, “a listlessness associated with sustained defeat” and the alienation that “arises from knowing that what one is doing is not for one’s own purpose or for what one could respect or appreciate; it is simply done for others, at their behest” (ibid. p. 22-24). This is an experience not just of mental ill health; this is a spiritual malaise – spiritual suffering. As EAP Practitioners in Precarity our souls are parched: cut off from the wellsprings of vitality, creativity and inspiration, the playfulness of experimentation, the desire to make a difference in the lives of young adults – all the energies which originally nourished our vocation to teach. In bringing this deprivation to consciousness, I am resourced by the framework of Nonviolent Communication (Rosenberg, 2015). The intention of NVC work is to free us to speak our truth in ways which fulfil our “nature to enjoy giving and receiving in a compassionate manner” (p. 1). At the heart of the practice is learning to name and to take responsibility for our emotions, and to recognize that many “negative” emotions are an expression of universal human needs which are not being met. As EAP Practitioners in Precarity (henceforth EPPs) we are likely to feel, among other things: afraid, angry, anxious, bewildered, despondent, disaffected, discouraged, edgy, embittered, frustrated, helpless, hostile, jealous, overwhelmed, pessimistic, rancorous, resentful, sceptical, spiritless, suspicious, and weary. I have selected these emotions from Rosenberg’s much longer list (p. 45-6) as the ones I most immediately recognise in my own experience. Turning to Rosenberg’s list of universal human needs*, most prominent among the many needs which are unmet in precarity are Autonomy needs (choice, ease, independence), Meaning needs (authenticity, competence, creativity, dignity, honesty, integrity, trust, to matter to myself) and the Need to Matter (appreciation, consideration, respect, recognition, to be heard/seen, to be trusted). If, as an EPP, you recognize these emotions and these unmet needs in yourself, you may be feeling some liberation or lightening of the spirit in naming and claiming them as your own; it is also very likely that you will feel a sadness, a poignancy, or a deep sense of longing as you recognize and embrace heartfelt needs which are not being met. In acknowledging the strength and the toxicity of this cocktail of emotions, we must understand that this spiritual poisoning is the product of our predicament, not the effluent of some inner maladjustment or defect of character. To be working a fixed-term summer contract as an EPP under a line manager who has a permanent position, who most probably has been promoted from the teaching ranks, who may have no aptitude or training for leadership, and who, lacking a vocation for teaching, may be delighted to have escaped the classroom is to be caught in “perfect storm” conditions for breeding envy and resentment (see Greg Hadley’s (2015) incisive and entertaining dissection of BLEAPS). In these circumstances, it is also hard to form trusting, collegial relationships with other EPPs, trapped as we are in fierce competition for the same jobs, vying to comply with and please management, struggling to sustain unmanageable workloads, all in the empty hope of being re-hired. Knowing that we are all dispensable and replaceable is not conducive to fostering respect for ourselves or for each other. Our spiritual queasiness may intensify if we are fed a diet of departmental “Values and Behaviours” – if we are exhorted to be good team players, to go the extra mile, to whistle-blow on shirkers, to have a “can do” attitude, to develop and improve ourselves and our performance, to “enhance” everything and anything – in short, to conform to what Standing calls the “alienating twaddle” (p. 24) which is a calculated denial of the realities of our predicament. It is painful to spend our working lives within institutions which show no loyalty to us, and towards which we can therefore feel no loyalty. The EPPrecariat, being as yet part of what Standing calls a “class in the making”, has no traditions in which to take pride, no narrative or social memory of fraternity, or solidarity or loyalty to itself. For me, the aspect of precarity that is most corrosive to the spirit is alienation from my work – from my vocation as a practitioner. EPPs lack a secure work-based identity and are forced to take a series of career-less jobs. Our work is often instrumental (done in order to live) and opportunistic (we take what we can get). The jobs we get do not allow us to fulfil our potential, or to use our skills creatively. Summer pre-sessional curricula are increasingly designed to be prescriptive and “fool-proof” (do our employers think we are fools?). EPPs are being de-skilled and demoted from teaching professionals to something akin to postal workers, whose sole function is to “deliver the syllabus”. The neo-liberal marketization of higher education prioritizes that which can be quantified over quality. I don’t just mean quality in the sense of excellence. The teaching of each skilled practitioner has its own quality – its texture, its rhythm, its flavour, its mood, its individuality. Growing into ourselves, exploring who we are as teachers, experimenting, taking risks, failing, creating, becoming… these are the things that I have found most fulfilling about being a practitioner. For the EPP such self-actualization is almost impossible. This same alienation from his own craft is felt by Frank Owen, the central character of Robert Tressell’s The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, first published in 1914. George Orwell described this novel as “a book which everyone should read” and it has often been cited by Labour politicians as the book which has had the most profound influence on them. Re-reading it recently, I was struck by the prescience, the accuracy and the insight with which it portrays the inner landscape – the mental and spiritual wasteland – of practitioners in precarity. I wonder if Tressell’s book will inspire a new generation of politicians, leaders and activists in the transforming of the Precariat into a “class-for-itself”, able to articulate its own needs and its own vision for how these may be met? *I draw here on a list adapted from Rosenberg’s original needs list (p. 54-55 in Rosenberg), together with categories formulated by Manfred Max-Neef, with thanks to Vérène Nicolas. References Hadley, G. (2015). English for Academic Purposes in neo-liberal universities: A critical grounded theory, Springer Moss, R. (2020) Precarity has a long hangover, THES, February 12, 2020 https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/precarity-has-long-hangover?utm_source=THE+Website+Users&utm_campaign=8e74a38aa5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_11_02_57&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_daa7e51487-8e74a38aa5-74879469 Rosenberg, M. B. (2015) Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life 3rd edition, PuddleDancer Press, CA, USA Standing, G. (2011) The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, BloomsburyTressell, R. (2004) The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, Penguin Classics (original publication, 1914)
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- Aleks Palanac -
The argument for classrooms to be set up as physically and viscerally safe spaces for refugee students and others who have experienced potentially traumatic events is not new (e.g. Horsman, 2004; Kerka, 2002), and the application of this work to English language learning contexts is beginning to gain more momentum and visibility through initiatives such as the recent British Council commissioned Language for Resilience programmes (British Council, 2018; Capstick and Delaney, 2016). But, with COVID-19 lockdown restrictions prompting a sudden need to move our teaching and learning online, it has become necessary to ask how this advice might translate to synchronous online settings. This is particularly pertinent in light of the fact that platforms such as Zoom have recently come under fire in the media for their live sessions being vulnerable to breaches of privacy such as trolling and unauthorised recording by participants, which might be particularly damaging to refugee students needing to protect their identities to safeguard themselves and often also family members back home. How, then, might we take measures to minimise these threats and to foster the creation of safe spaces in cyberspace for refugee students? As I outlined in a recent article synthesising insights related to trauma-informed ELT pedagogy for refugees (Palanac, 2020), there are many factors which combine to render a classroom a ‘safe space’, and many of these can be transferred to synchronous online learning contexts. One of these is giving students the opportunity to exercise a degree of control in the space of their classroom. One way of doing this in online contexts is to overtly familiarise students with the features of the synchronous online platform which you are using, which will enable them to make decisions about the degree to which they wish to be ‘present’ or ‘visible’ in the online space of the classroom. This might entail allowing them to experiment with: changing their on-screen name (to their first name only, or a pseudonym); turning their video on and off; muting and unmuting themselves; using the chatbox to communicate with the class if they cannot or do not wish to switch their audio on; changing the view of participants to grid view so that they can see all of their classmates (if their videos are turned on), or at least get a better sense of who is in the virtual classroom with them; sending a private message to the teacher to express a concern; and using a virtual background (if they do not wish for others to see their home). However, on this last point, see Barrett-Fox’s (2020) recent insightful blog on the limitations of using virtual backgrounds, which includes concerns about these not functioning properly on all devices and potentially not fully preventing other people from appearing on the screen. Another transferrable strategy from face-to-face trauma-informed ELT pedagogy is to set clear expectations and ground rules from the outset (Furneaux, 2018). This might include: a procedure for turn taking (e.g. raising one’s hand in the video or through the ‘raise hand’ function of certain platforms); agreeing rules about whether and/or when it is permissible for them to record and/or take screenshots of sessions, and what use these screenshots might then be put to; explaining the procedure for using break-out rooms so that, among other things, they know to expect that you may be popping in and out; agreeing whether students are permitted to share the session link and password with others, and, if so, who. On this last point, there are various further measures which can be put in place to secure the boundaries of the synchronous online classroom against undesirables. For example, with reference to the Zoom platform, guidance compiled by U.C. Berkeley (2020) suggests: the meeting ID and password for the session should not be shared on public forums, but instead sent to participants directly; the ‘join before host’ option should be unchecked, as should the function which allows students to record the session through their app; and private chat and screen sharing by participants should be disabled. If an undesirable does somehow end up in the session, it is important for a teacher to be aware of the actions which they can immediately take to minimise the risks, including switching a participant’s audio and/or video off and removing them from the session. Whilst it can be seen that some strategies from the trauma-informed ELT pedagogy for refugees can be usefully applied to the synchronous online classroom, these measures are by no means a perfect solution to creating a ‘safe space’ in online classes. For example, the options of being able to switch one’s video off and change one’s online name may help a student feel more comfortable in some respects (in terms of protecting their own identity), but the flip side of this is that others in the class may feel uncomfortable not knowing exactly who is in the room with them, which may then reduce their own sense of safety, and may also negatively affect quality of inter-personal interaction and relationship-building. The latter is another key tenet of building a sense of safety in the language classroom, in which students need to feel comfortable enough in their social environment to take risks and make mistakes (e.g. Stone, 1995). At present, therefore, the indication is that, while there are certainly ways in which teachers and refugee students can mitigate the risks contingent in using online platforms for synchronous EAP teaching and learning, the measures used for increasing the sense of safety of one student may inadvertently lead to other students feeling less safe, or to a potential deterioration in the quality of classroom interaction. Ultimately, as with good face-to-face trauma-informed teaching, a flexible approach should be taken, with teachers making themselves available to listen to students’ concerns and needs, and being ready to respond with flexibility and creativity. References Barrett-Fox, R. (2020). ‘A reminder of who is hurt by insisting that students share images of their personal lives’, Any Good Thing, 6 March. Available at: https://anygoodthing.com/2020/04/06/a-reminder-of-who-is-hurt-by-insisting-that-students-share-images-of-their-personal-lives/amp/?__twitter_impression=true (accessed 8 May 2020) British Council (2018) Language for Resilience: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives. Available at: https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/language_for_resilience_-_cross-disciplinary_perspectives_0.pdf Capstick, T. & Delaney, M. (2016) Language for Resilience: The Role of Language in Enhancing the Resilience of Syrian Refugees and Host Communities. Available at: https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/language-for-resilience-report-en.pdf Furneaux, C. (2018) ‘Trauma and second / foreign language learning’ in T. Capstick (ed) Language for Resilience: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives. Available at: www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/language_for_resilience_-_cross-disciplinary_perspectives_0.pdf (accessed 8 May 2020) Horsman, J. (2004) ‘”But is it education?”: The challenge of creating effective learning for survivors of trauma’. Women’s Studies Quarterly 32/1-2: 130-146 www.jstor.org/stable/40004396 (accessed 8 May 2020) Kerka, S. (2002) ‘Trauma and Adult Learning’ ERIC Digest 1-8 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED472601.pdf(accessed 8 May 2020) Palanac, A. (2020). ‘Towards a trauma-informed ELT pedagogy for refugees’ Language Issues 30/2: 3-14 Stone, N. (1995) ‘Teaching ESL to Survivors of Trauma’ Prospect 10/3: 49-57U.C. Berkeley (2020). Settings for securing Zoom. [online] Available at: https://security.berkeley.edu/resources/cybersecurity-and-covid-19/settings-securing-zoom (accessed 8 May 2020) |
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