Teaching Conversations and Friendship
This was written by Suzanne Le-May Sheffield (CLT) through conversations with Anne Marie Ryan (Earth and Environmental Sciences)
“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, Chapter 19, 1908.
Over the last few years we have been actively exploring the value of informal conversations among academics. This topic is a surprisingly under-explored and under-recognized route to teaching development in higher education, that some are just starting to explore in more depth (See Thomson, 2015; Thomson & Trigwell, 2018; Roxa and Martensson, 2009; and Haigh, 2005). Many years ago though, Parker Palmer noted in his article ‘Good talk about good teaching’ (1993) that conversation is an antidote to isolation, disconnection, and pain for academics (p.8) and a route to “the empowering experience of reflecting on practice with fellow teachers” (p.10). We agree! Our teaching conversations, we believe, should be frequently sought out and cultivated in academe. For us, our conversations started with shared interests and concerns about teaching and learning. These conversations also led us to differences of opinion, debates, and opportunities to work out our thoughts and ideas without fear of judgement. While our conversations have been wide-ranging, they have resulted in shared interests about creativity, visual literacy, wisdom and intuition, and the importance of faculty-student relationships, among many others.
We first met at a discussion group at the Centre for Learning and Teaching here at Dalhousie in 2002 and initially our connection grew slowly. But our conversations really began in earnest after Anne Marie worked in the CLT in 2008 while I was on parental leave. When I returned to work after my leave, we started getting together to chat about her experiences supporting faculty in their teaching and gradually our planned interactions developed organically into a deeper more meaningful friendship. Since then, we have had regular lunches at the Coburg Coffee Shop (now Coburg Social), taken time for individual reflection on our conversations, exchanged lengthy emails, and shared readings and, on occasion, created joint conference presentations based on our collective thinking. In 2018 we co-taught CLT’s graduate course, Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, together. Our different backgrounds, interests, and disciplinary training (Humanities, Science) are grounded in a shared intellectual interest in and love of teaching and learning, within and across disciplines. It is through these differences, coupled with shared interests, that our conversations have grown and have allowed us to envision other perspectives more profoundly.
We find that our conversations are best when they are spontaneous, unplanned, and without purpose or specific goal. We have shared many stories with one another, beginning with our teaching and learning lives, meandering into our personal lives (including the learning and development of our children), and wandering back and forth between philosophical contemplations and practical ideas to solve immediate challenges. We share worries, concerns, and fears. We build each other’s confidence. We celebrate successes and commiserate when the sun isn’t shining on our lives. Sometimes we give each other a bit of a jolt, because we know that is what the other needs, and then we ask for forgiveness later. We share some intrigue about this apparent lack of focus. We have both been brought up and trained up that ‘doing nothing’ is an anathema to success. Being ‘busy’, in our contemporary academic world, is often seen as the hallmark of productivity. Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber have noted in their Slow Professor (2016) that, in fact, time to reflect, to contemplate, to discuss, to converse, to think, is not a waste of time. In these moments we have our most brilliant break throughs, our ‘ah-ha’ moments. They are the jumping-off point of new perspectives. “Time” write Harman and Darab, “is an essential factor of the kinds of deep cognitive process that are involved in innovative and creative thinking” (p.59) and these authors remind us that our students need this time too, so they can reflect on their learning (p.56). So we continue to make this time for each other and nurture conversations with our students too.
For us, our conversations have been a well of inspiration so deep that even after almost 12 years we are certain we have not yet plumbed all the avenues and vistas for possible exploration. Deep trust has developed between us over this time. As Roxa and Martensson (2009) point out in their study on significant conversations and significant networks among teachers in higher education, “it is the atmosphere of privacy and trust that allows them [faculty] to open up in a way that makes learning possible” (p.555). Our conversations have become about more than sharing knowledge, learning together, and the development of teaching to enhance student learning. For us, the ability to be vulnerable and authentic – to be ourselves – the courage to say ‘I don’t agree’, ‘let’s hash this out’, and the willingness to stand by one another when things don’t go well, are all hallmarks of friendship, not just a collegial working relationship, or a significant conversational partner for learning.
Over the past four years we have conducted interviews with colleagues who have had similar conversations. We began our research with an intention of exploring academic conversations about teaching and their impact on teaching ideas, development, and scholarship. But we have come to recognize that at the heart of these conversations lie deep and enduring friendships that enable everything else. Parker Palmer believes that “there is a deep reservoir of insight about teaching among faculty, but also that faculty have a deep need to draw upon that life-giving source” (p.9). These kinds of connections buoy us up in difficult times and we need them now more than ever.
Over the past couple of months, we have witnessed faculty coming together to talk about teaching and draw on one another’s experiences more than ever before, in webinars, blogs, communities of practice, and one-on-one conversations. Although, currently, time and energy seem short, we would argue that it is even more important to start and continue these conversations. We encourage you to reach out virtually to those with whom you have those wonderful corridor conversations. You know, those people who make you smile the minute you see them because you know they are going to make you feel better about yourself, think more deeply than you would on your own, and help you out when you are troubled. Indeed, true friendships will further provide opportunities to reciprocate, to provide support and encouragement – it is well established that in giving, we also help ourselves (Pogosyan, 2018).
As challenging as these pandemic days are, they are also fertile ground for new ideas about teaching and learning. We have created virtual space in these extraordinary times to share our concerns, make plans, commiserate, and encourage one another. When we find academic friends, we do not walk alone. We offer, and are offered, creative new ways of looking at our teaching and our interactions with our students, as we venture into uncharted territory. Conversation with a true friend is what we all need most right now to allow us to take a leap of faith, to take risks, to try something new, and to pick us up when we fail or feel over-whelmed and over-worked. A friend who will help us find a way to keep going, to move our ideas forward and make them richer than they would otherwise have been without them, is a valuable gift that neither of us would do without.
References:
Berg, Maggie and Barbara K. Seeber (2016). The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Pogosyan, Marianna (May 30, 2018). In Helping Others, You Help Yourself: The benefits of social regulation of emotion. Psychology Today.
Hartman, Yvonne and Sandy Darab (2012). A Call for Slow Scholarship: A Case Study on the Intensification of Academic Life and Its Implications for Pedagogy. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 34:1-2, 49-60.
Haigh, Neil (2005). Everyday conversation as a context for professional learning and development. International Journal for Academic Development. 10:1, 3-16.
Palmer, P.J. (1993). Good talk about good teaching: Improving teaching through conversation and community. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning. 25:6, 8-13.
Thomson, Kate (2015). Informal conversations about teaching and their relationship to a formal development program: learning opportunities for novice and mid-career academics, International Journal for Academic Development, 20:2, 137-149.
Thomson, Kate Eileen, and Keith Randal Trigwell (2018). The role of informal conversations in developing university teaching? Studies in Higher Education, 43:9, 1536-1547.
Roxa, Torgny and Katarina Martensson (2009). Significant conversations and significant networks – exploring the backstage of the teaching arena, Studies in Higher Education, 34:5, 547-559.