Teaching for a World That’s Livable: Queering Pedagogy in the Time of COVID, with GPat Patterson

Unpack This! with GPat Patterson

Jo: [00:00:00] Welcome to unpack this we’re academic misfits go to unload their shit. Today. We have our guests G pat Patterson, who is an associate professor of English. They co-edited the first special issue of transgender rhetorics in the field of rhetoric and composition. They served a two year term as co-chair of the four CS queer caucus, which is a disciplinary organization in our field.

And they recently received our first. 2022 Stonewall service award for their record of service to LGBTQ communities. And they’re also an awesome human and a good friend. So we invited them, partially to hang out with us, but also because they recently published this phenomenal article titled “Loving students in the time of COVID: a dispatch from LGBT studies.”

And in this article, GPat writes about how the pandemic forced them to rethink the demands that are made of us as educators and the demands that we then put on our students. And I know that we’ve been talking a lot about how. I mean, and by we, I mean the field in general talks a lot [00:01:00] about how the pandemic has made us rethink a lot of things about pedagogy, but this article proposed and modeled some paradigm shifts that I think are really important to be talking about.

And I think was a really fresh take, given how many takes there are on the internet. So Thank you for joining us GPat.

GPat: Thank you for inviting me. I’m so, so, so happy to talk to you about.

Constance: Just a second G pat, I want to interrupt them. So sorry. I want to interject, I keep trying to tell Jo that we have a vast audience of listeners, but there may be one or two people who are new to the podcast. So we forgot to do our spiel to say who we are, because it was an awesome introduction to you.

Jo: Yeah, I, so I shouldn’t assume that our listeners are regulars. I am Jo Hsu

Constance: and I’m your other cohost Constance Bailey.

Jo: Thanks Constance. So back to our topic of the day, I actually thought a really great way to get us into the article was to start with your concluding sentences, which I thought were beautiful. And it says educators must [00:02:00] point students toward a life that is possible. And that is not only livable, but one that is worth living this at minimum calls upon us to confront that, which is unlivable and unsustainable in our own pedagogies for ourselves and for our students.

And I just wanted to ask what that reflection process looked like for you. How did you decide what was livable and unlivable?

GPat: Yeah. , I’m going to answer this by. Talking about like a psychologist that I’ve been reading, named, uh, Lindsey Gibson, who kind of talks about, I think first, I think higher ed and a lot of, institutions. Right. Um, steeped in the, the violence is that they’re steeped in, encourage us to, um, siphon off our emotions and our embodied response to like our teaching and our workplace practices.

Um, and I also think life doesn’t do a lot of us as well. Right. Um, but one of the things that really stuck out to me recently was, um, this comment that I read and, uh, in a book by Lindsay Gibson talking about [00:03:00] dread, like when we experienced dread. That most of us are like, have a negative response to dread, but it’s actually kind of like, um, a guardian of our health.

And then it’s actually like a friend to us because it wants us to treat ourselves better. Right. And it wants us to pay attention to the thing that we do not want to look at. And the reason we don’t want to look at it is because usually that’s something we should be like walking away from. Right. Um, it doesn’t feel healthy and sustainable.

And so I think that, that moment of like, even just sort of looking at like, what are the things in my teaching and in my practices that. Right. Um, and I don’t know if you all have those things, but I feel like there are just certain things, um, about, uh, about teaching that I had come to dread.

Um, and it really just sort of depends on the course. I think the things that I would come to dread, um, in, uh, in a, say a composition course or a technical writing course might be different right. Than an LGBT studies course. But I think that like, starting from that. And then just also like really listening [00:04:00] to our emotions and realizing that those are those kind of canaries in the coal mine.

And if you’re feeling that way, then like totally your S your students are going to be, you know, feeling something similar, if not like in a sort of hyper drive. So, yeah. Um, that’s my, that’s my short answer. Do the thing that I think that we are told all the time, like we, we must, you know, put on our professional selves.

Right. And our personal and embodied and emotional selves somehow. I don’t know, dissociate from the world or whatever. I don’t know. Yeah.

Jo: , I love that. And I love that it practices that politics that we know from black feminism, from disability studies, that the body has knowledge and that we should be listening to it. But we are told to instill to often cordon that off as the thing that we think about and not the thing that we apply in our own teaching.

GPat: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s because we, uh, speaking back to that kyriarchical violence, right. And I seen that port right cure. I am saying. [00:05:00] Yes. kyriarchy.

Jo: That’s how I

GPat: Yeah. Okay. Thank goodness. Because here I am like the words that you use and you’re like, I only ever read it and typed it, like how anyways. So, um, like I think that that violence, that these forms of violence, like teach us right.

That our emotions are not like. The, our emotions and our embodied responses are like, not wise, right? When in fact, oftentimes they get, they hit the mark. Right. But well, before our minds ever get there,

Jo: Yeah. In fact, they are wiser because they’re not imposing those narratives that are circulating in our head.

GPat: Yes.

Jo: Uh, pause and step back. Cause I don’t want to assume knowledge on the part of our audience. Do you want to define, kyriarchal for our audience?

GPat: Oh, can, can I, can I like touch my nose and say not on that one. It just, in the sense that I feel like I am going to, no, that’s not fair. I’m not going to Dodge. So if you’re walking through, uh, the world as a multiple [00:06:00] marginalized person, you’re not just having like a one vector of sort of violence or the ways that you’re moving through institutional space happening at once.

No, no. And so I kind of think of it as that, as that sort of. Interstitial move. Was that the right word? Yeah. Yeah. Experience embodied and emotional and political sort of experience of living in the world and in, and among those sectors and how you’re going to be encountering sort of, uh, resistance and how you’re going to be brushing up against institutions and formations of interacting with each other that are not meant for you on.

Jo: Sure. Yeah. It’s one of those words that I, I recognize as jargon, but also capture something dense and complicated in a way that allows us to have a short case.

GPat: for real. And I hope that I did it justice,

Jo: Yeah,

GPat: do, do y’all want to add anything to that? Cause that would be, is there anything else that, how, in terms of how you all would.

 

Jo: And for me, I, I similarly had that visual image of the convergences.

It’s actually reminds me [00:07:00] of, what all three of us study, actually. It’s how systems of domination engage one another that are bound up in one another. So. Sexism racism, ableism. Hetero-normativity all of these things are interconnected in the structures that we have to move through. And for me, that’s, that’s what it captures. Constance thoughts?

Constance: No, I will tell you, I’m over here, noting things that like, okay, follow up on this and also send G paddle a link on this. So I’m over here on one of my mini sort of side projects. Cause there was a really great article. I think it was Damon young in the root, very smart brothers or one of those columns.

And it was about the words that we read. That academics read all the time that we never pronounce and how, you know, like the first time they encountered. And I don’t know what the word was. I’ll just say Foucault just to be silly, but I don’t know

GPat: it was my first word. Anyway. I’m sorry. Continue.

Constance: I don’t know that that was actually one of the ones from the article, but it was quite hilarious.

And so I was like, [00:08:00] oh my gosh, it’s everybody.

Jo: Oh,

Constance: great. So that was my, that has nothing to do with it. Wonderful conversation about these convergences that you all were discussing.

GPat: I think that’s great. And, and truly the first word I remember being a master student, you know, as a firsthand sort of sitting in this classroom and I, we were actually just discussing Brewco and, you know, Wasn’t uh, an English lit or English major at all and undergrad. And so I had never heard anyone safe MCOs name before.

And so I, I think I pronounced it food cult or something, and I will never forget that experience of shame of like having like another graduate student laugh at me. Like you, you know, sticks with you, but I think it’s good because. Those hurt spaces are teaching lessons about what you value and what I value is never making someone feel like less than because they don’t happen to know something that I, that I just found out yesterday anyway.

So like why? Anyway, I digress, [00:09:00] but

Constance: That’s a large part of this article and why we, why it resonates so much with us right in it, that’s a part of my stick that I sort of lead into because I am subject to mispronounce things. Anyway, I also am half blind, so I probably did not see or read the word correctly.

So I just make sure that when I just tell students, you know, you can correct me.

Jo: I mean, that’s a really important move to learn, to make in the classroom. Right. I don’t know. I will look this up with you. We will have conversations about this. There is no certain knowledge about this thing. Also, the ways we perform knowledge are in fact, mechanisms of exclusion, et cetera, et cetera.

GPat: Yeah.

Jo: so this conversation actually gets me to a question that I had, which I think has really great connection to this, which is another passage that I really loved from your article, which says creating immersive, which is talking about creative, immersive learning experiences, which is one of the like critical central points of this, which I loved.

I also learned that. Borrow heavily from your syllabus a lot. , and so you’re talking about focusing [00:10:00] on creating immersive learning experiences instead of that model, where students go away and read and come back and discuss in the classroom, or sit quietly and awkwardly and hope that somebody else will discuss.

And you say for students, this shift required a rethinking of their role in the classroom from someone expected to provide. Correct answers and polished error, free products instead to an emerging intellectual who draws from left and right hemispheres of the brain to theorize alongside their peers.

And I’m interested in hearing you talk about these immersive learning experiences, what they look like, maybe something that you really enjoyed, or how you go about creating.

GPat: Yeah. You know, I want to give a shout out to the really talented people at like, who, who are faculty and staff at the center for teaching and learning at Kent state? They did this workshop, it was like the summer in between, major semesters pandemic semesters.

And, um, I re I took whatever the training was. , in [00:11:00] part, I won’t mind because I was a stipend and I am poor. Um, but because, um, but also because I thought, you know what, like I could, I could learn things from this and I’m also teaching graduate students. Subbing for our WPA. Um, because I’d done that role at my previous institution in terms of , the, the teaching, preparing students to teach a writing studies courses.

So I was like, I I’m going to do this, you know, for so many reasons. And, but one of the things that they talked about is that we do this thing where we like assign students a piece of writing. And then we like come in and it’s like, let’s discuss the piece of writing. And I’m like, well, yeah, that’s what we do.

This is humanities, you know, I’m just like, you know, in my very big feelings. Right. Um, and behind my zoom screen all with my mute on . My, you know, my camera down and all this. So, you know, they talk about like, the teachers are bad students and I think that that might be true. But I also think that we, if we pay attention to the ways that we’re bad students, that’s telling us something about teaching, but anyway, If that, but in any case I had this, I wasn’t [00:12:00] expecting that to throw me.

And for some reason I got this, I, this the way they were explaining about it, sort of made me think about, um, museum curators that that’s, uh, that in, in, in the not violent ways, but in the kind of, or maybe. Like an art museum, like a curating this experience, or like an, an artist is a better way of putting it, like installation art that you’re kind of creating this experience for people to like actually walk through.

Um, and that the idea is if you’re like, okay, I’m going to. Assigned a piece of writing. I’m going to create a space outside of class for us to talk, like, to read and talk collectively so that when we get to class, instead of saying, I want you to regurgitate all of this and show you that that’s what learning is.

Like, you kind of have to model like showing them what connections, like, like identifying, uh, an experience and then saying, ah, okay. This could be a way for, for students to kind of understand how the theories that we just read sort of attached [00:13:00] to everyday context or how there is a sort of inter animation between life and theory and art.

And not that those are separate things at all. Right. But that they are. And giving students a space to not only connect what they’re reading to like various texts, but also to like create their own. Um, so I think one of the, um, most favorite, uh, units that I had was in a queer theory course that I taught.

And, you know, there are ways like, I think in LGBT studies and also I think in English studies, there’s like a lot of like attached. To doing queer theory. Right. You know, and it’s like this linear sort of thing. Right. I was like, wonder, posed it as like the question of what does queer theory have to do with X and then attach it to something surprising.

Right. And so like, what does queer theory have to do with coloring books and then finding this academic article that is like searching between? So I just kind of wrote [00:14:00] down joy words, like various things, like I love Sci-Fi right. Um, I love, um, I love movement. I love. You know, all the whimsy, right. And then attaching things.

Right. Um, and so one of the things that I found was this really amazing piece. , and I definitely need to give you the link to the piece. And I feel very guilty that I don’t know the name of , the author. I’m

Jo: great. When you, when you send it, we’ll put it in the show notes

GPat: Yeah. And then we’ll just pretend that I knew all this and I was more prepared.

Um, so, so it was this piece about the intersection of like queer studies and fat studies and about this amazing thing that happens when you’ve got like a queer non-binary person who is fat, who is illustrating comic books and how that can kind of like, Move to a space where we are, the ways that we are theorizing bodies and talking about bodies, um, is something that can be like theorized through like something as like an adult, uh, self care sort of queer coloring book.

It has like [00:15:00] fat gender nonconforming, uh, folks that are on the pages. Right. And so we read that. And then I purchased some of the coloring books for my students to then use. So they like read the piece and then colored the piece. Right. And then they talked about that experience and then drawing from the article and be like, this is what I was feeling, right.

This is the thing that’s sticking out to me now that I’ve experienced this, because I feel like sometimes we do this thing where it’s like, okay, I assign this, we’re going to discuss it. You’ve said correct answers. I’ve edited. Uh, emphasize points that I want you to do. We might throw in some cute little jazz hands activity, and then we go on to the next piece.

Right. But if we slow down and we say, okay, like let’s assign this. And I’m just like having an experience. I’m like, let’s like, let it last. Right. , another one of my favorite units in that queer theory course, was one that was talking about , what does queer theory have to do with Afro-futurism.

And Sci-Fi. And so I created, so I book ended, I book into the pieces with like, um, various academic articles that [00:16:00] the, the arc of the piece, we actually, uh, looked at the entirety of Jenelle Monet’s, um, discography. Right. Which kind of talks about the sort of. Uh, cyborg feminism, and also looking at Jenelle Monet’s like liner notes and looking at the way that she slashed, they like were theorizing, right.

This sort of, um, this. This, this vision. And so it was really kind of neat. I mean, and there were like little Mike, there were like little mini sort of activities that like I would have students do. Like I had them, you know, skim parts of the cyborg manifesto and I’m like, don’t even, don’t try to understand the whole thing.

I want you to just vibe. I want you to listen to this particular. Janell Monae album that we’re on today. And as you’re doing it, I want you to be like skimming this piece on this, like this cyborg manifesto. And I want you to create some found poetry from this, and then talk about why you did this and what the connections are that you’re seeing.

And so that those are some just [00:17:00] examples, you know, but those look, obviously they can, they can look a little different in, you know, a class depending on whether it’s like tech writing or comp and.

Jo: one of the many things that I love about that one is, is that I think you and.

I both converged on this, in that, queer studies, trans studies, disability studies, all of these things come from the knowledge made by people whose experiences of marginalization created, you know, knowledge and in theory, These fields should go back to creating that knowledge that then informs how do we improve the life chances and opportunities of these people.

Right. Um, Sometimes these, uh, these goals get lost in, in the classroom or in, in the design of curricula. And I like that. You’re sort of shifting one of the driving questions in your classroom from, you know, what are the texts we must learn or what are the terms we must learn in this field to, how does this affect my experience of the world?

Right.

GPat: [00:18:00] Yes. Yes. Yes. And like, and then realizing that like, like you just said, I just want to repeat that like a coloring book is theater. A awesome sci-fi book is his theory, right? A video game is theory, right? That those are theorizing. And I feel like sometimes too, his academics, we’re not necessarily really honest with ourselves.

Like, we’ll do the same as like, well, I’m analyzing this and I’m building theory, but we’re often interpreting texts that are also have already built that theory. But we like have this sort of. It’s mine. I’ve made this. No, you just publish it in a journal. Sweetheart.

Tweet is serious, serious building. So, I mean, I think that there’s also a kind of like humility that I think that as academics, we really need to maybe sit with a bit more, some more than others.

Jo: Yeah. Okay. So, so maybe shifting to the last question that I had for you. Talking about ethics in both, what we teach and how we approach that teaching, uh, [00:19:00] you say in your article, ethics in this context would seem to demand that educators refuse to answer the question that essentially asks us to whittle down our disciplines into a series of brandable skillsets that encourage our students to view themselves as kindling.

And you’re responding to that imperative. That particularly is driving the humanities right now. Right? Like how do we market ourselves as. This is how you get a job from this thing. Right. And what you’re saying, if I’m reading you correctly, is that, that is the wrong question. And that question is a trap.

GPat: Yes. That is exactly what I’m saying. Yeah. In that. And I think too is just that even like, I think even administrators know that it’s a trap, but they do this thing where it’s like, wow, we’re supposed to be these people. If you read this book, it’ll teach you to empathize. In fact, there were lots of woven people who struggle with empathy.

It’s not the best answer. Right. the eyebrows at all the simultaneous mirroring of each other right now, I was like, yeah. How about that? , yeah, so I think that, yeah, it’s like [00:20:00] looking at better answers. And I think the thing is, is that, is that, you know, that even, I think the ways that we try to respond to that, um, sometimes like, Get at, and I don’t think that there’s just like one right way to answer that question.

, like about the importance that I know that it’s not, oh, here’s me whittling down and condensing what I just said. , so that you can, be, you know, more homogenous and seem not threatening to a corporation that will, you know, overwork you and then probably lay you off and seven years. If, if, if that, you know, I feel like I’m saying too many words, so I’m going to add a pause here

Jo: I like the number of words that you’re saying. So in light of the fact that we’re not in fact trying to frame what we do as you know, job material,

GPat: Yeah.

Jo: how do you describe your guiding values or how do you even go about locating those guiding values?

GPat: Well, so I feel, so I feel like, [00:21:00] um, and I, and it’s interesting, cause I think that’s tip, it came up in an answer to like a different question, but I think that, In fact, I I’ll, I’ll stick maybe with my answer, because I feel like there’s a question that I think I might be getting later on that might get to this too.

So we’ll loop back around, so I’ll answer the, how do we get there? I think in a different part, but in terms of like my guiding values, I. I want to kind of remind myself of my student self. , and the part of me that’s always learning and remind myself about all the ways in which like I’m always in the process of the coming and how it doesn’t feel super neat to have someone sort of project our sort of Prius, some assumed narratives onto people.

And I think a lot of us do that, um, because it’s a way to sort of manage anxiety. To sort of project narratives onto our students or, or whomever, and then just sort of act as if that is already been something that’s established. So like holding space that our students are always going to be becoming, and that you’re never going to have that like, as teachers it’s kind of.

Kind [00:22:00] of like being gardeners, um, but planning in gardens that like you might not never see actually sort of come to fruition. Right. Um, and, and not necessarily be able to sort of like anticipate that. , so just kind of holding space for like the possibility of who they’re becoming. I mean, I think sometimes if we’re really lucky.

We might get a student or a colleague that’s like, Hey, I want you to know that I have a student of yours. This happened to me years ago. I had, uh, someone, I went to graduate school with taught this kid in a comp class, lots of tough conversations. And he’s like, I just want you to know, like, I’ve had this student, you know, he’s in graduate school right now.

And he talks about like, this moment, Changing the way that he was like orienting towards like other people and that see that to me. And he was in an honors writing class to me, like the value of knowing that he took something from my class that expanded the way that he relates to other human beings.

Like that’s, to me the point of teaching writing in the first place. So like, I care more about that than about [00:23:00] someone learning topics sentences, right? , or whatever, because at the end of the day, that’s the easiest. Right. So, so definitely part of that, but I also just feel like, for me, my another value is trying to now be really intentional.

And in the ways that like I’m interacting with students of like beginning from a place of like, joy, not just like, self-centered like, oh, this is fun for me, but like, how can I create joy spaces in my classrooms? And I feel like. When we’re talking about things that can be potentially really heavy, we can still hold space for joy and discovery and community and reciprocity.

, even when we are, you know, talking about things that are tough, or even if we’re talking about things that are just boring, but we kind of have to do them like, you know, if we’re talking about like, I don’t know, APA or what.

 

GPat: This as someone who teaches a four, four teaching load, I should say that my, my teaching load is very comp heavy.

[00:24:00] Um, I teach maybe, uh, at least teach one or two sections of comp every semester and then upper division classes. So just to be fair, why keep on pivoting to comp? So.

Jo: That makes sense. , I think, I think something that was really a paradigm shifting for me when it came to thinking about teaching was thinking about what I do in the classroom as sort of orchestrating a series of encounters, rather than delivering some sort of, you know, artifact of information. , but along this along similar lines,

GPat: Yeah. Yeah. And that, and that is so important too, because it, it sort of, and I think I meant to say this in here is that, like, what I want to ask is instead of like, As a teacher, I don’t want to say, oh, this is what I want them to know. Like, it’s super rad if they remember those things, but like, let’s just be like really clear.

Like most of us, we don’t

Jo: Yeah. I don’t

GPat: our retention. Right, right. So what I want to, at the end of the day, be my guiding principle is how does, how does my classroom make them feel about learning just in general and like relating to other human beings. So it [00:25:00] doesn’t make them want to learn something. Does this makes me want to teach it?

And if not, This is a good place to start. That’s a good right. Listen to your heart. Since there are a song about that, who was that? Anyway,

Jo: Oh God. Yeah, I know. I have the tune in my head.

GPat: Listen to your heart. Anyway, I’m done now. See, now you’ve gotten me to sing on your podcast and this is how we know my career is going to be on a slow decline from.

Jo: Oh, very much. Doubt it.

Constance: When you can invoke eighties, hairbands or whoever that was from, you know, that saying that you you’re always in a good place.

Jo: Constance. I’m going to pass the hosting to you so you can make sure you ask your question.

Constance: Oh, okay. All right. So I have been passed the mic, so to speak literally and metaphorically. So to just reiterate what Jo said, loved the piece and I was not familiar with your work. So, I was so thankful that Jo shared the article with me and, so many quotes resonated. I was like, well, okay, shit, [00:26:00] Jo already quoted that one.

And a different quote, or let me, let me ask a different question. So I guess a lot of my questions have more to do with the actual process for people who, well, let’s say graduate students or, early career scholars who feel very tenuous and who. Feel in some ways, because of the oversight that they receive or, whatever the case may be, who don’t necessarily feel that they have the autonomy, I guess, to, I don’t want to say go rogue.

I mean, to, do what I think of as what you described as really a very liberatory process. But, in thinking about scholars who are housed very traditional programs or departments, how do they arrive, at this point like how do they unshackle themselves from these, very traditional ideas that

you know, a lot of us are sort of rooted in and, and talk and you know, all that good.

GPat: I love that question. Like, I love that question so much. And I, and I, and I, I love it because when you asked that I was like, oh, Yeah. How, [00:27:00] how would you pat? Um, but it’s a good question, right? Because I feel like, uh, as, and I’m saying this as someone, I mean, did you, do you all, did you all have this experience in graduate school where like you would read a book, an academic book and then maybe like, I’m going to promise you to revolutionize and you get to it.

And like the end is like this sort of like, really like, you know, the end of the book, the last chapter, it’s like, here’s how it applies to the class. But just sort of like vaguely and you’re like, damn it, because it was a graduate student, at least for me, all I wanted to know was like, how do I do this? Oh, you know, so, and I hope that like that.

Um, I hope that, and I feel like when I was writing the piece too, like, um, I was really challenged. Um, I had, uh, my partner read the drafts and she was like, um, she also is a calm person. Uh, she doesn’t work in higher ed anymore, but she was like, you, you need these descriptions. I’m like, no, no, one’s going to care about my teaching.

And she’s like, no, [00:28:00] like you actually have to model what you’re doing. Right. And I’m like, No. So all this to say, like, I hope this doesn’t feel like a cop out, but I feel like for me, part of that is just like, again, being willing to sit with like pedagogy, pedagogical, heartbreak, um, like actually like sitting with the things that like break your heart about teaching, um, and, and, and look at like the expectations that are placed on me.

Um, and then also just. The ways that I might have been professionalized. Right. Um, and the ways that, like, we all are sort of like interpolated into these like professional cultures in which we’re sort of being surveilled, not neat. Um, one Yelp star, but like, I think sitting with like, actually sitting with that discomfort and just like asking for yourself, like what hurts, like actually hurts because that, that matters because that’s.

Pointing you to parts of your pedagogical and teaching practices that don’t, they don’t feel great. Right. And then like asking yourself why [00:29:00] and how that points back to a value, right. That you need to like pull into your teaching. Um, so I feel like that is really important. And I also just kind of want to say that, like I already mentioned this, that like, I feel like higher ed sort of encourages us to sort of distrust those places.

Right. Um, and so I think that another. How do I put this bit, like a kind of philosophy or approach when we all hear the tweet? Like if the institutions will never love you back and that’s true, but my follow-up my silent follow-up at three o’clock in the morning when I can’t sleep from work, stress is like, cool.

Like institutions won’t let me back. How what’s the otherwise, like, how do I live in this space? Or how do I, you know, how do I. That’s neat. I already knew the institutions. Aren’t going to love me back. Um, and it almost seems like smug in that. Does that sort of make sense when it’s just that? And like, I get it, like, I agree.

Institutions still love you back, but like, how do we,

Jo: Right.

GPat: how do we cultivate? Yeah. And how do we cultivate [00:30:00] places of love as multiple marginalized people in institutions that are not designed for us? They don’t, don’t not just love us. Are doing everything to sort of diminish that. So there’s like an, a very different question, you know, and I feel like part of that means like allowing our hearts to be disloyal to our institutions.

Right. Um, in a way, uh, and I think that when we can allow ourselves that space, because I think some of it, we are actually being surveilled, but I think when we allow ourselves to hold space, to being disloyal to our institutions, that it allows us to find. Little pieces of leverage in our teaching that if we’re like sitting with our discomfort, we’re able to identify these like, uh, sort of micro moments of resistance that we can kind of fold into our teaching when we allow ourselves the space to be disloyal.

Because I think part of. , one of the mechanisms of violence in higher ed is that kind of surveillance that then teaches you to surveil yourself in ways that someone has any idea what you’re doing in the classroom. Right. In that, that isn’t to say, I mean, I say [00:31:00] this is someone who’s actually been recorded in the classroom by a conservative student, like years ago.

So, I mean, th there is. And yet I want to point out I was recorded in the classroom only to have the students say, you know, I ever came to the next classroom recording you thinking that I was going to catch you saying something. And he’s like, but it turns out like you love space for us to like, experience this thing.

I’m like, yeah, yeah. I know I did. I did do that. So I mean all this to say that I don’t want to ignore that is like a possibility. Right. Cause I do know that that is a possibility, but I think that. When you can allow yourselves to be disloyal to institutions, it allows you to find those moments where you can say, oh, okay, this doesn’t feel great.

And here’s the things, oh, that’s right. No, one’s watching me right now. I’m watching myself. Right. And then finding those moments to press back. And that is going to look different , based upon a lot of factors in higher ed. Um, and in terms of like institutional rank in terms of positionality, because I feel like sometimes, you can [00:32:00] get by with a lot.

When they don’t even care about you and you’re being ignored, you know what I mean? So it’s like, oh, okay, cool. I’m just going to try this and see, and then it’s like, yeah, I trusted my instincts and it turns out it’s super worked. I’m going to keep on doing it. Yeah.

Constance: One practical response that I would also give is to say that if it has never occurred to you to embrace dread as your, friend, or if you don’t have an understanding that the body has knowledge, then you should listen to this podcast because Jo and I frequently are very much like trust your instinct.

Don’t prioritize the institution above self and et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah. Thank

GPat: to this podcast. Yes.

Constance: That is right. So another kind of, practical nuts and bolts question, which , you’ve kind of talked about it a little bit, so I, I hate to risk redundancy, but

GPat: Okay.

Constance: So here was a great quote and, it’s about, I think specifically, classroom exercises and so forth.

So [00:33:00] the quote is that. You say, I have resisted the pressure to genuflect at the altar of chronology. And if I may, the textbook industry favoring instead to organize my courses around pressing contemporary issues and highlight individual articles and book chapters by cutting edge theorist. And I just wondered if you could.

Elaborate more, especially for those of us who, you know, if you’re teaching like a survey, right. You know, we’re sort of, And then you talk about this at length in the article, but for people who don’t have the,

GPat: Yeah.

Yeah.

Constance: the article in the show notes, but for folks who haven’t read that, so how, yeah.

How can you get to that? What made you decide, screw this chronology, the things are more important or what.

GPat: Yeah. So, I mean, the short answer is a very not great pedagogical experience. Like if you’ve ever had that moment. So I was as a, I feel like this, this, um, I feel like so, so many of us, we become good teachers through either like hitting potholes or remembering like the potholes that were hit while someone else was driving the bus.

And we were just in the classroom like this. [00:34:00] So, so, I mean, like one of the, I had this moment as a graduate student, I had been like angling to teach an LGBT studies course a really long time. Someone backed out at the last minute and I got to teach one and it was kind of one of those zero. Does the baby graduate students, you’re going to take this like form syllabus and teach it.

And it was like, we’re going to start with Grecian history and go, I’m like, oh my God, I’m dying. Suddenly teaching and die. Oh, you know, dry on teaching this material. Um, and just because it was just, I just, there’s nothing that can kill the joy. Right. Um, then that sort of chronological, uh, thing. So I think part of it is, is, is definitely, uh, is definitely that, but I also feel like.

Some of it’s sort of like disciplinary dependent, like, so like textbooks and LGBT studies, uh, tend to really reduce and flatten experience in ways that are deeply troubling. And so like, if you actually want to have [00:35:00] like substantive conversations with students, you do kind of need to pull, um, from contemporary articles and then you’re, then you’re kind of like looking for like, what are articles that.

I, I do assign articles that are confusing to students and we work through those, but I often look for like ones where it’s like, what, what are one circuit to have a big impact for students? Like what they can get out of this? You know, what can I kind of create and curate experiences around? So, I mean, but I think that looks a little bit different.

In, in, uh, something like a tech writing course or a composition course, because there are some times I might pull a chapter from a textbook, but what I actually do is just kind of cool from like, say five or six open access textbooks. Right. And because I think sometimes when, and I do that when I teach, um, when I have taught the graduate course on teaching, um, sort of introducing graduate students, teaching, you know, uh, English courses, um, [00:36:00] Textbooks.

Finally, your might be sort of shoehorned into this, that like relying on one textbook is like getting the, your life, all of your life advice from like the same person. Right. And that’s not always neat. And the other thing is that if you are really kind of doing that work of wanting to create like immersive experiences for your students, Eventually, you’re going to kind of come to a place where it’s like, you’ve got this, you’ve got this flow.

And then you realizing the more you’re kind of teaching and in alignment with like curating experiences, you’re going to find yourself like more odds with textbooks. And like, you can’t just like follow that kind of chronology. You have to be able to, you know, pull and, and kind of trust your instincts.

And I think that like, unfortunately, one of the structures of. So much of education is doing it’s our various like various power brokers and industries doing their damnedest to guess like educators and do the thinking that they don’t know what they’re doing and that without the guidance and the bumpers of a textbook that we are just going [00:37:00] to be out of.

And then, you know, the, the open secret, like that the people oftentimes who were like creating said like instruments of evaluation or even the textbooks themselves are not in fact, you know, steeped in the scholarship of your field. So it’s just, it’s really kind of wild. Right. So I guess that’s, that’s my long-winded answer.

I feel like that was a lot of sentences.

Constance: Oh, we love long-winded answers around here. And

GPat: Okay. Good.

Constance: really impressed that, you assign your students, sometimes articles or readings that are difficult for them. Part of my charm is that I assign my students articles and readings that are difficult for me. And so I’m just like, okay, let’s figure this out together because I don’t necessarily know what’s going on either.

So, so.

GPat: And that’s so valuable too, because I feel like, I think about, I would, I would have loved that in, in any point in my schooling, because I feel like so much, especially in graduate school, there was this like performance of like everyone came in knowing everything. And [00:38:00] then if you didn’t know yourself, Is it just me?

Is it just me? And like, so like that would have just been so super valuable to like, have a professor be like, let’s figure this out. You know, like, I’m not expecting you to like, come in and being like, I know this. And I feel like too, like that’s another sort of. To get, I love that you do that too, because I think it shows that like the more you actually know about something, the more you are able to admit, like how much you don’t know.

Right. Does that sort of make sense? And that’s so good because it’s like a different relationship towards learning. That’s like a lot less violent that I think would like de traumatize our graduate students in our programs if we did that. So I don’t know if that’s, was that an experience that, or is this just me pulling from my own trauma?

Like, is that something that you all. Yeah.

Constance: No. I mean, I definitely remember thinking that, you know, or being so intimidated by, my, professors and I’m like, oh my gosh, this person knows everything. And thus, I can’t say anything [00:39:00] because I’m going to, be deemed, insufficient. And so I’m like, You can say things.

I do not in fact know everything. And in fact, I don’t know most things. And I think Jo has said, this was also sort of counterintuitive in a discipline where we know very specific set of things very well for people to be so intimidated, but so, really wanting to pull the curtain back, from that process, in kind of poor wizard of Oz analogy, I was trying to make there, but

GPat: That’s a great wizard of Oz analogy. And I also appreciate the reference to the wizard of Oz. Cause I often kind of feel like that person don’t look back here. This is a mess back here, but just through all the dust, pans and bags that I meant to recycle at the grocery store back.

Constance: Let’s not let get started on the recycling. It’s probably going to take over my house soon so another quote in this, we actually, I think have to some degree it talked a little bit about. Explicitly, because you talked about, part of the processes that we’ve been so [00:40:00] indoctrinated that we’re starting to surveil ourselves but I’ll offer the quote anyway, because I think it’s just a wonderful quote.

And then of course, if there’s anything else you want to expand on, then feel free to.

GPat: Cool.

Constance: You say, towards the end, we are not cops. We are not bankers. We are not bosses. We are not drill sergeants. We are not beneficence dictators. Or, and this goes to our earlier conversation, where is that? We can’t pronounce magnanimous rulers.

I cannot, I always screw that word up. And quite frankly, the fact that so many of us have been encouraged to operate under such frameworks ought to give us pause and. Thinking about that, how does this play out for people or in terms of academic evaluation, maybe even early in your career,

were you in a unit or a department that was concerned with optics or metrics, you know, what does that look like?

GPat: So I am actually really glad that you answered this question because I feel like you’re right. Yeah. There’s always risk attached to this and I’m not going to lie to you and say that like, I [00:41:00] have not been, scrutinized, uh, or, um, that there hasn’t been, you know, potential blow back, you know? , that’s that would be, that would be a lie, uh, cause I have, right.

Um, so. Uh, one of the things that I appreciated that you were asking was about this idea of like, how that plays out in terms of like academic evaluations. Um, and I feel like all of us I’m sure have like, had these moments where like, yeah, okay. We all know that these academic evaluations right. Are like trash, that this is a metric that we like know from like various true review studies is something we shouldn’t be doing.

And like our administrations are like, yeah, we’re still going to do it. Thank you very much. We’re not going to follow your expertise. No, no, we’re just going to keep on, keep on doing this because you feel gaslit and controlled, so that’s why we’re keeping them. Um, so yeah, like I would say like one sort of holding space, right?

That those kinds of evaluations, even if we’re talking about policy, the ways that like a departmental policies are designed and the ways that like, certainly at any point, like a predator, a predatory [00:42:00] person or a culture could, you know, weapon. Gray areas and policy, um, to shut people out that they just think are threatening because it challenges the status quo and, and that’s, and that’s real.

And that’s like a real risk and it’s definitely something that I’ve experienced. So I certainly wouldn’t want to. Like make it seem like, um, that, um, w two reference central world that we’re following, like the rainbow road, like in the sense that like, I love like the space that this takes us in the classroom, but I also feel like, you know, it’s not always, uh, not always great.

I mean, I want to talk about too, but that like so much of, so we’ve already talked about how. Sometimes if your, uh, institution, devalues like your discipline or if they devalue, where you are, like, whether you’re at a regional campus, you’re a non-tenure track. Sometimes you get ignored in ways that allow you to kind of have leveraged to do more.

And they’re not even noticing. Right. But I think that the closer, I think that. The two factors [00:43:00] that definitely expose a person to risk are definitely, um, you know, being a multi-marg faculty member are, you know, um, and then also the, the, I think the closer, the, that there’s a perception that you might come to advancement or power or that a platform might be taken seriously.

That’s the moment in which the institution is going to set his sights on you and the way that the institution is going to respond to you. Instances are going to be decisively different, um, and, uh, are meant to sort of crush you, right. Uh, in ways, um, like sort of like on purpose. So, um, there are different ways in which, you know, I think a person can respond.

And I think too, in terms of like the optics, if you’re a multi-market person, like even just walking into a space, right. We’re talking about like the optics right. In the ways that we are, that like immediately we are going to be sort of like clocked as. Not holding up standards or fill in the blank.

Right. Um, and so that’s, that’s really [00:44:00] kind of, um, not great, but I also want to say that I also simultaneously have had an experience of knowing what it’s like to have. I think so much of the question that you’re asking is also a question. Administrative leadership, um, so I have a regional campus Dean who is like the best Dean that I have ever worked with.

He is just, I cannot say enough about how great he is. And it’s not just that he does all the things that, you know, regional campus deans are supposed to do, but he trusts the experts. Of his faculty. And he actually like welcomes moments where I think many of us know in, in Sara Ahmed has several books on the idea of one, one raises an issue, right.

That 1when one offers a complaint. One becomes the complaint. That must be vanquished. Right. Um, And then emotionally intelligent administrator, not only trusts your expertise, but like welcomes moments where someone says, you know, this does not feel, this does not feel fair. This does not feel equitable. And they’ll be genuinely [00:45:00] curious and say, you know, tell me more about that.

Like, I’m really interested. And then they’ll also really care about like the embodied and human experiences of the people who are students and who are faculty, that they are responsible to write. The one relationship, the power is like, I am, uh, over you and you will do what I say. And if you raise an issue, you will be vanquished.

And I think unfortunately, so much of the institution is like that. But I do think that I want to like, sort of like hold out hope, for, for people who do decide. Hey, I want to be an administrator. Like there are hallmarks of like good administration that can make someone feel as if they have the space to do these things right.

Because so much of that we can’t take on ourselves. So I want to say that to all our aspiring, you know, assistant and associate Dean provost. Oh, emotional intelligence, come on people. But yeah, just like, um, I guess the other thing that, um, I wanted to say [00:46:00] too, is just like, as a survival strategy and this is pre.

And this is my one thing. If an institution does come to you and be like, you’re not, this looks weird, right? One of the things you can do is like, I’m so glad you asked that. I’m so glad you brought that up. Here are the learning outcomes for this course. Here are the ways in which the activities that I am doing, um, are tied to these learning outcomes, right.

It just because there’s a learning outcome doesn’t mean that we have to like. Uh, drain the life out of our students and ourselves to meet that learning outcome. Right. And so, as long as we can find a way to attach to that and say, and I am so happy to provide you with peer reviewed articles, where, where my discipline talks about this, because then they’re like, oh, just I’m good now.

Oh, what’s your academic? Because I do think that that is a neat, it doesn’t always work. Right. And I think too, I also want to like say WPAs, we see you out there. Um, please make sure that, if you are in a WPA role that you are not policing your graduate students and that you’re kind of like using [00:47:00] emotional intelligence to kind of, make your graduate students, um, and your TAs and any other people that you’re supervising, like feel safe.

Right. Um, does that sort of make sense to like, because I think that that’s an administrative role that often sort of gets overlooked, but I think is very discipline specific, but there’s a lot of policing that can be happening in that role. And if you want to talk about creating like an innovative culture around teaching and pedagogy or rhetoric and writing, for instance, you need to make sure that we are creating an environment for people to feel.

To be able to experiment and to be curious, and to talk about like the embodied experiences of what it’s like to be in the classroom and what it’s like to learn in those classrooms and to be open to not having all the answers.

Constance: Awesome. That is amazing. Thank you so much for that. That was all that I asked for. And then some right.

GPat: Gosh, thank you. And I hope that WPA thing, wasn’t a WPAs. We love you. I’m just saying, you know, don’t be cops.

Constance: We hope we have one on twos, WPAs, or aspiring WPAs in our, in our [00:48:00] audience.

GPat: Yes. Yes, yes.

Constance: If we don’t, we will. Right.

GPat: Yes. I and I want them with liberation in their hearts. That’s what I want.

Constance: And so the last thing I’ll say, this is not actually a question. It’s just a comment. I was really, really excited, um, that you expanded on the Janelle Monet how you’ve used the that discography in your classes. I haven’t used the discography.

I’ve used the most recent, um, dirty computer, I think in, in classes before. And, I was just really, really excited to see that. And your innovative take on that. So, I’m a fan, so I will be following, I’ll be on the lookout for, you know, whatever you drop next, be it, you know, pedagogy or, or some other random things.

So, you know, having said that, I think we usually like to, you know, ask people or let people know where they can find you on all the social medias or how they can follow your, so.

GPat: Yeah. So, I’ll do, uh, Twitter, uh, because I was really aware I’ve been [00:49:00] having many conversations I have on Facebook at G pat Patterson. You can find me, I think that there’s another GPat Patterson, so it’s pretty easy to find me there. Uh, I’m @drgpat pat on Twitter.

Um, and don’t be confused because I believe that my emojis are a rainbow, a unicorn and heart. Uh, we’ll just sort of know, I don’t have a name there, but at Dr. G pat is me I love interacting with people on Twitter and, and talking about things, talking about pedagogy. And then my stuff is sorta scattered in edited collections and like really, awesome journals.

I wanna shout out to the journal multimodal rhetorics, which I think is really cultivating. For some really innovative work. Um, and then also, constellations and I also really am loving the I’m loving the editorial vibe, at Peitho right now. So, I mean, they’re just, they’re so scattered in all of those.

Um, and right now I’m just kind of. Uh, I’m kind of vibing to try to sort of figure out like, [00:50:00] what is GPat going to do next? So the, actually the last thing that I wrote was, um, that the loving students piece, and now I’m doing something that I’ve never done before, which is being like, you know, I’m just going to see what happens.

Like I’m going to see what I want to do. And I, and I’m really kind of being led towards thinking about and writing about what it might mean to, teach from practices of joy. Um, Also talking about fun things like trans intimacies. So if any of those things, or if just like, I don’t know, uh, various other weird things that I’m into, like, I don’t know, birds and gardening and animated films, if any of those things, your jam, and you also want to talk about like abolition and pedagogy and institutional justice, please follow me on social media because I like talking about those things.

Yeah.

Constance: Awesome. Well, I have followed you on Twitter now, and then the other people know where they can follow you. And Jo will get all the secondhand knowledge because I come back and report to them. Everything on [00:51:00] Twitter.

GPat: we need to

Jo: I am. Yeah, I’ve been on the fence. It’ll happen one day soon. Unfortunately. Um,

GPat: put, you know, it’s not, it’s not as, it’s not. It doesn’t require the same sort of like emotional intimacy, if that makes any sense, like it’s, I think you don’t necessarily have to be sort of sucked into like, oh, I need to like create hard boundaries here in a way that it, would you say that that’s your experience as well, or with Twitter or.

Constance: Yeah. I mean, I sort of resist the Twitter rabbit hole, so even though I’m on there, I try not to aggressively, I try not. Daily on Twitter. So that’s the one thing

GPat: So healthy.

Constance: I don’t necessarily know that Jo is the type of person I say.

I think so. I think he would be better about your boundaries then some of my other friends , who will not go to Twitter because they know that they won’t do like anything else, but respond to tweets.

GPat: Yeah.

Constance: I don’t know.

Jo: I might be, I might be getting slightly better [00:52:00] about not wasting, not spending money. On the . Social media.

Constance: Yeah,

GPat: It’s hard for Geminis. It’s hard for Geminis.

Jo: Yeah, usually that’s when I

go to G pat to say like, you know, tell me to calm the fuck down and go away.

GPat: I

Constance: we all need that comes back down friends. So that’s, that’s good.

GPat: I’m usually the burn at the fuck down front, but I do sometimes can pull from a deeper.

Jo: We do play both roles for each other. Sometimes it’s true.

Constance: I can’t figure out how I’m a mom of three with three kids and I’m like the turn, the fuck up friends. So I’m

GPat: I love

Constance: me get time to sleep when you’re dead let’s, you know, let’s, I don’t know. Strange. So all good.

Jo: Thanks. Thanks for coming on G pat, we’re really glad that we could have you and discuss your amazing work.

Constance: Yeah.

GPat: I’m super. I was, yeah.

Constance: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, everyone. So again, constants and Jo, you can find us@theunpackthispodcastatgmail.com and on Twitter at [00:53:00] the unpack this podcast. I’m pretty sure. Um, don’t ask me, but, uh, yeah. Um, so thank you again, and we will talk to you all soon.