Chapter 1: Learning In Discomfort: The Role of the Campus Environment

At the 2011 Curriculum and Pedagogy (C&P) conference, I facilitated a workshop that invited participants to explore challenges and possibilities for teaching in “pedagogies of discomfort” (Boler, 1999). Together we examined places in our teaching where we found ourselves lost in questions of whether, when and how discomfort, including emotions and moments of conflict, can be fruitful for learning. Early in the workshop, participants identified instances of discomfort that surfaced in their classrooms where students were examining questions of race, culture, power, and privilege.

One person spoke of a student's anger in an introductory curriculum theory course that examined questions of knowledge and power. An ensuing e-mail copied to an administrator called the course and this teacher “doctrinaire.” The student protested that the teacher included mostly “left” voices in the syllabus and was not open to conservative views. The following semester another student confronted this teacher with a similar critique, though this time the student was more willing to engage in dialogue. The teacher found himself wrestling with a dismissive anger that seemed to mirror the students' “defensive anger” (Boler, 1999) that enabled them to delegitimize the course content. He also expressed feeling an initial powerlessness over the e-mail that positioned him as institutionally vulnerable.