PgCert sessions bring together dozens of incredible students, with fascinating creative practices, from across UAL. Online, open discussion is encouraged and often smaller groups meet in separate breakout rooms to discuss more specific topics.
In one recent session, a tutor highlighted the opportunities for self-organisation in student breakout rooms, citing Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1). This resonated with me as I’ve been thinking about the friction between structure imposed through power and disruption imposed through play. I decided to observe what happened in two different rooms:
Group A: Structure as the ‘oppressor’
There’s a convivial atmosphere and students are keen to share and discuss, however there is clearly too little time to discuss it all. Without anyone organising the session, one ‘unelected’ member of the group starts to direct others to speak, keeps time, and instructs the group to take breaks. The sudden, imposed organisation reduces spontaneity and limits freedom of speech. In a way, the room replicates – on a smaller scale – the top-down pedagogic approach of the course or even wider institution.
Group B: Silence as the ‘oppressor’
During the second breakout session students kept their cameras and microphones switched off. Only a couple of students speak briefly and reluctantly. The room then falls into complete silence. Without a direct driver to encourage students to speak, students are silenced by their own freedom to self-organise.
In addition to the two scenarios above, I also wonder if the separation of students into groups may also inherently restrict them – dividing opinions and voices. (2) Of course, in this argument we put the onus on the role of the tutor or teacher to act in a way that removes all forms of oppression, be they inherent within the structure or not. This may not be just.
Thinking back at how breakout rooms were offered as an opportunity to students to connect – I wonder if it would have made a difference for students to be able to agree on this approach in advance.
I also think that there may be some playful and collaborative ways to engage students in other ways, for example using specific UAL online platforms such as Padlet. This is something I’m hoping to integrate further within future lesson plans to create flexible structure for students to engage with each other.
Further notes and reflections
I continue to enjoy the variety of backgrounds and opinions in the room, as well as some of the debates ranging from discussions on gender to conversations about spaces of support
A form of oppression from one student to another may take place in the micro-verse of the breakout room. However, we should also consider students who do not want to contribute through dialogue, as there is a freedom in silence as well as in speech.
Otherwise, there isn’t a driver for students to speak. Without anyone guiding the session, this constructed space seems to have silenced students once more. In this scenario, the absence of someone who connects and introduces students, someone who can establish dialogue, leads to a form of oppression.
In the scenarios above, students may have also not yet built-up sufficient trust to open up to each other. (3)
Is it really the tutor’s responsibility to create a space without oppression or should it suffice for them to provide the information and tools for students to establish their own learning spaces, structures and dynamics?
In the end, as breakout rooms empty and students return to their larger group, voices are reunited, and moments of oppression, whatever their cause, are lifted again.
Rather than being obliged to occupy these spaces, would having a say help students occupy spaces more effectively? Does self-organisation require more of the self?
References
- Freire says one “cannot impose oneself, nor even merely co-exist with one’s students” (Freire, 2018, p.68). Self-organisation, therefore, seems to be a valid approach to engaging students in a very open way.
- “As the oppressor minority subordinates and dominates the majority, it must divide it and keep it divided in order to remain in power” (Freire, 2018, p.120).
- “Founding itself upon love, humility, and faith, dialogue becomes a horizontal relationship of which mutual trust between the dialoguers is the logical consequence (Freire, 2018, p.79).
Bibliography
Freire, P. et al. (2018) Pedagogy of the oppressed: 50th anniversary edition. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.