Justice, Daniel Heath (April, 2020). “Demanding Kinder, Gentler Classrooms Doesn’t Make You A Snowflake.” Link: https://thewalrus.ca/demanding-kinder-classrooms-doesnt-make-you-a-snowflake/

I read this article when I completed the University of British Columbia’s Teaching Development Program for New Faculty, and it has stayed with me since. The transformative approach that Daniel Heath Justice calls for, would require higher education to embrace uncertainty as necessarily a part of a humane pedagogy. We can never know what students, faculty, and staff are facing outside the learning environment. Recognizing and affirming our shared humanity would involve also recognizing, and affirming that pre-pandemic commitments to “logistical rigour” (Citation: https://www.chronicle.com/article/when-rigor-targets-disabled-students) have done an extraordinary disservice not only to disabled students (and faculty), but also to anyone who is facing economic hardship (by definition, most people).

https://thewalrus.ca/demanding-kinder-classrooms-doesnt-make-you-a-snowflake/


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