Learning outside our comfort zones

Final grades were due at 9:00 this morning, but the desperate slog through exams and paperwork did not deter two dozen of my colleagues from gathering at 9:30  for an end-of-semester pedagogy workshop. We started by heaving a collective sigh of relief, and then we got down to the important work of learning outside our comfort zones.

We all work hard to create comfortable learning environments for our students, I explained, but they come into these unfamiliar spaces and we ask them to do things they may have never done before, and sometimes that can be terrifying.

Today, I told them, I'm giving you the opportunity to step into their shoes.

But that required stepping out of our familiar classrooms and into spaces where we were not the experts. First, we stepped on stage, where a theatre professor guided us through some basic stage fighting techniques with swords. They may have been stage swords, but they handled with a satisfying heft and clank. We learned that effective stage combat is more dance than battle and that safety requires close attention to everyone around us. 

Then we moved upstairs to the music department to learn that active listening is also essential to musical improvisation. A music prof introduced basic principles of improvisation and then set us loose to practice on percussion instruments. A few genuine musicians were in the room but mostly we were a motley crew drawn from every corner of campus, making noise and matching rhythm patterns and adding our part to the group effort.

One more flight up to the art department and things got really quiet as a host of non-artists learned to draw blind contours in charcoal. I could feel the concentration in the room as historians and scientists and math geeks and administrators and others tried to draw what they saw and not just what they expected to see. The art professor leading the session offered gentle encouragement and found something worth praise in every effort.

When we went downstairs to retrieve our boxed lunches, the entire building was buzzing. We learned that an accident had knocked out power to many parts of campus, including the science complex where we had planned to hold the two afternoon sessions. We put our heads together to figure out how to do the group problem-solving activity in a different venue, but the chemistry lab experience could not safely be relocated so we had to postpone it until the next pedagogy workshop.

After giving our bodies, brains, and creative skills a good workout all morning, we relaxed outside with our lunches and put those active listening skills to good use. Today we proved that we can work together to make good things happen, even when the power goes out and the building starts beeping. We didn't win all the battles or make the best music or draw the perfect charcoal sketch, but we showed that a little imperfection can't stop learning from happening, as long as we're willing to step outside our comfort zones.

I have some pretty fierce colleagues.

And talented, too.