Thread by @ProfHsieh

I debated sharing this, but think transparency is important. In a recent anonymous student evaluation, a student said that I came off as "pathetic" for making an off-handed comment about my awkwardness being turned into a meme, while I was online teaching during COVID (a thread)

The student prefaced the comment w/ "this is going to come off as harsher than I mean it," and ended it w/ how awkward it made the class feel when I said it.

Comments like this are unnecessary, dehumanizing and hurtful. 2/

During COVID, while trying to balance online teaching with parenting & everyone in the same room bc of internet connectivity issues, I had moments where I wasn't at my finest. I was open about my humanity w/ my students & struggled to balance everything. 3/

I knew there were meme-creators in my class & encouraged that to lighten an already stressful time in our class. While I know being self-deprecating is not necessary, I also know that this is a result of internalizing years of anything less than perfect being not good enough. 4/

What hurts most about this comment was that it ignored the intentionality of my models of humanizing feedback, the space I created for people however they were, and the intentional 1-on-1 outreach that I made to connect w/ each student. 5/

A second comment noted that people didn't need to share about their lives in this stressful time, and that, while well-intended, this caused the class to miss out on strategies.

If I wasn't explicit about this -- we teach who we are and we teach children who have identities. 6/

Strategies are important in reaching students, but space for people to bring their whole selves in, is critical, especially in times of stress.

We can't teach and learn if we can't be present in a space, even with all the strategies in the world. 7/

Critique pushes us to grow, absolutely, but let's consider if the critique is of someone's pedagogy or their personhood, and even when it is pedagogical, is there a way that feedback can be given that honors a person's humanity in the process? /end

Thanks to all who have been so supportive and affirming. My friend @cath_goulding wrote about this phenomenon and the damage it creates: journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjo…

I really appreciate people's responses & wanted to just say a couple things: 1) I work w/ future teachers (adults). For K-12 students, I have a different stance & tend to accord an extra grain of grace esp. bc modeling feedback is different than teaching it

2) I understand the spirit of responses telling me that I shouldn't personalize this. I would gently push back on this by saying that (my) teaching is deeply personal; this bothers me bc my heart is in my teaching, so while in the long run, it is a single opinion...

2b)...part of what I teach is the power of words, that words have impact beyond intention & sharing is claiming the right to be vulnerable w/o being labeled "pathetic" & reminding people that when we make light of situations, they often allude to vulnerabilities...

3) Also, as an #AsianAmerican woman in the field of secondary literacy, these attacks feel like racialized & gendered microaggressions, intended or not. So, it's personal & it's not personal, as can be seen by many responses on this thread.

4) I'm so grateful for your love & support, Friends. Your anger on my behalf and love towards me reminds me to always stay true to who I am, even though it won't be understood or accepted by everyone. I so greatly appreciate this. ♥️

One additional comment on this thread -- I notice that people using gendered pronouns in relation to the anonymous comment are using "he" which is interesting bc although I read this comment as both racialized & gendered, I don't know that it came from a male student...

...1 thing that's been very clear to me, in this time, is how insidious white supremacist patriarchy is, such that it could have just as well been a fellow Asian American woman making this comment as a white man. We're not exempt from oppressive systems bc of our own identities.