Some Departing Thoughts: The Privilege and Responsibility of Inclusive Teaching
As I retire from my faculty position in the English department, reflections on my teaching career are emerging swiftly and furiously. Teaching had always been my dream. For the first twelve years of my early education, the teachers were nuns of the Dominican order (and I thought I had to be one in order to teach – dodged that bullet); however, in college I met role models who were teacher/mentors, which redefined the kind of teacher I wanted to become. By the time I met most of you at MC, the jazzy combo of strict grammatical correctness, teaching literature to teach history, and investing in my students’ future redefined my teaching model once more.

During my tenure at MC, my students and I co-facilitated our educational journeys. My purpose and responsibility to invest in my students and, hopefully, ensure they were prepared to succeed beyond the classroom became clearer. During those years, we as a community were faced with unforeseen societal challenges, from the fear of immediate deportation faced by our international students’ the day after the November 2016 election, the pandemic-inspired virtual teaching, to the current heightened racial tensions. Once again what kind of teacher I wanted to become was redefined.
These are the thoughts and practices I want to share, which guided my sense of responsibility for inclusive teaching.

It is necessary to create brave spaces and empower students to voice their opinions, to think/debate critical social issues, and then to defend (i.e., support) their positions. Now, I always incorporated formal debates in the curriculum; however, in 2016 it became a way to flesh out critical, relevant and immediate issues facing our students. I let them choose their own topics of interest. We debated Dem/Rep candidate platforms, healthcare options, immigration policies, solar/traditional energy, vegan/non-vegan diets, drinking age (of course lowering it), pet adoptions/buying new, standardized testing, tuition-free college, social media, gun-control, euthanasia, marijuana (always a choice), even El-Chapo’s wife.

Then we tackled the “difficult” elephant(s) in the room: racial and social justice issues, which included police brutality, death penalty, Palestine/Israeli conflict, incarceration/restorative justice, prison reform and defunding or re-imagining the police force. My students were passionate, informed, and eager to flesh out their ideas.
One of my more memorable debate claims this semester was: Anti-Semitic attacks should receive equal attention as given to the Black Lives Matter movement. Trust me, our students are equipped to handle the difficult discussions (with guidance, of course). My (not-so-hidden) agenda was to brainstorm possible solutions to issues impacting their worlds. They have the ideas; we just need to empower them to find their voices while grounding ourselves in the discourse. Here are a few to consider:

• Raoul Peck’s “Exterminate All the Brutes” an HBO mini-series
• Richard Wright’s re-released novel, The Man Who Lived Underground, (without censoring this time)
• James W. Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (background for our teaching)
• Brave spaces (background for our teaching): https://www.naspa.org/images/uploads/main/Policy_and_Practice_No_2_Safe_Brave_Spaces.pdf

As I leave MC, it has been my honor and privilege to co-facilitate inclusive teaching, collaborate with faculty, and to, once again, redefine my teaching model. I promise to continue addressing social issues on my next platform and I urge the faculty community to continue your efforts to empower our students. I believe it is imperative now more than ever to guide debates and discussions in safe, respectful and brave spaces within our classrooms. Our students deserve it and our future depends on it.
In the words of an old cliché: “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?”