Learning to Listen: (Emerging) Beliefs & Practices through Classroom Conversations
For my dad, who has taught me how to listen.
Final tasks are opportunities to observe and discuss student learning, to celebrate student progress. But they are also a chance to reflect on our own practice as teachers. Through my observations & conversations with students, I learn about whether the course content, structure, and instructional model worked for each student, and whether my implicit learning goals were understood and practiced (metacognition, critical thinking, cultivating a growth mindset, the development of a love for reading and writing, and the application of course concepts to other subjects/life).
Sometimes, though, if I am really lucky, I experience a moment that shifts my perspective so profoundly that I am rattled — and my approach, not only to teaching, but to life, changes.
One example of this was last quadmester when speaking to a student during a final evaluation for ENG2P. After reading aloud a personal memoir and making a connection between his writing and the book he read, he began to reflect on his memoir and his beliefs which were informed by his experience:
“This story happened to me. My brother was murdered. My uncle was murdered. One minute I was hiding in an apartment, the next I was jumping on a roof and then into a car, driving down back roads to avoid fake check-points…You know, my brother, they tied him up and attached him to the back of a pick-up truck and drove until he was dead……… You know, my family and I pray for Trump every night….He was the only one who stood up to the militia. I saw that the guns the militia were using were guns handed to them by the previous US administration.”
I sat there for a moment, at a loss for words, struck by what he said. By what that would be like. By his strength and the vulnerability it must have taken to write this, read this, share this. By how much pain he must have experienced (and must still be experiencing), by the profound differences in our experiences — but at the same time, rattled by his perspective on Donald Trump:
How could it be so drastically different than my own. Hadn’t Trump’s rhetoric and policies disproportionately discriminated against newcomers with his “Muslim ban,” border wall, separation and detainment of migrant families, his blatant institutionalized racism throughout the COVID pandemic (and before)?
All I was able to manage in the moment was, “I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been. Thank you for sharing this with me.”
In Teaching Cognition in Language Teaching: Beliefs, decision-making and classroom practice, Devon Woods (1996) writes about how teachers’ beliefs, assumptions, and knowledge structure impact instructional decisions — both in course planning, lesson planning and in moment-to-moment classroom interactions: “Beliefs may not always be held consciously, and may be ‘discovered’ or brought up to a level of consciousness later…[They are also] dynamic, and always changing, both in terms of their specific details and in terms of the relationships among them” (Woods, p.32).
Woods explains beliefs, assumptions and knowledge structures through the hypothetical concept of “an integrated network” (BAK), each part “coalesc[ing] into patterns in particular situations” (Woods, 1996, p. 185; p. 197). Central to his argument is the concept of ‘hotspots’ (Linde as cited in Woods, 1980), which occur when “there is a conflict between what is stated and what is believed” (Woods, p. 77).
Reflecting on the conversation with my student, I wonder whether my reaction to this student’s beliefs (both internal processing and external communication)was indicative of a hotspot?
If I were to state my beliefs outright, I would say that I welcome all perspectives. That my class is place for productive conversations and diverse interpretations of texts, ideas, and beliefs. But I realize that in that moment I had inadvertently assigned greater value and prioritized my perspective; my beliefs (which emerged in this conversation/moment) were not consistent with my behaviour (reaction to my student’s statement).
According to Woods, “[stated beliefs] must be taken as hypotheses, because they may not correspond with what the author or speaker really believes, but rather what they would like the audience to think they believe” (Woods, 1996, p. 72). True beliefs tend to appear unconsciously (and more authentically and consistently connected to actual beliefs) in the context of a story or experience, or in a moment of decision-making, which “instantiates and signals the teacher’s underlying beliefs, assumptions and knowledge” (p. 27; p. 184; p.192). In the context of a single moment, these factors emerge and coalesce to produce a thought, utterance or action.
If I were to look at my course planning, daily utterance and actions, would I discover a pattern or a “themal coherence” (Woods, 1996, p. 79) of privileging my beliefs and values over those of my students? How might this have impacted student experiences and learning?
If I am being honest, I often make assumptions and statements (implicitly or otherwise) that generalize all right-wing politicians and supporters as making value-based judgments. I also associate democratic discourse (and critical thinking) with my own left-leaning lens and neglect the notion that it could be any other way. And this was precisely what I became conscious of during that “hotspot,” that aha! (or rather, uh oh!) moment, where I felt both rattled and unnerved; that I was complicit in cultivating a values-laden curriculum instead of nurturing a space that fosters productive discourse.
Looking back at my own experience as a learner, I distinctly remember learning contexts where the beliefs and values of my teachers were apparent. Sometimes, the belief systems were in line with my own (the necessity of inclusivity and positive reinforcement in the classroom —I had had some negative experiences in elementary school where I struggled to make friends and was not “meeting expectations” academically, so I agreed with these approaches), but other times I did not agree with the beliefs and values of my teachers and I did not feel comfortable voicing my disagreement (one of my former high school teachers made sexist remarks about colleagues in front of the class).
One particularly poignant memory comes to mind. I was taking an undergraduate class called “Women, Art and Society” at Carleton University. In this particular learning context, I agreed with most of what the professor was saying: how, much of art has subjugated women to the role of the muse, how art has been used to reinforce patriarchy and oppression. But all art, even modern art, was being discussed in relation to a “gender” (sex) binary. And every lecture seemed like a lecture. By the end of that course, I was lifting up my hand, attempting to suggest alternative understandings of paintings — reading them through a postmodern lens to illustrate that the interpretation of art through a gender binary reinforced the binary itself. My professor’s frustrations (and beliefs) were evident through her actions and reactions. The course and curriculum felt values-laden. My mark did not reflect my knowledge of the art (through a postmodern lens). I ended up writing the Dean and appealing my grade.
When I reflect on this experience, I remember how difficult it was to attend that class — how much I resented that there was no room for ideas which challenged the professor’s perspective. And I wonder about that professor’s beliefs, assumptions and knowledge structures and how they may have impacted her decision-making process about course content, instructional strategies and moment-to-moment interactions.
According to Woods, the real question we need to ask ourselves is “what [is] really being taught and what [is] really being learned (Woods, 1996, p. 2). And this largely depends on the interaction between teachers and students and their perceptions and interpretations of what is happening.
Was her explicit goal to critique and challenge dominant art history narratives that were subjugating women? Did this goal reflect her approach to instructional strategies? Did she assume we would be amenable to her perspective? Did context (having a student publically question her approach and course structure) contribute to her decision-making process and moment-to-moment interactions. Did she experience a hot spot, and, if so, did she reflect on it? Maybe.
The truth is, I don’t know. But what I do know is that those moments of discomfort, of cognitive dissonance, can be productive. They can help us to assess whether our beliefs are in line with our practice (and whether our beliefs should inform course decisions). Maybe they also help us to reflect on the problematic nature of a singular perspective or a values-laden curriculum: whether left wing, right wing, feminist, patriarchal, evangelical, or atheist, a values-laden approach will shut down productive and enlightening conversations, and make moments of cognitive dissonance less likely. The goal of every teacher should be to evolve their practice (including their beliefs, assumptions and knowledge about teaching), and this “develops through a teacher’s experiences as a learner and a teacher, evolving in the face of conflicts and inconsistencies, and gaining depth and breadth as varied events are interpreted and reflected upon” (Woods, 1996, p. 212).
As teachers, we have a responsibility to create openings not closures. And an important part of doing so is recognizing our “hotspots” in order to understand how our beliefs, assumptions and knowledge systems impact our decision-making (and therefore student experience) in the classroom. Acknowledging, encouraging, and reflecting on these moments of cognitive dissonance will support the evolution of our practice (Woods, 1996, p. 248).
My BAK is continuing to evolve, and a big part of this evolution has to do with mentors who continue to encourage me to be vulnerable and experience dissonance, both in my life and my teaching. A big thank you to Amanda Potts, my first department head, who continues to encourage me to try new things and experience teaching as though it is my first day, everyday. And to my dad, Devon Woods, who taught me all I needed to know about listening before reading his book.
https://www.amazon.ca/Teacher-Cognition-Language-Teaching-Decision-Making/dp/0521497884
