This semester (and forevermore), I want to spend some time thinking about status in the classroom. Both 'status' and 'classroom' are flexible terms in my consideration, and it's likely that the way that these terms are interpreted will vary from week to week, but the core of what I'm considering will stay the same. How do we interpret hierarchies in our environment, and how does that relate to our capacity to teach and learn effectively?
This week, I'd like to consider training within the corporate environment. As a part-time-trainer (part-time-administrator, part-time help desk gal, etc. etc.), I have direct exposure to folks across the company. In general, I try to take a status-neutral approach to assisting people. In training, I work to speak clearly, leave space for questions, and err on the side of providing excess access to resources. In administration, I work to act diplomatically, increase accessibility, and err on the side of providing excess access to resources. In ticketing, I work to be courteous and prompt, and to err on the side of providing excess access to resources. Do you sense a theme?
Status in the corporate world is a question of how you appear, who you know, and the previous exposure that an individual has had to your department. This is similar to the classroom environment in many ways, but it differs in a key way: your teachers are not always going to be of a "higher" status than you, at least not in terms of pay or organizational hierarchy. However, a degree of "high" status can be achieved in a variety of ways. For example, if you are a SME (Subject Matter Expert) in a topic, then you are given more cultural capital, at least in that arena. Because specialties are both defined and expected, this type of fluidity in status arrangements happens all the time. However, there is a degree of status or respect that is often assigned via age, race, gender, and degree of exposure. Do you know someone? Do you know who they work for? Do you like that department? Do you think that they should have control over the work that you do? All of these conversations go into the instant mental calculation of how we suss up one another. Further, it's how I, as an "Analyst IV," a 23-year-old woman, who has been stopped multiple times in the bathroom by other women who incredulously inform me that "you look like you're 14," am one of the primary administrators and trainers for our company's core set of collaboration tools. Would you like to learn how to use Zoom? I'd love to help.
I think a lot about how to minimize the intentional status differences in traditional classrooms, but being faced with the array and flexibility of status in the corporate environment has gotten me thinking in a different way. How status is articulated is not only a feature of the hierarchies we know and love (hate? feel meh about?), but also something that is constantly evolving, and is based on many aspects of our cultural capital. As much as there is dysfunction and uncertainty in my non-academic teaching environment, there is a certain degree of ease that I have knowing that this marker of status is up for debate. I know that this ease comes in part because I am (relatively) comfortable in my environment, and that is a privilege that is informed by other privileges like my whiteness and my degree of social comfortability, and that I try not to take that for granted.
In all: I can certainly I can muck it up with a group of trainees, but I also have the opportunity to redevelop a relationship with workers at a site 2,000 miles away who have felt alienated by the department in the past, and I get to do that while actively playing with my role. Instead of posturing myself as the leader, even in a teaching space, I try to represent myself as a capable individual, but one who is actively deferential and engaged with the specific needs of the group that I'm working with. I also try to show lightness and humor and vulnerability. Vulnerability is particularly accessible in the era of COVID, but that's a double edged sword. Will someone be charmed by your apologetic warning that you may hear a dog barking? Or will they be frustrated that I am granted the opportunity to work from home, while they are not? It's a gamble, and not one that always works out in my favor. Knowing that, I know my crutch is there if I need it: "can I show you where to find some of our additional resources?"
Hey Lia,
ReplyDeleteI think that you make some valid points about the corporate world that often escapes my mind. I think that it is relatively interesting where you point out that "how you appear, who you know, and the previous exposure that an individual has had to your department" are how your status is determined. I am interested in the fact that almost all companies use a system of hierarchy that favors men, cisgendered, straight, white, "able-bodied" individuals. As someone who is nuerodivergent, I would argue that my status is not decided by how I appear, who I know, nor the previous exposure that an individual has had to a department, but rather only influenced by those things. In my experience, once someone finds out that I am not cisgender, heterosexual, and/or nuerotypical they do one of two things: 1) teach me as though I need help when I do not ask for it or 2) assume that I should act in a specific script. Once these judgements are cast and action is set in motion, consciously or subconsciously, my status as a person and a colleague has been taken down a peg.
I think you are right that 'classroom' can be a flexible term, however then I wonder what alternative 'classroom' rules there would need to be, and how do the academic guidelines apply? If the world is that classroom, then we are all teachers and students in this lifelong pursuit of our truth. However, we must all know that because of our positions intersectionally in the world, we may or may not ever intersect with one another and the rules to the game of "pursuing the truth" can be vastly different in the affect that they have on an individual. Just like I agree to the concept of "heart work" and being vulnerable, I acknowledge that being vulnerable and showing sympathy are things that are harder for me. In addition, I note that I do not generally read people as individuals who care about my well-being, but more as an exchange of experience/information seeking endeavor. Climbing up the corporate ladder does not mean that we are all climbing up the same model or length of ladder. For some of us, we can do all the "right" things and know all the "right" people, but we are still at a disadvantage and exposure does not fix the capitalist opportunities of education in the 'classroom'.
-Alyx