The initial student-teacher interactions that occur on the first or second week of class are distinct, I think, in their (my) lack of really registering individual corporealities. To clarify: I’m not saying I don’t take into account my students as being present in front of me, and therefore acknowledging and connecting with them. Rather, there’s a lack of intimate familiarity. When it does eventually come after the introductory period, the amalgamation before me suddenly breaks down into pieces; the classroom occupied by students and teacher suddenly becomes the classroom occupied by Garret, Jackson, Jaci, Yara, Valarie, Kevin, etc. I struggle to say definitively whether this is always the natural route that such relationships take. It seems obvious to say that, yes, in any sort of association there is a distanced beginning that logically leads to closer familiarity. And yet I could also visualize being in my position, now, with the evolving acquaintance I have with my students, and still continue to not fully register them on a deeper level.

The class could continue on, hypothetically. I could assign the group work, rally discussions, say their names out loud so they feel I at least put in the effort to remember who they are. This would fall in line, perhaps, with the conventional heteronormative composition class model. But a significant depth would be lacking, one that I’ve only recently become aware of: the kind of positive engagement that occurs when you fully invest yourself in understanding (and work in unison with) the spectrum of classroom cognitive “capacities,” (dis)abilities, and abled/non-abled particularities. I don’t mean to sound mystical about this process; you can understand to a greater degree the physical/mental classroom needs of your students by listening to them address those needs directly, or, I think, extracting it from their written work, which is just an alternative, subtler way of communicating their position.

This can also be understood within the physical space in the classroom, and its relation to positioning of student bodies. I’ve noticed several times that certain students have preferred seating placements, and that those placements correlate to the amount of participation they engage in; how when that routine placement is broken, by way of being put into new groups or partner setups, a physical discomfort becomes evident and leads to a sudden lack of engagement. How the corners or back of the room, for some of the quieter students, allows for a “safer” transaction of ideas in class discussions. And while this is corporeal noticing can occur, its cognitive equivalent must also be a reality as well, though less marked. This is where noticing patterns or subtext in their writing, especially if in personal pieces like project 1 or letters I ask them to write, is especially useful. I can then arrange the room to match needs in an effort towards (at least attempted) equilibrium. Matching partners and physical room placement is the most immediate way I’ve been able to undertake that attempt, which really just boils down to a simple act of noticing and altering, which must in some sense be better than deliberately not doing so.