It is hard to gauge my students’ worldviews within a classroom setting. Despite the encouraging language on the syllabus and my own openness in talking with my students, the classroom still feels like a somewhat official setting where success is tied to behavior in the classroom (subconsciously). I think this atmosphere is inherent in the physical setup of the space. In future courses, I’d like to play around with classroom setup and negotiating policies, projects, and activities.

There have been interesting moments, however, when I have gotten a peak into some of my students’ worldviews. In our post-Brandt discussion, several students insisted that the union rep’s story didn’t involve any displacement of workers’ rights and couldn’t possibly have impacted quality of negotiation. Having grown up in a union family, I couldn’t disagree more.

Another group of students in my class are researching rhetoric of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) on Western’s campus and whether or not that reflects the actual experience of students of color on campus. These students have expressed how, despite the claims of embodying DEI principles by WWU and the city of Bellingham, the fact remains that this is an overwhelmingly white place. And we know, of course, that impact is more important than intent.

In the way my students speak, in particular in the discussions of research questions, it is apparent that many of them are extremely aware of the world around them and the realities in this political climate. Though it hasn’t been apparent in their literacy narratives or collage narratives, in conversation with my students it is clear that they have grown up in a culture where technology makes everything available, within a country that is perpetually at war abroad and in turmoil politically. In discussing the formation of research questions, a student candidly told me, “Everyone in your generation is depressed.”

But these are just a few examples. In reality, focus is almost entirely on the matter at hand, on the current project, activity, etc. They are a vigilant bunch, it seems, overwhelmingly succeeding in the curriculum but not much more. It’s not the classroom atmosphere I’d like and I know that if I had another chance to start from day 1 to put my creative spin and personality into the curriculum, I could take steps toward a classroom in which we all could see a bit more of each other’s position in the world.