Instructional design in a short story mode

I recently saw a lot of people, including the author Sarah Pinsker, asking a fun set of questions over on BlueSky. (Also, by the way, I’m on BlueSky.)

She asks (and answers):

if you went to college

1. what was your career goal when you started?
2. your initial major?
3. if you changed majors, what did you change to?
4. what do you do now, professionally?

 

1. i was interested in genetics but unsure
2. History
3. Never changed
4. Writer/creating writing prof

Here’s my response, which not only demonstrates my usual predilection to wrap social media posts up in tidy little bows, but also contains enough durable insight that I felt it worth sharing here:

1. I didn’t truly have one yet? I was just thrilled to be at a school where people wanted to be at school‽?!
2. Philosophy (not sure I ever declared it as a major, but I got it as a minor).
3. English Lit.
4. Instructional Design (i.e. helping students & professors continue wanting to be at school).

Then I added:

(Aaand because I’ve mostly done Cultural / American Studies, I know how many structural problems higher ed as set of institutions is oriented toward perpetrating.

But it’s also one of the best places, outside of social media, for creating an undercommons for our collective study toward liberation.)

If you’re unfamiliar with the idea of The Undercommons, the link in this sentence takes you to a freely downloadable version of the book.

Assuming that I remember correctly from when I first read it, I found The Undercommons both a deeply frustrating and very useful work. Fred Moten, one of the authors, is a poet and a critical theorist. I suspect that the book’s avoidance of early definition of terms is an intentional provocation to keep you reading (and also, perhaps, to avoid making it come across as alienatingly “theoretical” or “fixed”). Rather than closing off potential paths, it feels like the authors deliberately chose to leave enough space for readers to find resonance, ideas to play with, and mentally collaborate as they wish.

If you’re sensing musical overtones—particularly of a jazz improv variety—then just let me share that In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition was the first piece I read by Moten. That, plus having seen him speak once or twice at UC Irvine and elsewhere in Southern California, probably influence how his works resonate in my mind.

Invitations to an audience; provocations to take up the pieces and do something with them; these very much speak to atypical aspects of instructional design and teaching where one tries to maintain an open space for collaboration and connection, rather than just delivering static knowledge.

I’ll be re-reading hooks, Freire, and Giroux this year—as well as many newer people who discuss pedagogy and instruction from complementary perspectives—and I’ll keep trying to trace these connections and echoes as I find them.

Kudos

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