This year, I’m fortunate to be a UM-Dearborn Hub Faculty Affiliate. My project centers upon students as partners, an approach to learning and teaching that, unbeknownst to me until recently, has actually been integral to my own academic development over the years.
In my first solo-authored academic publication, “Re-Imagining Punishment: An Exercise in ‘Intersectional Criminal Justice,’” I proposed a new model of criminal justice, shifting the focus of the CJ system away from “rough justice” and toward “restorative healing and positive social change.” A bold–and perhaps slightly presumptuous–move for someone who was still in grad school, but one that paid off in unexpected ways.
I never planned to write that paper. It actually began as a comprehensive exam. Yet, with the support and encouragement of one of my mentors, it evolved into something to be shared, something that had life beyond the walls of the classroom or my advancement to candidacy. Through this exercise, I was empowered to chart a course for my own learning and creative academic expression.
This experience set the tone for my future in higher education. It grounded my teaching and scholarship in the importance of challenging oppressive structures, a belief in the possibility of change, and a reminder that students, too, have a role to play in the production of knowledge. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, this experience was a lesson in treating students as equals–as partners.
Looking back on my own education, the professors who had the biggest impact on my personal development and learning were those who did just this. These professors invited students to create classroom rules (sometimes teaching us about Rawls’ original position and “veil of ignorance” along the way). They gave us the freedom to craft our own final projects around topics that we found meaningful. They exposed us to excerpts from Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, then asked us to assign our own grades at the end of the semester. Sometimes it was as simple as pushing our desks into a big circle or asking us to call them by their first names. While varied, all of these experiences centered around including students in their own learning.
This semester, my Hub affiliateship has allowed me to indulge in an exploration of the exciting literature on students as partners. As Mercer-Mapstone and colleagues (2017) explain, students as partners generally encompasses “a re-positioning of the roles of students and staff in the learning endeavor, grounded in a values-based ethos…within or outside of curricula; between individuals, small groups, or large cohorts; in courses (also known as modules or units); or across entire programs of study.” The International Journal for Students as Partners notes that students as partners can also refer to collaborative engagement in which students and faculty work “in partnership to enhance learning and teaching.” In The Power of Partnership: Students, Staff, and Faculty Revolutionizing Higher Education, Mercer-Mapstone and Abbott (2020) stress the potential of these partnerships to “transform lives and institutions.” This approach to learning is often characterized as egalitarian, empowering, inclusive, radical, and transformational. It has also been found to enhance student learning outcomes, increase student motivation and leadership, and transform faculty and students’ sense of self.
To me, students as partners is situated as an alternative pedagogy. When I reimagine students as partners, I think about students not only as active participants in the learning experience, but as having a voice in the learning process and shaping how learning proceeds. For me, this involves an acknowledgement of power differentials in the classroom and higher education–if not an outright rejection of hierarchy–and the creation of a dynamic path forward together.
When I reimagine students as partners, I envision the antithesis of traditional “banking” models of education that hold professors as sacrosanct and relegate students to docile information receptacles, often pitted against one another. Instead, I see students in partnership with professors and each other. I imagine students and faculty coming together to build a supportive learning environment that fosters communication and community, equity, harm reduction, legitimacy, process fairness, and transparency. I imagine making education enjoyable and meaningful and sparking intrinsic motivation that propels students forward both on and off campus.
Perhaps selfishly, I also find the prospects of this reimagined relationship to be much more enticing than the inevitable loneliness and monotony of doing it all on my own: crafting cookie-cutter courses that are taught in the same way each semester with no student input; grading the same assignments over and over without room for reflection or growth; standing in front of a room of students and lecturing for 90 minutes, day-in and day-out, without ever learning who my students are, what brought them here, or what motivates them to continue.
At the end of the day, I am excited and reenergized by others’ excitement. There are few things I love more than seeing students engage with new ideas for the first time, brainstorm and problem-solve with one another as a team, or teach me something–all of which is made possible when we reimagine students as partners.
Over the next year, I look forward to highlighting these themes and exploring ways to put them into practice in various mediums and spaces, including blog posts/op eds, infographics, workshops, and even a zine! (Interested in joining me on this journey? Please reach out!)
Ultimately, I hope this work will inspire faculty, students, administrators, and institutions of higher learning to rethink pedagogical practices–and to reimagine students as partners–as I do the same.
Featured Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash
Maya Barak is an Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice and Affiliate Faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies. You can find out more about her on her author page.