Engagement Principle Through an Antiracist and Anti-Oppressive Practice Lens
As mentioned in the previous section, if you design your course and frame your pedagogy to take into account learners’ variable lived experiences, you design a learning environment that is better for everyone. Below depicts guidelines that show how the Multiple Means of Engagement principle can support antiracism (AR) and anti-oppressive (AO) educational frameworks.
Look at the chart above and think about the assessments and activities in your course. Are there instances where you are already practicing AOP/AR? If not, select one or two of the above possibilities and think about how they can be directly applied and practiced in your learning space.
Here are some ways that the Engagement guidelines might be viewed using an equity, AR/AOP education lens.
The CAST guidelines for the Engagement principle are:
Across these three guidelines, as educators, we must also consider:
- Obvious celebration of diversity increases feelings of self-worth and value in learning spaces.
- Active inclusion challenges the ways that marginalization decreases opportunities for self-determination and resilience.
- Learning environments that mirror diverse lived experiences and cultural backgrounds give the message “all of who you are belongs here.”
- Navigating stereotypes requires energy that distracts from learning engagement and can also be highly threatening. Antiracist educators actively combat racist attitudes, processes, and systems that exclude racialized students.
- Choice and options in activities that are culturally relevant and culturally sustaining support persistence and self-determination.
- Positive social interactions with others who are different from oneself support community engagement and lower stress hormones.
- Equity perspectives in learning environments acknowledge that variability, personal goals, and interests are shaped by social identity (i.e., race, ethnicity, Indigeneity, gender identity and expression, ability, sexuality) and promote positive beliefs that goals can be met.
Goal: To become purposeful and motivated learners.
In this recent CAST webinar interview, Andratesha Fritzgerald, author of the book Anti-Racism and Universal Design for Learning, describes the emotional barriers that exclusion can cause.
Andratesha Fritzgerald: Sharing Stories Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning.
>> So imagine walking down a dark alley. You feel like it may be dangerous but you also feel like you have no alternatives to get where you are going. There isn't much light, just a flickering bulb in a street light that is casting shadows right as you walk.
There are sounds that you really don't recognize but you have to keep walking. There is no other choice. As you walk, you hear the sounds of voices. You turn around but you don't see anyone there. You pull your hood down so that you can see more clearly, just in case. You arrest the thought of danger, the possibilities, and just keep walking. You hear some shuffling and turn around just in time to see a cat scurrying through some leaves. You pick up your pace just a bit and began thinking that your car is nearby. Just get to the car. Just get to the car, you chant to yourself as motivation.
As you near the end of this tight passageway, you see that your car is in sight. You hear what is undoubtedly footsteps behind you. You pick up your pace to a jog. You hear hurried breathing and turn around to see someone barrelling toward you as quickly as they possibly can. You're not sure if you will make it to your car.1:45You are not sure if this is a life or death situation. Your muscles are tense, your adrenaline soars, your mind races as you wonder--Pause.
That feeling. That fear. That rush. That adrenaline. That is the same feeling that many Black and Brown learners experience in the learning environments that we create. That fear, that uncertainty, that not knowing what will come next or if it will harm me or help me. That feeling. Pause there.
That feeling, that is what I want you to think about today as we structure learning environments, as we rethink teaching and learning for Black and Brown children, as we talk explicitly about why anti-racism is needed and why Universal Design for Learning helps us to build environments where people are safe. Where learners know for sure that they belong. Where they don't have to run away or have their amygdala hijacked because of fear and uncertainty but they will know that they belong, that they are safe and that the environment has thought ahead for them.
Can you imagine the difference of walking in a learning environment that's thought ahead for you, that's planned for you, that is welcome for you, that turns on lights for you. Can you juxtapose that? So what we just talked about, walking in an alley where there's darkness, where there's people out to get you. Where the system is set up for you to fail and content when you do so. Today we're going to talk about anti-racist Universal Design for Learning and what those strategies do and the possibilities they open up when we design differently.
AnAndratesha Fritzgerald: Sharing Stories Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning - Runtime 3:40 min
https://youtu.be/ACU1JZtPJvM
Andratesha Fritzgerald's full CAST webinar (Runtime: 58:40 min).
Fritzgerald’s story (“imagine walking down a dark alley”) depicts the fear, the rush of adrenaline, and the uncertainty about what will come next that many learners have experienced when they enter our learning spaces. Negative past experiences in school, stress about expectations, stereotype navigation, as well as the impacts of past trauma, can all trigger learners’ protective mechanisms, depending on the context and stimuli.
How do you think experiences of marginalization within the education system and communities may have impacted the learners in your learning space?
More about trauma-aware pedagogy: Alex Shervin Venet’s book, Karen Costa’s ThinkUDL podcast interview (Runtime: 1:03 min, transcript in link), or Mays Imad’s Inside Higher Ed’s article (Word Count: 2373).
What happens in the body when the brain senses a threat? The brain sends a message to the limbic system, which houses our alarm system, and the alarm starts to sound. When the alarm sounds, a major part of the limbic system, the hypothalamus, sends a signal down to the brain stem, and the brain stem says, “I need to either get away from this or fight back.” The brain responds with a massive release of adrenaline and epinephrine. The function is to raise blood pressure in order to send oxygen and blood to the core muscles. These metabolic changes prime us for fight or flight. While these adaptive functions are essential for our survival, this physiological and emotional state can block the normal functioning of the other networks involved in learning: the strategic networks (executive functioning skills and expression – see Module 4) and the recognition networks (perception and comprehension – see Module 3).
In this video, Stress and the Survival Brain, we further explore the neurophysiological response to threats and its impact on learning.
Stress and the Survival Brain
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Most of us are aware of the concept of fight or flight. The idea here is that when faced with danger, our brain and metabolism is built to seek one of these two choices in order to survive. Either flee the situation or eliminate it. But according to modern neuroscience, there's much more to the story of the way the human brain demonstrates stress.
Let's start with the limbic system where stimuli is processed into affective or emotional signals to be sent out to the rest of the brain. These signals could be messages of happiness and comfort or anticipation and excitement. Perhaps readiness to take a risk. And they also could be signals of fear and perception of threat.
One way to think about it can be in terms of a traffic light. Green is comfortable and all systems go. Yellow could be anticipation, ready to try something new, extra attention being paid. It could also be a certain amount of tolerable anxiety. Ideally we fluctuate between yellow and green. Self-regulation is the ability to go back to green when necessary. The colour red, as in a traffic light, is the signal for danger. And much like a traffic light, all three lights cannot be on at the same time. The human brain takes a lot of energy and it can't devote energy to all three systems at once.
Let's apply these colours to areas of our brain that receive the signals. Of course, the brain isn't really separated out so strictly into these three areas but generally speaking, these three areas are associated with specific functions. Starting with the green, the cerebrum is what makes us human. It is associated with metacognition, planning, perceiving, and interpreting. You could also say that this is the home of Bloom's cognitive domain. The colour yellow represents the limbic system which houses the amygdala. This could be seen as the emotional gateway to the rest of the brain. Emotional processing, valuing and willingness to take risks and especially the risk to self-assess, requires a sense of safety. This is the home of Bloom’s affective domain. A certain amount of excitement and motivation and communication with the cerebrum will definitely heighten problem solving and metacognition. From a teaching and learning point of view, these two areas working in tandem represent the ultimate conditions for taking in and analyzing new information and evaluating the results of applying new information to novel contexts. Including psychomotor contexts.
You'll see that the motor cortex is nestled here. Bloom’s psychomotor domain is connected to activities generated from the motor cortex. All of these systems in the brain are connected to learning new things but the brain cannot focus on any of this when it is in survival mode. This part of the brain is the Basal ganglia which many call the reptilian brain or system because all living creatures, including reptiles, have this. It is located very close to the brain stem and when the amygdala sends out signals of threat, this part of the brain signals the entire body with an all points alert preparation for survival. And when it comes to surviving situations of threat, the most likely response for modern humans is not so much fighting or fleeing but freezing. Many of our learners have already learned to freeze when presented with situations they have previously experienced as a threat. This could be anything from a particular type of content, like fear of math. The way in which the content is presented, lots of text. Social situations, like group work or stereotype threat. Time restrictions and deadlines. The list is long and highly individual.
From an educator point of view, choice allows the learner to navigate and increases options for self-regulation so that the learner can practice strategies to modulate their limbic system, offering options to avoid the red zone as well as options to increase communication between the green and yellow zones. Because the UDL principle of multiple means of engagement is primarily focused on affect, it helps learners shift from anxiety associated with learning to an experience of learning that is associated with positive excitement and anticipation.
Stress and the Survival Brain - Runtime 5:15 min
https://youtu.be/dAJ_9tQOBwc
When learners’ realities and society’s faults are not acknowledged in learning spaces, it can negatively influence the ways learners see themselves and inhibit their ability to connect with the content, develop self-efficacy, be motivated, and see the purpose in their learning. It is in the students’ best interest that educators facilitate learning conditions that are non-threatening by:
- acknowledging the existence of implicit bias and actively working to counter false assumptions and beliefs;
- understanding that there are inequitable distributions of power and privilege, and that educators must examine themselves within these systems of oppression and actively work to level the playing field; and
- stimulating social inclusion by genuinely welcoming diversity.