How do you prep?
Syllabi as spells and playlists as love language
Dear readers,
How do you prep?
When you need to teach, facilitate, hold space, speak, present…how do you prepare?
I am thinking about this as I prep for the start of class tomorrow. There have been other classes, other sessions, as I wrote about in my last post, but tomorrow commences my first intensive class of the 2023-24 academic year, Perspectives on Religion and Society for the Religion, Culture, and Peacebuilding masters programme students.
To prep,
I ground.
I make playlists.
I cast spells.
Yes, I do the other work. I do a ton of reading and research and organizing and planning and updating with fresh and relevant material. Syllabi are like a puzzle to me, and I play with ideas on the floor of my office with notecards and flipchart paper and sticky notes until it slowly settles into some sort of form.
Or maybe syllabi are like a spell, a spell for the magic we will make together. They need enough structure to hold the magic, and enough space to allow the spontaneous and organic to emerge. They are the words that call out the aspirations of our time together.
But after all the prepping and planning, my most important prepping is grounding and music.
I ground, I center, I meditate. I try to be as present as possible. I put down the preparation - the doing - and just try to be present to what and who and how we show up - the being.
Setting the Space Starts Now
I set the space with music, but setting the space happens long before entering the space. We set the space with our intentions in showing up. I set the space as I share this with you.
I especially love creating collaborative playlists. Once class gets started, this is something I invite students to contribute to, but I also like to have a playlist started for the first day, and for this, I call out to the Facebook hive mind for their contributions and I am always so delighted by what they come up with.
Here are a few of my collaborative playlists, for your enjoyment!
Class Playlist of the 2022-23 school year
Religion (this is the one being co-created for today’s class!)
If you have any additions for these playlists, let me know!
Playlists as Love Language
I also realized in this process that playlists are one of my love languages, how I enjoy giving and receiving love. I love my students, and making a playlist for them, for us, is an expression of this love. To sweeten our space. To deepen our connection. To invite each other into our musical tastes is an act of intimacy and vulnerability.
I am a child of the 80s who spent her childhood and teendom making mix tapes for friends and crushes.
I treasured mix tapes from lovers, ceremonially destroying them when it ended. However, if a song from one of them comes on, it always takes me back, and I can often remember the sequence of what came next on the tape. The mix tape cannot be destroyed in one’s heart-mind. The relationship may have ended, but mix tapes- even ones that have been smashed and crushed or tossed in a latrine- live on.
Syllabus as Portal
I also love to think about portals, and syllabi are a portal into the learning and unlearning we will do together. They are an opening, an invitation. One of the quotes I will share with students today, from Leah Patel’s amazing book Decolonizing Educational Research, speaks to the uncertainty of entering this portal:
“Learning is not a transaction. It is transformational. It is a fundamentally fugitive act, one that tears down and leaves behind to reach beyond. It does all of this with the completely beautiful and terrifying knowledge of what lays ahead.”
-Leah Patel, Decolonizing Educational Research (2016), p. 94
Today we embark on this beautiful and terrifying journey.
I ground.
I make a playlist.
I cast spells.
Syllabus as Spell
This syllabus is a spell
For the time we will spend together
For our hopes and dreams
For how we will spend our energy
Where we will put our attention
Who we will listen to, and how.
This syllabus spell will guide us
But hopefully not confine us
And if it does,
May we break it open
And allow space
For the possibilities to emerge
And for our learning and unlearning to be free.
May what we create together
Far exceed what we can dream
As we cast this syllabus spell into the world.
I am prepping by writing this to you, and reviewing it - reminding myself of all these intentions - before sending it out :)
Happy academic year!
Love,
Stephanie
P.S. class prep also involves coffee :) Love letter to coffee coming soon to an inbox to you! 😁☕️☕️❤️
Well, I *have* to make playlists for each of my dance classes! :-) The day of each class, maybe a few hours before start time, I put a blessing out to all of those who have come to previous classes, to those people who clicked a link on Instagram, who took a photo of my flyer at a coffeeshop, who read the information on my website -- basically a blessing to everyone who put energy into learning more about my offering and who are thinking about investing their time, money, and energy to attending that day, opening up the channel for them to be welcome in this space, and be understanding to those who want to attend but cannot. I never know how many people will show up and what has drawn them there, so there is a sense of surrendering and being OK with the unknowing, trusting that the folks who show up are showing up fully and authentically!