The Blessed Heresy of Admitting it is Our Students (Not ‘Us’) Who Know Best How We Can Teach Them.

Today I realized how different it is to be exhausted from doing the work I’m meant to do and being exhausted from work I’m told, or have been led to believe, is important. The latter fatigue is dangerous to my health, to my well-being, to my sanity. The former is paradoxically life-affirming and healing.

I am so grateful for the wonder of students who find inspiration in learning activities so much that they dedicated their Friday nights for five weeks, countless hours at home and on weekends, and their creative energies to make the role-playing game, “DiGlossia,” for our intercultural communication classes.

And in class today, as we began the two-day playing of the game, I watched these silent Gen-Z students active, engaged, interacting, and having an incredibly good time as they realized they were role-playing scenes right out of the things we’ve covered in class. And the students who had opted “out” of role-playing…? Well, I realized that to be a more realistic game that involved the idea of immigrants and refugees, that the island and its multiple regions where they were traveling towards their dream city needed to have a host population of allies. Every one of them wound up actively engaged, watching the experiences of the others until they could determine the best moments at which to give of their resources to help them make progress on their journeys. Still others, whose characters had been privileged prior to emigrating, found themselves frustrated that many of their skills and powers no longer served them when what they needed most was food, transportation, or a place to sleep.