May 2024
Candice Price (Smith College) and Miloš Savić (University of Oklahoma)
Authors of “Radical Grace: Essays and Conversations on Teaching”
Radical: far reaching or thorough. Grace: courteous goodwill. Our tenets of “radical grace” are that 1. Everyone deserves grace and 2. Grace looks different for everyone. One way this shows up in the classroom is that we inherently trust our students. We trust that our students know what support they need and we trust them when they ask for it. We also provide for them the space to be creative and learn from their missteps. Yet, even we – who have a confirmed belief in radical grace as a teaching philosophy, written a book, and given talks and workshops around the US about radical grace – still struggle in some moments. In this conversation, we discuss how we have had difficulties and “slipped on our grace”.
Candice: So, we’re supposed to talk about how we aren’t good at giving grace. Except that’s not true. I’m really good at it so…
Miloš: Well, how are you good at it?
C: Oh, I’m not? Ha! But really, it’s an ongoing thing. We have to remember to pause, reflect, and think about the grace that we are providing or not providing, not just to someone else, but also to ourselves. I think that’s the hardest part: providing grace to ourselves.
M: I will say, this semester, I’ve had multiple times where I’ve had a hard time, especially with how students act sometimes. And part of me is just like, “What is going on? How can you feel this comfortable telling me you are not coming to my class because of your physics class?” And then I go back, sit down, stew on it for a little bit, and think, “What does it matter?” No matter what, I still have the authority, I have the power, right? I’m not losing “power” because they’re telling me that they’re going to ditch my class for a physics class. Why do I keep thinking about them disrespecting me and the class? How should I be applying grace to these situations? Because I always catch myself going back to my non-grace ways.
C: I guess this is a safe space, right? I don’t want to sound judge-y, but it feels like ego. We really think the things that we’re doing are important: the classes we are teaching, the research we are doing, et cetera. And they are important in some sense. It hurts when someone else minimizes that. We have basically put the time into it, and someone’s just like, “No, I’m not gonna worry about that thing that you put all this time into, it’s not that important to me, something else is more important.” That hurts because our feelings matter as well. I think that’s the thing — it’s okay to feel hurt. Someone decides that your project, your class, your idea has less value in their eyes. It doesn’t mean it is less valuable. But we’re so big on seeing value from the eyes of others.
M: Is the goal then to decouple ego from teaching? How do you try to handle that?
C: I think there has to be a recognition of: “I’m feeling this, and this might be why.” It is a farce to think we can decouple ego or get rid of it completely. Because it’s embedded, it’s unconscious. To think that we can just separate that from us is not the goal. We are human. I think it’s a very human, perhaps even western civilization way of thinking to say “You should value what I value and in the exact same ways that I value it.”
M: In my mind, ego might be associated with disrespect. I always have a hard time because we talked before, in our book, about basing our classroom teaching and community on trust and respect for our students. We have to earn that trust and that respect for us from them. That is a huge part of radical grace. I wonder: when did I “slip and fall on my grace” to my students? Was it because I feel like I should have had a default of respect from them?
C: I want to push back a little bit, because I think there should be a default respect on both sides at a minimum. Because we’re human beings; we’re people. And I think that there needs to be respect for that aspect. Don’t come in here and just disrespect me; there’s no need or reason for that. Now, is it okay for you to maybe not trust me and everything that I say? To make sure to check in with me? “Okay, so you said this. Is this really gonna happen?” Or be a little wary and not believe me when I say everything? Yes, that should be okay.
But I don’t think trust and respect are two sides of the same coin. They are different. What I think is happening is that there are different ways that people show respect or think of respect. I don’t know if the student understood that what they said about missing your class would feel disrespectful to you. So, I think that the difference is how we show respect. And it makes me think of the different ways people show love. What is your love language? What is your “respect language”? There are some people who think “I didn’t curse at you when I said that you are hostile. I even chuckled a bit, so I wasn’t being disrespectful.” But for me it could be that calling me “hostile” in front of people I work with is disrespectful.
M: I picked up on something that I just want to kind of reiterate. You said, “disrespectful to me.” And I think the student may or may not have been disrespectful to the class. Do you see what I’m saying? I need to decouple disrespect of me from disrespect for the course. He is not associating me with the course, but I am associating the two. He is trying to do what he can to be successful overall.
C: Right. That’s it. Is it fair to say that it’s disrespectful to the course when they felt that they had to make a choice and they just chose something else?
I love this phrase “slipped on my grace.” Because I think it’s an important thing to say that like, that can happen. It is where you aren’t “fully in the grace”, where you sort of “stumble over it”. I think it happens all the time, because we still have a default setting, and that default isn’t grace.
Grace has to be an active setting — we have to work towards it. Because the mathematics education setting isn’t one that has grace as the default. That’s what makes it radical, right? We actually have to work at it. I work on showing grace all the time. You’re talking about the grace for a student. And there’s many times where I don’t think I have grace for myself. Often I don’t set myself up for success. I often say that past-Candice is really mean to future-Candice. I get upset with myself for not realizing that I’m going to need time, that I am not giving myself the space and grace to grow. I think saying those words out loud is maybe letting people know radical grace isn’t an easy thing. We talk about it as experts and yet we still struggle.
M: I was thinking about how I come out of classes and I’ll give myself grades about how I did in that class. I’m like, “oh my gosh, this incident happened. I didn’t handle it the right way. I think it was a C day today.” Even in class. I said two great jokes. I was like, “I’m on fire today. It’s an A minus day for me.” In class, I said this, and I’m thinking to myself now, “Why did I give myself an A minus? This joke was fantastic, and my actions in class were very supportive and encouraging.” But, I’m honestly still so negative to myself, and I’m not giving myself enough grace. I feel like I have to give that a minus. Or else I would be flawless and I can’t be flawless.
C: I guess I’m wondering what happens if someone says to you, “It was probably an A minus day”. What do you say then?
M: This is just me and my personality. Okay. But I would automatically be in my own head going, “why did they give me the minus? What did I do?” I would be even more self-critical than before. I can’t be perfect, right? And maybe that’s a mean thing to myself. But I can’t be 100% in teaching, or else the game is over. Right?
C: Right. There’s always room for improvement. It’s like when they say, “do you want us to leave room for milk in your coffee?” Yes, I’ve got to leave room for milk because you want to improve. You want to not think, “well, I’ve got this down.” Because I think once you do that, then you stop listening to what your students need. And I don’t mean “want” but need. I think it’s great to not be a straight A student when it comes to grace because it gives you the opportunity to reflect and then say: Okay, I failed in this area and now I have to improve. How do I do that?
As we dive into the nuances of practicing “radical grace” in their classrooms, our conversation offers a raw glimpse into the ongoing journey of extending grace to students and ourselves. We “slip on our grace” and we find ourselves grappling with our own ego and self-criticism. Self-awareness and deliberate effort in separating the person from the course could be a first step towards cultivating grace. Radical grace isn’t a static state but a dynamic process of continuous learning and refinement, especially in giving grace to oneself. We believe in the transformative potential of radical grace as a guiding principle in the classroom, despite its inherent challenges and complexities. We also believe that one should give themselves more grace more often.