Archives: Connection

By E. Russ Bermejo, MSW, Lecturer 

This is Part 3 of a 4-part blog post.   

Read Part 1: An Invitation to CBU Faculty and Students

Read Part 2: Designed for Courage: Me & Myself

Read Part 3: Designed for Co-Creation: Teacher and Student

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The Third Relationship: Researcher and Participants 

So how can we be more connected in our research?    

Freire’s critical examination of the student-professor relationship in the classroom would extend to how research agendas are set by universities. When asked to describe how Freire’s work could impact research, Valerie Kinloch of the University of Pittsburgh stated the following:  

“(Freire) encourages us to take a critical perspective, especially when collaborating with other people in community contexts, as we attempt to address pervasive questions about inequality. He also situates research within the reach of the everyday – the everyday realities, lives, lived conditions, struggles, and hope of people – to make research accessible to who we are working with and writing with/about in our research. Thus, research is not singularly about publishing articles and books, but about writing new ways of being into existence that can, fundamentally, change the world for the better.”

If universities are to be organized to address the most pressing social, economic, and political inequities,⁵ it would take direction for its research agenda from the needs identified by marginalized and oppressed communities.   

Freire’s critical pedagogy was influential in developing participatory research models such as participatory action research (PAR). Relationships and power are examined once again, this time in the context of research. Freire’s concept of praxis, (that knowledge is developed through a cycle of action and reflection) is essential to PAR’s methodological approach that engages researchers and community members in dialogue (Hardina, 2012).  

Participatory approaches to doing research have gained critical attention across the behavioral and social sciences, as scholars, activists, and practitioners committed to social action work closely with communities to identify their concerns and develop plans for transformative change (Torre and Fox, 2015).  It is research that translates knowledge into action.   

The values orientation of participatory research, such as PAR and community-based participatory research, challenges the hierarchical and extractive approaches of traditional research through its core beliefs that:  

• Knowledge is not a product of academia, but a result of engagement with the community⁶ 
• Community participation is critical in every phase of the research process.⁷  
• Decision-making should be done by those most affected by the outcomes of the decision. 
• Development of structures, processes and social networks within the community to meet their own needs empowers members towards self-determination and exercising power over their own lives. 
• Building and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships between academia and community 

Our recurrent theme emerges once again:  An essential part of being fully human is exercising our God-given capacity to create, make, and build. We do this in partnership with our Creator and in collaboration with others. These creative and relational capacities are part of our imago dei DNA.   

Conclusion – An Insurrectional Faith 

It seems that pedagogy, scholarship, and research have an insurrectional quality and function. If that is true, then we must choose between courage or comfort.  As Christian scholars, we have (or should have) an insurrectional faith and worship a King that does not stay in ivory towers (see Philippians 2:6-7). How we teach and pursue knowledge are consequential and fundamental matters especially in our fragmented times. The great objective is that we can recapture what it means to be truly human – inextricably connected mutually interdependent, and creative beings. This is how we were designed. Once we realize this, we can know in our hearts that we truly belong to our Creator and one another so we can courageously get on with our three-point agenda spelled out in Micah 6:8 – “to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.” 

Reflect and Discuss: 

1. What values orientation drives your research practices and approach? Are there any parts that you feel need to be re-examined?   

2. How insurrectional is your Christian faith? In what areas (especially teaching, scholarship, and service) do need to challenge the status quo or business as usual? What kind of relational and institutional supports could help you meet those challenges?   

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⁶ The relationship between the university research center and the community is re-examined by Jenny Onyxher in 2008 article entitled “University-Community Engagement: What does it mean?” published in the International Journal of Community Research and Engagement

⁷The slogan “Nothing about us without us” asserts that no policy should be created without the full and direct participation of those it affects. It was adopted by the disability rights movement in the 1990s as a call to action around the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

References: 

Hardina, Donna (2012). Interpersonal Social Work Skills for Community Practice. First Edition.  Springer Publishing Company.  

Torre, Maria E. and Fox, Madeline (2015). Participatory Action Research in Social Research. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. Second Edition.  

By E. Russ Bermejo, MSW, Lecturer 

This is Part 2 of a 4-part blog post.   

Read Part 1: An Invitation to CBU Faculty and Students

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The First Relationship: Myself and I 

If we are to live connected lives, the first relationship to be re-examined is our relationship with our selves.   

In his book, “The Courage to Teach – Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life” Parker J. Palmer states that “we teach who we are.”  Parker adds “Teaching, like any truly human activity emerges from one’s inwardness, for better or worse. As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together.”  Consequently, knowing ourselves is as crucial to good teaching as knowing our students and respective subjects.   

So how are we to do this? We can start by first examining our fears. Fear is primal and also universal. Palmer says we as educators, in particular, swim in fear. I’m a terrible swimmer, but I’m pretty good at swimming in these types of waters. And I can identify at least my three big oceans:   

• Fear of failure² 
• Fear of not being good enough 
• Fear of disappointing others 

Since our cognitions are connected to our emotions and actions, one of the easiest things to do when we have fearful thoughts is to disconnect emotionally and relationally.  When we retreat, the deep waters become even more difficult to tread as we struggle with unhealthy egos, despair, and isolation.   

But here is the good news:  Although this deep inner work starts with us, it doesn’t have to end with us. The antidote is community and connection. Palmer adds:  

“If we want to grow as teachers – we must do something alien to academic culture; we must talk to each other about our inner lives – risky stuff in a profession that fears the personal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant, the abstract.”  

The current practice literature on leadership has raised our awareness of the importance of emotional intelligence and vulnerability in strong leaders. Brené Brown is a social work professor and researcher who studies about shame and connection, states “Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.” Her TED Talk on the Power of Vulnerability is one of the top five most-viewed TED talks in the world, with over 50 million views.³ Henri Nouwen similarly writes in “In the Name of Jesus – Reflections on Christian Leadership” 

“Somehow we have come to believe that good leadership requires a safe distance from those we are called to lead. Medicine, psychiatry, and social work all offer us models in which ‘service’ takes place in a one-way direction. Someone serves, someone else is being served, and be sure not to mix up the roles! But how can we lay down our life for those with whom we are not even allowed to enter a deep personal relationship? Laying down your life means making your own faith and doubt, hope and despair, joy and sadness, courage and fear available to others as ways of getting in touch with the Lord of life.”  

If we are to show more fully in our relationships, we must first show up fully to ourselves.   

And when we show up as our most honest and authentic selves, we can call forth the same in our students.   

As CBSS faculty, we have the opportunity to lead by example to create this type of environment here at CBU. Who else is better equipped than Christian behavioral scientists, anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, and social workers to set a new culture and do the “risky stuff” that Palmer encourages us to do if we want to flourish as a university? If not us, who?   

Reflect and Discuss: 

1. What are your fears as a professor or educator? In what ways are those fears played out in your interactions and relationships in the classroom? 

2. What can we do individually, as a department, college, and university to do the “risky stuff” of talking about our inner lives with others as Palmer describes?   

Coming Next: Part 3: Designed for Co-Creation: Teacher and Student 

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² Read Dr. Sophia Mun’s CSHB blog post from November 2021 where she shares two big ideas about the “right way” to fail.

³ Brown’s latest book “Atlas of the Heart -Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience” identifies 87 emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human and provides vocabulary to talk about it.

References: 

Kondrat, Mary E. (2013). Person-in-Environment. Encyclopedia of Social Work. Oxford University Press.  

Nouwen, Henri (1989).  In the Name of Jesus – Reflections on Christian Leadership. New York: Crossroad Publishing Company. 

Palmer, Parker J. (2017).  The Courage to Teach – Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life.  20^th Anniversary Edition. Wiley.