The affirmative power of presence through absence, online

As I was preparing for my first fully online course in September, I remember distinctly that feeling of uncertainty, even anxiety, emanating from the fact that whoever would end up sharing the online space that I was planning, creating, crafting in that moment, would not have met each other in person. None of the students had met either their peers, or me, their instructor, face-to-face, and we all knew that it would stay like that for the entire term. We would hear each other’s voices and see images of faces and upper bodies distorted by different intensities of light, framed by doors, pets, plants and accidental visitors. This was different to the switch to online teaching as an emergency measure that happened earlier in the Spring. After several weeks of ‘conventional’ in person exchanges, what had been built collectively and personally until that time – perceptions, habits, a modus operandi that comes with some element of trust – came to a test in a new setting; yet there was something there to be tested and probed into, and as such, to rely on. That subtle, invisible band of information that wraps around bodies and composes experiences as people move in and out of physical spaces was not going to be there this time. The affective, emotive hinges that we sense and make sense of, through which we work situations out and ‘get’ things and people, or at least the seeming naturalness of these unconscious mechanisms when bodies are co-present, would be limited. The intangible yet very much present trails of thoughts, feelings, and actions that belong to a person and carry their information, energy and ‘beingness’ within a limited distance, almost palpably, as a silent, unuttered, unconscious ‘hello’ to others, creating momentary exposures to the infinite complexity of another world, would not be accessible. ‘Everyone will arrive in their own cocoon’ – I thought to myself – ‘and will remain there, at least for some time, if not for the whole course. What is my role as a teacher here?’ Somewhat more poignantly, this question begs another, more fundamental one: what would be my role otherwise? I have been thinking with and along Jacques Rancière’s figure of ‘the ignorant schoolmaster’ (1991) for several years now. I had come to the temporary conclusion that my main task is not to explain, let alone, alluding to Freire, ‘deposit’ knowledge or information in anyone’s head (Freire 2000, 72). There are several lines that I formulated for myself to actualise this sentiment for my own teaching practice, one of which sounded like this: ‘I want to affirm to my students that they are capable of figuring things out for themselves’. That is, I just need to find a way to help them turn inwards so that they can tap into the infinite power of their own minds and learn how to work with it, how to own it with openness and curiosity. ‘I will just hang around as a “vanishing mediator”, and listen to accounts of how “sense” had been made. I will be there to prompt, provoke, instigate reflection, and “verify” the work of “attention” (Rancière 1991, 31–33). And then, I will step back and allow the rest of the process to be taken care of in everyone’s own paradigm, to be integrated into their learning journeys in their own unique ways’. Then, my job – I thought – would be pretty much done.