“We’ve Got This”: Unburdening the Pressure of Identity Through Co-teaching

Abstract

In this chapter we share about our experience of co-teaching a socio-cultural diversity course from different personal identity perspectives of race, gender, and sexuality. We discuss ways in which having various representations of faculty identities in the classroom allowed us to approach charged topics from a relational position, which is difficult to do when teaching alone. This was made possible by the cultivation of a deep friendship outside our roles as professors. We offer reflections about how our friendship evolved while navigating mixed-identities and discuss how this invited us into relational intentionality in ways we had not experienced in friendships before. Part of what allowed our friendship to impact the course was a clear commitment we both held to examining and understanding the effects of how operations of power and oppression worked to organize and shape the way we engaged relationally. What students got to witness was how their two professors transformed course content into a lived experience and that their professors took responsibility for their privilege and stepped into accountability.