Contemplations on Relational Vulnerability and Student Success

Abstract

Abstract:Given our duties as teachers, risking relational vulnerability is an important aspect of the profession. Parker Palmer writes in The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, “teaching is a daily exercise in vulnerability” and “To reduce our vulnerability, we disconnect from students, from subjects, and even from ourselves. . . . We distance ourselves from students and subject to minimize the danger—forgetting that distance makes life more dangerous still by isolating the self” (17, 18). However, to date, no one has investigated what vulnerability looks like in practice within the general university context and the specific university learning environment. In other words, no one has investigated how educators practice relational vulnerability and model this practice for students or how that practice improves student success and empowerment.