Abstract
Abstract This essay discusses the usefulness of empathetic, relational pedagogy while teaching at CUNY in the time of COVID-19 and reflects on experiences with three students early in the author's career that led her to this pedagogical approach. A terminally ill student, a student who had been shot in Tahrir Square during the Arab Spring, and a student who became paralyzed in a motorbike accident led the author to reconsider the idea of the classroom as apart from the outside world. Embracing the sometimes frightening events happening beyond the classroom walls can lead to a deeper engagement with course texts as well as to a more meaningful student-teacher relationship and a sense of the course as personally significant. By constructing classrooms as places for listening and by striving to practice antiracist pedagogy, linguistically and culturally diverse students find themselves supported, even when the world outside becomes unstable and difficult to navigate.
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