An Act of Radical Compassion. Words by Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark.
How can you teach radical compassion within an arena practicing (white) privilege and power? I was recently asked to write a piece exploring the Inclusive Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Unit (Finnigan and Richards, 2016) and what I hoped would be covered in the Unit. As someone who hasn’t engaged with the unit, I must admit I hadn’t a clue about what response I would write. Utilising my insights based upon my experiences of Higher Education (HE), I suppose my most immediate thought was the designation of 110 //
term alchemy as a first response - alchemy defining as a ‘seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination’ (Dictionary.com), or more simply the art of causing change where there is no division between spiritual (self-improvement) and physical (methodological) practices, it more broadly characterises the act of breaking things down and reconstructing them into something else - something entirely different. I suppose then the title for Shades of Noir’s (SoN) upcoming Terms of Reference (ToR) publication ‘Alchemy - Transformation/ Formation in Social Justice Teaching’ feels perfectly placed within this discussion.
