Faculty Strikes are Good Pedagogy
Teachers regularly craft lessons, exercises, lectures, and other learning tools to help their students develop their critical thinking skills. Indeed, an instructor’s primary objective is often to help their students by making their role as instructor obsolete: if a student knows all that the teacher knows, then there’s no longer a need for the instructor to occupy a position of authority. Needless to say, most teachers would go the extra mile for their students, make considerable sacrifices so that the classroom environment can achieve its potential, and to facilitate the achievement of students’ learning objectives.
But there are some things that simply can’t be taught in the classroom. Not all lessons can be compressed into a tight, terse lecture. Teaching is not always about conveying facts to students. Sometimes the most important thing a teacher can do is model what it means to be a professional in their discipline. For example, faculty demonstrate through their own principled actions what being a professor is all about—being a responsible learner, being reflexive and critical about information, being creative and precise. Another thing that faculty should model is self-respect and how to assert their right to worker self-management.
When faculty go on strike, they are demonstrating via their actions what solidarity is. Strikes demonstrate collective responsibility and the importance of justice. Striking is an assertion of worker rights and empowerment. Faculty on strike are demonstrating these facts to their fellow workers, to administrators, and the general public, for sure. But, one of the key groups that witnesses this demonstration—indeed, the group that looks to faculty for guidance and inspiration—is students. Faculty strikes are diverse, complex lessons that instruct all involved, that shake-up the status quo, and that push an important agenda forward. The key lessons for students to learn include: that they should also advocate for their rights, they should collaborate with their peers, that they deserve power when in conflict with their future employers, and that direct action gets the goods. Even though many college graduates end up in “professions” that have been historically under-unionized, students can learn from striking faculty that worker collective action can benefit them, too, just as it benefits other groups within the working class.
As faculty plan to go on strike, they should acknowledge that such action does not just benefit them and the public. Students do benefit from certain tangible faculty strike goals—such as the demand for more campus counselors or tuition freezes. But faculty also strike to teach students a lesson that can only be taught outside the classroom: that worker solidarity is critical no matter who we are and that we can only win when we fight.