Teaching & Learning Design Justice Practices

What does it mean for a course to be justice-oriented? • How can you teach a practice when learning by doing is not a responsible option? • How might we incorporate our physical and emotional sensations in our learning and practice?

In early January, Ethics Lab hosted a distributed gathering for Georgetown faculty to engage with these questions in a reflection on teaching and learning design justice practices. Denise Shanté Brown, a member of the Design Justice Network whose work centers on the experience of Black women and other marginalized groups, was invited to lead the session. 

The event was an opportunity for Georgetown educators to connect and explore justice-oriented teaching practices together. Participants shared their experiences of design justice in their work, considering ways in which design impacts accessibility in and outside the classroom. 

“As designers at Georgetown, and people interested in creative methods in the teaching and learning space, it was a hugely phenomenal opportunity to get together with other folks in the university,” says Jonathan Healey, the Assistant Director of Ethics Lab, who co-taught a pilot course on Design Justice with fellow Ethics Lab Designer Sydney Luken last fall. “As a participant, the way Denise Shanté structured and facilitated the conversation, you could really feel the kind of care and sensitivity and space that design justice practices try to create. The time spent was, itself, a kind of experience in design justice.”

Participants began by sharing their living and working experiences of design justice, and then in smaller breakout sessions, answered questions about justice-oriented teaching and learning. 

“We wanted people to reflect on where they struggle when they interact with design justice,” says Meera Kolluri, a Program Assistant at Ethics Lab. “Where are they nervous, where does that come from, and how can we address that?”

“We talked about themes like power, trust, and hierarchy, and how they manifest in classroom design,” reflects Alicia Patterson, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Ethics Lab. She is currently teaching Social Media & Democracy, one of three Ethics Lab classes being offered this semester which will incorporate these justice-oriented teaching methods. 

“It got us thinking about the ways we design our classes and engage with our students. We looked at how injustice might manifest physically — in stress, for example. A lot of people are burning out, are anxious. So how can we consider that as we design our classes? So often, we don’t get to do this kind of high-level reflection before the semester starts.”

Other groups looked at equity and justice in terms of design, and ways to make the design process more empowering and inclusive. 

“There was an active agreement about unlearning the practices that aren’t working,” says Kolluri. “Institutions are growing and evolving; Black Lives Matter was a great example of that on a large scale. How do we apply this unlearning to our academic institutions?”

Looking forward, the Lab’s goal is to find sustainable ways to promote collaboration among creative, justice-oriented faculty at Georgetown.

“Our hope is that this was the first salon of more to come that the Lab can support and participate in, with the idea of building up the design and justice communities on campus into a more connected network,” Healey says.