Disrupting the Disciplines

Disrupting the Disciplines focuses on the bottlenecks of racism, implicit bias, colonialism, and identity, raising awareness that "concepts we have taken for granted as neutral and unbiased are in fact deeply enmeshed in structures of oppression."

For example, Decoding bottlenecks are often cognitive, such as in history, developing an historical argument. A Disrupting bottleneck in history would question maintaining appropriate emotional distance: Why do we expect historians to police their own emotions and take the perspectives of even repugnant actors? Does this uphold colonialism?

Comparison of Decoding and Disrupting

The following table juxtaposes guiding questions of Decoding and Disrupting.

Decoding/Disrupting Steps	Decoding questions	Disrupting questions
Step 1 Bottlenecks	Where is a bottleneck where students struggle to learn in my course or field?	Where is my field upholding colonialism/racism? What is one component of my discipline where I can identify colonial or racist structures or processes at work? And that I feel prepared to delve into?
Step 2 Decoding/Disrupting	What does the specialist do to get through the bottleneck? What is the “mental move?”	What can I imagine doing differently? What kind of thinking or doing (or being) are we aiming for?
Step 3 Modeling/Teaching Presentation	What narratives, analogies, or metaphors will I use to model and meta-explain the mental move?	What narratives, analogies, or metaphors will model or center indigenous or anti-racist views?
Step 4 Student Practice	How will the students practice the mental move? How will I scaffold it for them?	What do I have the students practice?
Step 5 Motivation/Resistance	Where do the students resist? Are there emotional and identity bottlenecks that interfere with learning the mental move? What will motivate persistence to use the new mental move?	Where do students resist? What anti-racist/indigenous pedagogies will I use?
Step 6 Assessment	How can I check that students have grasped the new mental move?	How do I assess anti-racist and anti-colonialist thinking?
Step 7 Sharing	Where can I disseminate the analysis and reflection on the bottleneck lesson?	Where do I share what we learned from analysis and reflection on the disrupting process?

See also

Podcast Decolonizing the Curriculum through Disruption: From Decoding Tacit Knowledge to Disrupting Disciplines

References

2. Easton, L., & Middendorf, J. (2024). Decoding, Disrupting: An Email conversation in many parts. In R. Attas, & M. Yeo. [Eds]. Disrupting the Disciplines. Vol, p. ?? New Directions for Teaching and Learning.