For the past couple of years, I’ve been doing presentations to higher ed audiences, primarily teaching faculty and instructional designers, about the importance of centering human connection in teaching and learning, particularly online. At the start of my presentation, I have asked my attendees to comb through their memories and identify one memorable educator who influenced them in some way. Then I ask them to share two separate words that describe that person. Below is a word cloud representing the responses of more than 1,200 people.

The most frequently used words in this word cloud are: caring, kind, encouraging, compassionate, passionate, and supportive. While it is not a scientific study of any sortby any means, the results overlap with what we know about effective teaching – it is relational and emotional. The most commonly used words (and most of the others, as well) overlap with what Allison Pugh, author of The Last Human Job: Connecting in a Disconnected World, calls “connective labor.” In Pugh’s own words, connective labor is how we see another person and how we convey to the other that they are seen. It is an interaction between two people that creates an emotional experience with positive impacts. Connective labor is different from Hochschild’s concept of “emotional labor,” which refers to the managing of one’s feelings through deep or surface acting, like a flight attendant who smiles despite contradicting feelings.

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Subscribed

As I write these words, I recognize the privileges my identity as a White, cisgender, able bodied person brings to discussions of emotions, as well as the ways my gender identity can influence a belittling of my contributions. I can feel my brain navigating that stereotype threat. I am also cognizant of the unequal distribution of power across our predominantly White and male-gendered spaces in academia.

The Devaluing of Connective Labor

In her book, Pugh discusses jobs that are more likely to engage in connective labor. Teaching is one of those jobs. She goes on the articulate the ways teaching (and other jobs like nursing and counseling) operates within systems that are built around values that undermine connective labor. Efficiency is a value that is deeply rooted in systems of education in the United States (which is the perspective from which I am writing). Efficiency has created an inequitable labor situation between full-time and part-time instructors. It has also influenced the expectation for institutions to meet metrics and link learning to the amount of time a student spends in a seat, when we know learning is deeply variable and occurs at different rhythms. And, of course, the ratio of teachers to students is a clear driver of our quest to be efficient.

Our systems, as well as the cultural marginalization of the importance of emotions, in general, render connective labor invisible or not important. And once that degradation has occured, emotional labor is a prime target for commodification.

The adoption and rapid advancement of generative AI tools in the context of devalued connective labor has led us to a crossroads in teaching. The way educators (a collective word I am using for everyone who identifies with supporting teaching and learning) choose to use and not use these technologies will influence not only who we (collectively) become but also whether we will see changes in our systems that will elevate the value of connective labor in teaching. I want to be hopeful that the latter will happen – in my lifetime.

AI will continue to be touted as a way to save faculty time and lighten the load of teaching. When you hear the word “personalize” or “humanize” used to describe the influence a tool has on the work you do, remember the root of those words are person and human. If technology is used to reduce or replace opportunities for human connection in teaching and learning, let’s not use those words. Consider “customize” or “differentiate” or “automate” instead.

I do understand and agree with the need to prepare students for an AI driven workplace. And it is my hope that we will mindfully consider how and why we are using AI and choose not to use it to replace or diminish meaningful interactions with students.

The ability to make another person feel seen is a superpower in the AI era. Claim it. Research has shown that connective labor has positive impacts on you, the laborer, as well as the person being seen. Pugh describes it as “an emotional handshake.” With a loneliness epidemic, growth in online classes, and AI rupturing the foundation, walls, and floors of our instruction and assessment practices, we need to rebuild. And as we do that hard, important work, let’s lean in and intentionally integrate human connection into our teaching and our students’ learning – in all modalities