TPC-Journal-V5-Issue3

The Professional Counselor /Volume 5, Issue 3 385 recognizing (or not recognizing) their relationship, misperceptions heterosexual counselors might have about them as a couple, and so forth. The hope is that students will gain some understanding of the issues and oppression that face nondominant couples. Before the class session during which the couple visits, I ask six students to serve as a team who will reflect on the interview at its conclusion. Members of this reflecting team (Andersen, 1991) talk together about what stood out to them from the interview, what they saw as the couple’s strengths and how they understood the couple’s challenges (especially as related to their couple status in the eyes of others), holding this conversation together as the other class members and the couple quietly listen. At the conclusion of the team’s conversation, the couple respond to what they have heard, and the rest of the students have the opportunity to comment and ask the couple questions. I consider this activity to be learner-centered, since much of the conversation is driven by the students on the reflecting team and the class as a whole. Yet it also is a structured activity, guided and facilitated by me as the instructor. I am very intentional about how I structure this activity. For instance, I would not have a class immediately start interacting with the couple, perhaps in an effort to protect the couple. Rather, the structure is intended to give students time to think about the couple and their life circumstances, time to be thoughtful about what they wish to say to the couple. In this sense, I orchestrate the experience, though eventually allow for improvisation by students. As the conductor and facilitator, I hope to encourage all the individual, unique voices of the students while also sharing responsibility with students for creating a moment that is meaningful and causes reflection and learning. In sharing this responsibility, I have to share power with the students (as all facilitators must do) by having them interact with the couple during the reflecting team process and the following large group discussion. I cannot control the student responses, nor would I want to. Yet I have my moments of concern that a student will be insensitive to the couple, perhaps even add to the oppression they have experienced throughout their relationship. Being more learner-centered does not mean that I fully trust, at all times, all that students have to offer; it means that I believe the risk is worth the potential gain. After this experience, students write a reflection paper about what they learned from the interview with the couple and the following classroom conversations and what questions linger for them. Students (perhaps straight students) often write that they have a new perspective on gay couples, realizing that many of their challenges are similar to challenges faced by all couples, gay or straight. They also reflect on the many ways that gay couples are discriminated against, often sharing their surprise at instances of discrimination that the couple has experienced. In their course evaluations at the end of the semester, students often comment that this classroom experience is the highlight of the course, the piece they remember most. In addition, a homework assignment in the couples class complements the in-class couples interview. Outside class, students are asked to conduct two interviews with couples in different phases of their couple developmental cycle. Students are asked to interview a nondominant couple (e.g., gay, lesbian, interracial, interreligious) for at least one of these interviews in order to better understand some of the concerns these couples have due to living in our society, concerns that would most likely not be experienced by more highly represented couples (e.g., straight, same race, same religion). Students then write about and share in class what they learned from these interviews. As with the in-class interview, this out-of-class assignment is an experiential activity that hopefully expands students’ notions of who couples are, what their concerns are as a couple and how they find