Emily O. Gravett is the Assistant Director of the Teaching Area in the Center for Faculty Innovation and Associate Professor of Religion at James Madison University. 

The power dynamics of classrooms are as varied as the teachers and the learners. Building classroom communities means being attentive to and curious about students, while allowing students the space to be eager, afraid, anxious, disagreeable, and sometimes, tired. Approaching students as real, whole people, who themselves possess considerable classroom power, must be considered and critically reflected upon.