Rather than attempt to condense an entire semester-long disaster teaching comp as cultural studies into one blog post — a memory I'd rather keep repressed anyway — I think I'll follow in Koel's footsteps and reflect a little on my recent TA experience. This would put me on the authority side of the desk, but not the lectern: a position that provided some comfort given all the one-on-one work I've done over the years, but which has its own medial problems. There were a number of issues interpreting the close-reading assignments for students, many of whom were used to writing plot summaries or to pulling out quotes to prove fairly generic arguments about a text rather than identifying how it "worked" as literature.
I think one of the issues I found most complicated was thinking about the students' relationship to the works they were studying in terms of morality, ethics, and politics. For a CSCL course, there wasn't a whole lot of emphasis on politics and power relations in class; nonetheless, students often found themselves compelled to make judgments about the morality of characters. The instructor had specifically mentioned, among other things, not to do this, or to psychoanalyze literary characters. Most of the time this seemed essentially right to me, as these approaches tend to make things a little easy for the writer (and a little tedious for the reader-grader).
One repeat offender, or so I thought, was an argument about Gilgamesh's "immaturity" in one form or another, prepared to ward off a five thousand year-old narrative with unquestioned assumptions about adulthood as some ahistorical category. But I had a "wait a minute" moment while speaking to a student who had made this kind of argument when I found myself getting into the peculiar position of "defending" Gilgamesh once or twice. I thought back at some point to the pleasure I took as an undergraduate in Judith Fetterley's account of "Rip Van Winkle" in The Resisting Reader — with its denunciations of a patriarchy that, in broad sweeps, does seem like a fairly universal problem across the history of civilization.
I ended up telling the student that the critique needed to be made more overtly through the text, that it needed to be about how the text itself showed Gilgamesh failing to grow (and how it constructed maturity). The essay was, after all, supposed to be textual analysis. Still, the incident raised important questions about how to help turn students' gut reactions — which often have some legitimacy, after all — into more or less "smart" prose and arguments. Don't we struggle with this ourselves?
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Teaching/Un-teaching "Cultural Literacy"
During my first semester of teaching (a first-year writing class in which I was charged with teaching 22 freshmen how to "write across the disciplines"), I had my students write a position paper on what we termed "cultural literacy." I had them read two pieces from their reader (Real Texts, in case anyone was interested): one was an excerpt from Victor Villanueva's Bootstraps and the other was a (rather infamous) piece by E.M. Hirsch entitled "The Theory Behind the Dictionary." In a nutshell, these two pieces were meant to be read in opposition. Villanueva's argued that students need to be taught to question commonly held worldviews and the idea of the canon, while Hirsch's argued that a set of agreed-upon historical facts, tropes, and idioms that are widely used in public discourse should be taught.
I was SO excited about this unit when I put it together. In my frenzy of syllabus-structuring and assignment sheet-making over the summer, I imagined changing my students' outlooks on not just how they had been taught, but how they would be taught, how the the news was presented to them, etc. In short (and in retrospect), I guess I imagined piquing that esoteric epistemological curiosity that Freire discusses - in each and every student. How could one not be moved? I had them take online quizzes that demonstrated what a myth the idea of a common cultural literacy is - or at least, how difficult it is to attain. I even created a fill-in-the-blank worksheet to aid their analyses that had questions like, "Villaneuva states '...the goal is not to have students relinquish national myths. The goal is to expose them to differences and similarities within the literary conventions that they have to contend with, to know the traditional norms while also appraising them, looking at the norms critically' (362). How do you envision this idea being enacted in schools?"
...I wish I had kept any of their filled-in worksheets, but I suppose I returned them all. I have no idea how anyone responded to that question, although I'm sure we discussed it in class. All I know is that at some point during that discussion, we landed on the topic of standardized testing, which, admittedly, is a form of the cultural literacy rubric that Hirsch esteems. Unfortunately, that also meant that I got 22 final papers bitching and moaning about the SAT and ACT...and I take full responsibility for not reining in the conversation.
Somewhere along the line, I let them overlook the major objective of the lesson, which I now realize was kind of a Freire Lite idea, one that is specifically intended for American learners. I wonder if I should have emphasized its radicalness, its roots in Freirean ideology (can I call it that?)...but I guess I also wonder if the pieces were simply "too hard" or "too complex" for first-year learners to handle. I DON'T want to believe this is the case; I have more faith in my students than most teachers (I think)...but I have to remember that all they have to draw on is their own experience, and that standardized testing was something they all related to (and it got discussion going - very, very freely, without facilitation from me). Isn't that the goal? I wonder if this assignment fell totally flat or if it reached them on some level, even if it didn't completely change their lives/outlooks, like I had hoped it would.
I was SO excited about this unit when I put it together. In my frenzy of syllabus-structuring and assignment sheet-making over the summer, I imagined changing my students' outlooks on not just how they had been taught, but how they would be taught, how the the news was presented to them, etc. In short (and in retrospect), I guess I imagined piquing that esoteric epistemological curiosity that Freire discusses - in each and every student. How could one not be moved? I had them take online quizzes that demonstrated what a myth the idea of a common cultural literacy is - or at least, how difficult it is to attain. I even created a fill-in-the-blank worksheet to aid their analyses that had questions like, "Villaneuva states '...the goal is not to have students relinquish national myths. The goal is to expose them to differences and similarities within the literary conventions that they have to contend with, to know the traditional norms while also appraising them, looking at the norms critically' (362). How do you envision this idea being enacted in schools?"
...I wish I had kept any of their filled-in worksheets, but I suppose I returned them all. I have no idea how anyone responded to that question, although I'm sure we discussed it in class. All I know is that at some point during that discussion, we landed on the topic of standardized testing, which, admittedly, is a form of the cultural literacy rubric that Hirsch esteems. Unfortunately, that also meant that I got 22 final papers bitching and moaning about the SAT and ACT...and I take full responsibility for not reining in the conversation.
Somewhere along the line, I let them overlook the major objective of the lesson, which I now realize was kind of a Freire Lite idea, one that is specifically intended for American learners. I wonder if I should have emphasized its radicalness, its roots in Freirean ideology (can I call it that?)...but I guess I also wonder if the pieces were simply "too hard" or "too complex" for first-year learners to handle. I DON'T want to believe this is the case; I have more faith in my students than most teachers (I think)...but I have to remember that all they have to draw on is their own experience, and that standardized testing was something they all related to (and it got discussion going - very, very freely, without facilitation from me). Isn't that the goal? I wonder if this assignment fell totally flat or if it reached them on some level, even if it didn't completely change their lives/outlooks, like I had hoped it would.
Freire summary from Shannon
Paulo Freire: Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Thoughts on Chapters 1 & 2
Shannon Stevens
1/31/2012
Fair warning: Chapter 2 is a breeze (no wonder it’s cited so often); Chapter 1 is seriously heady stuff.
CHAPTER 1:
Let’s begin at the end, as the concluding paragraph to this chapter does an excellent job of summing up the way Freire wants us to think about the oppressed/oppressor and about the vital role of teachers and students working together in revolutionary ways to raise consciousness of self and the world:
A revolutionary leadership must accordingly practice co-intentional education. Teachers and students (leadership and people), co-intent on reality, are both Subjects, not only in the task of unveiling that reality, and thereby coming to know it critically, but in the task of re-creating that knowledge. As they attain this knowledge of reality through common reflection and action, they discover themselves as its permanent re-creators. In this way, the presence of the oppressed in the struggle for their liberation will be what it should be: not pseudo-participation, but committed involvement (p. 69).
Some ideas that can help us follow Freire’s thinking and his call to action:
· Dehumanization—Basically what he means here is that the oppressors seek to possess/own those they oppress, converting them into objects, a conversion that can only happen through the violence (this can mean both physical and/or psychic violence) of dehumanization. However, this violent distortion dehumanizes the oppressor as well, leading to “the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well” (p. 44). This idea is a useful one for understanding why some of our students lash out in the creative ways they do, ways thoroughly explored by Ira Schorr.
· Prescription—This idea is fairly straightforward, as it relates to a fundamental understanding of the oppressor/oppressed relationship as a prescribed one. “Every prescription represents the imposition of one individual’s choice upon another, transforming the consciousness of the person prescribed to into one that conforms with the prescriber’s consciousness” (p. 47). It is here that Freire begins to introduce another important concept, which is the internalization by the oppressed of the oppressor’s will. That can manifest itself in any number of ways, including self-hatred, fear, guilt, and a complete lack of confidence in the ability of the self to achieve a new level of existence as a human being with a conscience and choices: a free person.
· Systematic education vs. educational projects: The first can only be changed by those with political power; the second, however, “should be carried out with the oppressed in the process of organizing them” (p. 54). Freire tells us that any division between the teacher and the student (or the leader and the people) runs the risk of objectifying the student/people/oppressed in a way that is exploitative as it inherently limits the student/people/oppressed person’s ability to understand and fully develop her/his humanity. Avoid the violence! And in so doing, be a part of the oppressed realizing their humanity while the oppressors are finally able to do the same thing. So, really, it’s better for everyone.
· Conversion/rebirth: Freire does not take the transformation toward freedom and humanity lightly, labeling it a form of conversion that falls nothing short of rebirth. “Conversion to the people requires a profound rebirth. Those who undergo it must take on a new form of existence; they can no longer remain as they were” (p. 61). One of the ways we help in this birthing process as leaders/teacher is to historically place the existence of the oppressed, to foster raised consciousness and awareness in a way that empowers them toward liberation. “As long as the oppressed remain unaware of the causes of their condition, they fatalistically ‘accept’ their exploitation. … Little by little, however, they tend to try out forms of rebellious action. In working towards liberation, one must neither lose sight of this passivity nor overlook the moment of awakening” (p. 64).
As I said, Freire does not take this task lightly. It is a tall order that requires constant attention in both thought and action (praxis). However, if we sign on to this revolutionary way of teaching/learning, Freire promises us a new state of being, both as humans and as creatures of the world.
Chapter 2:
For this chapter, I do not believe it is necessary to have such an extensive exploration of Freire’s thoughts, particularly as we have already been exposed to the “banking model” in some of our other readings and discussions. Basically, what he covers here is the deeply flawed system that assumes the instructor (here in the role of the oppressor) is filled with knowledge which s/he bestows upon the empty vessel of the student (here in the role of the oppressed), thereby reinforcing the human as object rather than subject. Instead, we must view teaching as a simultaneous learning experience, for as we learn from each other our consciousness is increased as is our placement in the world.
And one quick aside... this text is already making me think and rethink my actions, which has led to some very interesting interactions with my students this week. Nice to have my assumptions challenged.
My Problematic Teaching Activity Example
Each semester that I taught my own section of the U's School & Society course, I included an activity called "The Race." Based off of Peggy McIntosh's "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" (just a few adapted/applied versions of this article can be found here, here, and here), the activity (found on pp. 64-70 of the Finding Our Voice resource guide, though I didn't use the video discussed here) has students consider elements of unearned privilege and disadvantage that have influenced where they are in their lives. I'll describe it briefly here, but it'll make more sense if you check out the resource guide too.
The activity has students listen to a series of statements on different types of privilege and disadvantage and make columned tallies of the ones that apply to them, adding each column up at the end (so a sum of advantages they've experienced and a sum of disadvantages) and figuring out their total number by subtracting the disadvantages from the advantages. The exercise can be done so that students just make tallies on paper, either to share with the class or for their own consideration, or so that students physically act out their placement on the total number spectrum, so that students with more privileges are closer to the front of the room/the teacher/etc.
I think the activity is valuable in that it raises some of the many advantages and disadvantages that people encounter without always realizing and in that, even in a classroom of mostly white, mostly middle-class, mostly female students, we still ended up with a wide range of results. However, there's an obvious risk of upsetting students whose totals are lower, particularly if they have to verbally share or physically demonstrate their numbers and relative status within the class. So I've tried the end of the activity a few different ways, always starting off with students listening and creating their tallies while sitting at desks, since I've never had enough classroom space for my students to physically act out the entire activity: once with students lining up in the hallway outside class based on their total, symbolically "racing" to get a prize from me, and following up with some brief discussion; once with students voluntarily sharing their totals and discussing the issues and activity; and once having students close their eyes and raise their hands so I could write a list on the blackboard of how many students had each total number, and then having a discussion in which students could speak generally about the range of numbers in the class and the activity itself, or could voluntarily reveal their number and what they felt about it.
Each of these versions had their good and bad points. The physical lineup was much more visceral (by definition, I guess) and had more impact on students. One commented that I should never use the activity again because he was so upset at having to display his low total. Another said the activity was uncomfortable but valuable in opening these issues, but that we didn't have enough time to discuss the activity, which would have made it (maybe) less uncomfortable for those with low totals and more uncomfortable for those with high totals as they confronted their privilege. Ultimately I think the final version I mentioned above was most successful in discussion, since I had a few students with low totals who were willing to "out" themselves and talk about the problems they'd faced and how they'd gotten to the privileged position of being in higher education and sometimes graduate school. There were also some students who didn't think some of the things I listed as privileges had had any impact on their lives, which opened a different side of the discussion.
This activity relates to a number of things we've been talking about in class, including risk-taking in teaching, confronting privilege, entering into (or attempting to enter into) dialogue with our students, and the ethics of publicly challenging our students. I'm still chewing over all these issues regarding this activity - it's definitely the most risky activity I used when I was teaching that course.
The activity has students listen to a series of statements on different types of privilege and disadvantage and make columned tallies of the ones that apply to them, adding each column up at the end (so a sum of advantages they've experienced and a sum of disadvantages) and figuring out their total number by subtracting the disadvantages from the advantages. The exercise can be done so that students just make tallies on paper, either to share with the class or for their own consideration, or so that students physically act out their placement on the total number spectrum, so that students with more privileges are closer to the front of the room/the teacher/etc.
I think the activity is valuable in that it raises some of the many advantages and disadvantages that people encounter without always realizing and in that, even in a classroom of mostly white, mostly middle-class, mostly female students, we still ended up with a wide range of results. However, there's an obvious risk of upsetting students whose totals are lower, particularly if they have to verbally share or physically demonstrate their numbers and relative status within the class. So I've tried the end of the activity a few different ways, always starting off with students listening and creating their tallies while sitting at desks, since I've never had enough classroom space for my students to physically act out the entire activity: once with students lining up in the hallway outside class based on their total, symbolically "racing" to get a prize from me, and following up with some brief discussion; once with students voluntarily sharing their totals and discussing the issues and activity; and once having students close their eyes and raise their hands so I could write a list on the blackboard of how many students had each total number, and then having a discussion in which students could speak generally about the range of numbers in the class and the activity itself, or could voluntarily reveal their number and what they felt about it.
Each of these versions had their good and bad points. The physical lineup was much more visceral (by definition, I guess) and had more impact on students. One commented that I should never use the activity again because he was so upset at having to display his low total. Another said the activity was uncomfortable but valuable in opening these issues, but that we didn't have enough time to discuss the activity, which would have made it (maybe) less uncomfortable for those with low totals and more uncomfortable for those with high totals as they confronted their privilege. Ultimately I think the final version I mentioned above was most successful in discussion, since I had a few students with low totals who were willing to "out" themselves and talk about the problems they'd faced and how they'd gotten to the privileged position of being in higher education and sometimes graduate school. There were also some students who didn't think some of the things I listed as privileges had had any impact on their lives, which opened a different side of the discussion.
This activity relates to a number of things we've been talking about in class, including risk-taking in teaching, confronting privilege, entering into (or attempting to enter into) dialogue with our students, and the ethics of publicly challenging our students. I'm still chewing over all these issues regarding this activity - it's definitely the most risky activity I used when I was teaching that course.
yet another 'i am not a blogger' post
I guess I will join the ‘I am not much of a blogger’ community along with my fellow cohorts. As much as I like reading blogs for their sheer informality of style and diction, I find it hard to introduce those elements in my writing. And with that caveat, I begin.
I do not have much to share by way of my teaching experience. I taught a few language classes and unlike Niloofar, I had a bad time. And as Robin will attest, I did have some serious apprehensions about my own competence as a teacher. But being Robin’s Teaching Assistant the previous term was quite an enriching experience indeed. The sheer size of the class was in itself daunting. That said, what was actually more curious was that the students’ desire for power point slides teaching them all they had to know. Since we all believed in the maxim that ‘power corrupts, power point corrupts absolutely!’ we resisted the easy definitions. And the results were surprising. Robin’s example of the ‘Romantic structure of feeling’ blog is one such curious case. The need and the desire to integrate some understanding of the critical concepts with the lived experiences was missing in most cases. Also, narratives tended not to go beyond the mere anecdotal. The missing element in the students’ attitude was, to borrow Freire’s phrase, an ‘epistemological curiosity’. Personally, for me the biggest challenge is to introduce this interest in students. And the razor’s edge balance of authority and freedom in class makes all this, at least now, seem equal to the seven labors of Hercules.
Monday, January 30, 2012
From Niloofar
Like Rachel, I am not much of a blogger, but I’ll try! My experience in teaching would probably sound irrelevant to the type of teaching that we are engaged with here. So I should start my post with an apology if my story was really beside the point. But I’ll try to look for some relevant aspects in it.
I used to teach English in an NGO in Tehran, called Omid-e-Mehr center. The center takes some of the most vulnerable, abused, and neglected Iranian or Afghan girls and works with them to give them the tools they need to be able to return to the society. Many of the students enter the center with the most terrifying experiences, addiction, rape, prison and even in some cases death sentence(and thus pedagogy of the oppressed, its justification, its contradictions and difficulties, became my main preoccupation before encounteringPedagogy of the Oppressed). So basically the aim of the foundation was to search for the most disadvantaged young women in the society and educate them in a way that they can find a way out of the “margins” and get involved with a different society (the one in which they could earn more respect and security).
The educational program of Omid foundation(http://omid-e-mehr.org/) provides two years of free education for each person and then helps them in seekinga job. There are two main kinds of courses, those like women right, human right and film courses in which students will learn about their rights in the society, the demands that they can/must have and the roles that they can/should play.And then there are more practical courses such as IT, English language and Arts (mainly photography and theatre) that are supposed to provide them with the practical tools of finding their way back to the society in the future, but this time with more respect.
Of course, most of the girls love the first type of courses when they first enter the center, those which involve the materials that directly address their own lives and experiences, involving activities that they had never experienced before (going to the cinema and theatre, visiting offices of newspapers and magazines, meeting with celebrities and artist and etc.). But when it comes to the courses such as English and IT most of the students see them asthe compulsory, boring part of the whole experience. (Many of the studentsare astonishednot by the educational opportunities but rather by the sudden support and respect that they get and of course with the free chance of communication which they get without being judged).
My apologies for all these detailed information but I find them important in making my point!!
Thus one of the many challenging issues(which might be relevant here and we have kind of discussed in the class) for me as an English teacher was to make my class interesting for the people who didn’t necessarily want to learn a foreign language but only had to, since it was compulsory. What I found most challenging was to make a balance between making my classes fun and enjoyable on the one hand and productive and motivatingon the other. The first task was doable after a while, but the second one was a lot harder; to make my classes productive to the level that the students would understand the value of what they were learning in a very short time (I had only 2 terms to get them to a stage in which they could decide whether or not they wanted to continue studying English).
I suppose for many of the courses taught in academicdisciplines there is a very short time for the professor to get the students intellectually engaged; to make the courses productively enjoyable to the extent that students would continue to ponder over the materials that they have learnt in the class even when they finish the course! In Omid I guess I could eventually make the balance to some extent and could bring “fun” and “education” together (I’ll avoid the details here because I think teaching a foreign language on a basic level is really different from the materials that many of us will probably teach or are teaching already). Having said this, one of the main things that I think I will always have to keep in mind as a teacher is to make this balance possible in my classes. It may sound quite stale but I would try to make the learning pleasurable;not one without the other.
(By the wayOmid-e-Mehr center in Tehran is featured in a documentary called 'The Glass House' filmed by Hamid Rahmanian, produced by Melissa Hibbard. Its trailer is on YouTube if anyone was interested:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_s941PBios&feature=related.)
Anil's post
Greetings,
I, too, find this medium alienating, so please bear with me. I have decided to blog about an event—one of my more unfortunate experiences while teaching a rhetoric and composition class. This experience, I think, speaks precisely to David’s point about being reluctant to relinquish his authority in the classroom. Anyway, here it is: As I was explaining some basic grammatical concept (predicate nominative)—with Fowler’s Modern English Usage on the table in front of me—I was met with the following comment by a student: “Well, we don’t use it like that in English—I mean, you know, like in America.” After this comment, others chimed in and informed me of scenarios in which people regularly say, “It is me.”
The initial comment, I felt, served to undermine me not on intellectual grounds (which would have been more agreeable) but rather on the grounds (tacit, of course) of an overabundance of pigment. Not being able to be taken seriously, especially when discussing something as elementary and relatively stakes-less as grammar, by a group of eighteen-year olds on such grounds is simply disheartening. (I had a similar moment at the same university with the director of graduate studies, who felt the need to point out to me that in the English language, the word allegory is rather fraught....) Anyway, my point is this: When the deck is already necessarily stacked against you, it seems perhaps too dangerous to budge even just a little. While I didn’t pin my degrees on the board and wear a three-piece suit to class every day, I did, from that point on, make sure to foreground my authority in the classroom. This is where, for instance, I think a dialectical approach could be useful – i.e., understanding the classroom as space that can be transformed by the dynamic between two irreducibly unequal – but, in certain respects, equivalent – forces. Put otherwise, I submit that something productive – perhaps emancipatory – can ensue from the contradiction between a relatively powerless class and a relatively powerful teacher. Maybe.
Risk-taking in the classroom
There is a lot of theoretical literature on the practice of taking risks in the classroom, but given our practical bent this week (and perhaps more generally over the course of the semester), I wanted to offer this as a lens through which we might frame our discussion of classroom activities and plans -- either those that failed, succeeded wildly, or more realistically, those with mixed outcomes.
As we step into the classroom, each lesson or activity has one or more goals that we want to come out of it. e.g. After this lesson, students should understand how context can influence a text. Oftentimes, we may not articulate all of these goals to ourselves. And frequently there will be the line up of usual suspect goals, humming in the background: getting students to hone critical thinking, writing, listening, speakings skills, etc.
Each lesson or activity involves a risk, in some sense, because even if someone has been teaching the same class, lesson, or activity for 20 years (as we saw in the Shor piece), the exigencies of any given moment or classroom makeup can radically change how the lesson or activity is received and its outcomes. Thus, the "risk" of teaching is similar to "risk" experienced in life; we can't know what will happen.
But what do we do with that uncertainty?
I also want to propose another question: Is there an ethics of risk-taking in the classroom? To help illustrate what I mean by this: Who benefits when the activity / plan succeeds? Who is 'harmed' or left out when the activity / plan doesn't pay off (or fails in some way)? What do we do if the answer to this question is anyone besides the teacher? What about when the stakes are raised (e.g. it is a matter connected to the student's identity rather than simply not understanding some aspect of course content)?
As we step into the classroom, each lesson or activity has one or more goals that we want to come out of it. e.g. After this lesson, students should understand how context can influence a text. Oftentimes, we may not articulate all of these goals to ourselves. And frequently there will be the line up of usual suspect goals, humming in the background: getting students to hone critical thinking, writing, listening, speakings skills, etc.
Each lesson or activity involves a risk, in some sense, because even if someone has been teaching the same class, lesson, or activity for 20 years (as we saw in the Shor piece), the exigencies of any given moment or classroom makeup can radically change how the lesson or activity is received and its outcomes. Thus, the "risk" of teaching is similar to "risk" experienced in life; we can't know what will happen.
But what do we do with that uncertainty?
I also want to propose another question: Is there an ethics of risk-taking in the classroom? To help illustrate what I mean by this: Who benefits when the activity / plan succeeds? Who is 'harmed' or left out when the activity / plan doesn't pay off (or fails in some way)? What do we do if the answer to this question is anyone besides the teacher? What about when the stakes are raised (e.g. it is a matter connected to the student's identity rather than simply not understanding some aspect of course content)?
Thursday, January 26, 2012
The Cult of the Expert. Or, Thanks a lot, Plato
Our discussion of the publicity (public nature) of this blog and some anxieties we might have related to this got me thinking...about Plato.
Plato, the middle (temporally speaking) "great" Greek philosopher, kicked it with both Socrates and Aristotle, and is known, through his works as being a bit hostile to rhetoric. One of Plato's fundamental concerns was that someone who was a good speaker, but not an expert on a subject, would persuade an audience over someone who could not speak as well, but was an expert. I believe one of the examples he gives in The Gorgias is: what if, in deliberations over whether to build more ships, the word of the orator persuaded over the word of the shipbuilder? (The shipbuilder being the expert in this case).
Disclaimer: I am not an expert in Classical Rhetoric. I have not read all of Plato's works. Why, then, do I even bring Plato up? Because I think that one of Plato's legacies, along with a suspicion of someone who can speak well (see: campaign criticisms of Deval Patrick and Barack Obama), is undue reverence for "the expert."
Let's see if I can continue my sloppy trudge through history, jumping to the 1950s United States. The 1950s (and post-WWII era more generally) saw a boom in "expert culture." From the bomb to home life, U.S. Americans looked to "experts" for guidance.
Certainly, I think most of us can agree, the "cult of the expert" also manifested itself in the university (and education more generally). Participants in the educational system are conditioned into set roles, like in a play. I, the teacher, will be reprising the role of "expert," and you, the student, will play the role of "sponge," absorbing information passively.
So, yes, there is a strong stigma against speaking, against trying to teach or persuade, when you are not "the expert." A cult that is over 2000 years in the making.
How the hell do we fight back against that?!?! And, is it a worthwhile project? These are questions that I want to explore in this class, but for now, a tentative exploration.
Once, I stood before my public speaking class and declared: "I am not an expert public speaker. I frequently talk too fast and make jokes that are probably not adapted to my audience (but you should laugh anyway). I am not an expert in public speaking, and frankly I'm not convinced that such a thing exists. If you came here for me to impart some expert knowledge to you through my lectures, that is not going to happen. I have knowledge, but I am also learning each day along with you." (But let's face it, I probably said it less eloquently than that because most of us academics are more comfortable with written rather than spoken expression).
To accompany this, I did some very bell hooks exercises about "the classroom as community." I think that this went over fairly well. We talked in groups and as a class about how we wanted discussions to work and posted guidelines to the Moodle website.
Did it work?
Let me be the ambivalent academic and say "yes and no." Yes, I think that it made students more invested in the class in many ways and made me seem more approachable; if I'm not an expert, I'm someone who they can talk to, ask questions of.
That said, I have two concerns:
1) The first is similar to the one that has been raised. When I no longer embody (because let's remember, bodies are important in thinking about the classroom) "the expert," I am in my own body -- that of a young, white, female (not that I am not those things as an "expert" but that is something to explicate at another time). What happens when students try to take advantage of the (somewhat) leveled power relations in ways that I find problematic (i.e. sexist, ageist, etc.)?
2) How do I deal with occasions where I need to be "the expert"? Today I had a really great conversation with Robin about what to do when extensive history or background is important to the course. For me, the stakes are raised when this is a "missing" or "hidden" history (to use intercultural communication terminology). For instance, in a course like African American Civil Rights Rhetoric or the Rhetoric of Feminism, there is often a great deal of history that is important to understanding the texts being studied that the students often haven't had any exposure to. What are some strategies for involving students in learning that history?
For now, I windedly sign off. Brendan Fraser had a talk show in the late 90s or early 2000s (yes, this happened). On it, he said something like, "I like how I can go online and my screen name is "Frendan Braser" and no one knows who I am." On that note,
-Paitlyn Katia
Plato, the middle (temporally speaking) "great" Greek philosopher, kicked it with both Socrates and Aristotle, and is known, through his works as being a bit hostile to rhetoric. One of Plato's fundamental concerns was that someone who was a good speaker, but not an expert on a subject, would persuade an audience over someone who could not speak as well, but was an expert. I believe one of the examples he gives in The Gorgias is: what if, in deliberations over whether to build more ships, the word of the orator persuaded over the word of the shipbuilder? (The shipbuilder being the expert in this case).
Disclaimer: I am not an expert in Classical Rhetoric. I have not read all of Plato's works. Why, then, do I even bring Plato up? Because I think that one of Plato's legacies, along with a suspicion of someone who can speak well (see: campaign criticisms of Deval Patrick and Barack Obama), is undue reverence for "the expert."
Let's see if I can continue my sloppy trudge through history, jumping to the 1950s United States. The 1950s (and post-WWII era more generally) saw a boom in "expert culture." From the bomb to home life, U.S. Americans looked to "experts" for guidance.
Certainly, I think most of us can agree, the "cult of the expert" also manifested itself in the university (and education more generally). Participants in the educational system are conditioned into set roles, like in a play. I, the teacher, will be reprising the role of "expert," and you, the student, will play the role of "sponge," absorbing information passively.
So, yes, there is a strong stigma against speaking, against trying to teach or persuade, when you are not "the expert." A cult that is over 2000 years in the making.
How the hell do we fight back against that?!?! And, is it a worthwhile project? These are questions that I want to explore in this class, but for now, a tentative exploration.
Once, I stood before my public speaking class and declared: "I am not an expert public speaker. I frequently talk too fast and make jokes that are probably not adapted to my audience (but you should laugh anyway). I am not an expert in public speaking, and frankly I'm not convinced that such a thing exists. If you came here for me to impart some expert knowledge to you through my lectures, that is not going to happen. I have knowledge, but I am also learning each day along with you." (But let's face it, I probably said it less eloquently than that because most of us academics are more comfortable with written rather than spoken expression).
To accompany this, I did some very bell hooks exercises about "the classroom as community." I think that this went over fairly well. We talked in groups and as a class about how we wanted discussions to work and posted guidelines to the Moodle website.
Did it work?
Let me be the ambivalent academic and say "yes and no." Yes, I think that it made students more invested in the class in many ways and made me seem more approachable; if I'm not an expert, I'm someone who they can talk to, ask questions of.
That said, I have two concerns:
1) The first is similar to the one that has been raised. When I no longer embody (because let's remember, bodies are important in thinking about the classroom) "the expert," I am in my own body -- that of a young, white, female (not that I am not those things as an "expert" but that is something to explicate at another time). What happens when students try to take advantage of the (somewhat) leveled power relations in ways that I find problematic (i.e. sexist, ageist, etc.)?
2) How do I deal with occasions where I need to be "the expert"? Today I had a really great conversation with Robin about what to do when extensive history or background is important to the course. For me, the stakes are raised when this is a "missing" or "hidden" history (to use intercultural communication terminology). For instance, in a course like African American Civil Rights Rhetoric or the Rhetoric of Feminism, there is often a great deal of history that is important to understanding the texts being studied that the students often haven't had any exposure to. What are some strategies for involving students in learning that history?
For now, I windedly sign off. Brendan Fraser had a talk show in the late 90s or early 2000s (yes, this happened). On it, he said something like, "I like how I can go online and my screen name is "Frendan Braser" and no one knows who I am." On that note,
-Paitlyn Katia
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Some Links of Possible Interest
The U has a Center for Teaching and Learning and a Center for Writing, both of which have a wide variety of resources available for student and faculty instructors. Their resources are mostly pretty concrete, but for those of us who are more linear or want really practical ideas for classes, they can be very useful. And they do address ways of drawing out students, taking social and cultural issues into account, leading effective discussions, and other topics relevant to what we're discussing here.
Scott McLeod is making a name for himself as someone working to disrupt traditional ideas of K-12 education in order to make things better for students. He has both a JD and a PhD in education, and writes extensively on using technology to improve educational experiences in schools, and on issues of school leadership and teaching more generally (also here and here). Although he has a K-12 focus, his ideas are relevant to those of us working in higher education too, as we consider what and how students "ought" to be learning.
Scott McLeod is making a name for himself as someone working to disrupt traditional ideas of K-12 education in order to make things better for students. He has both a JD and a PhD in education, and writes extensively on using technology to improve educational experiences in schools, and on issues of school leadership and teaching more generally (also here and here). Although he has a K-12 focus, his ideas are relevant to those of us working in higher education too, as we consider what and how students "ought" to be learning.
What Am I Doing Here
What am I doing here, in this class? It's a good question for me. I'm a fifth-year PhD student, with probably another year and a half to go in my program. I'm in the process of writing my written prelim exam, and hoping to be able to complete my oral prelim by the end of the semester. (Hoping!) So in some ways, I shouldn't be in this class, or any class, and should just be focusing on the work for my exams and other program elements. But I'm interested in teaching, and it's hard to let that go, regardless of what else is going on in my professional/student life.
I was not interested in teaching until just a few years ago. Both of my parents (and some other relatives too) were teachers at one point in their lives and I was always encouraged to consider becoming a teacher, a suggestion that I rejected for numerous reasons - I'm too much of an introvert, I don't like kids, a lot of students don't want to do their work and it's a pain to deal with them. But after spending two years teaching English in Japanese junior high schools (a job I took mostly because I wanted to live in Japan), I realized how much I care about education. I realized that I had overwhelmingly positive experiences in all levels of my education, and that while I'd taken this for granted, not everyone had the same opportunities or quality of experiences. I wanted to get involved with schools and with improving educational experiences for more students, so I enrolled in the U's principal licensure program. Eventually, I realized that being a principal wouldn't be the right fit for me, so I switched to my department's PhD program in K-12 educational policy and leadership. Because I was now a PhD student, I became eligible for a departmental graduate assistantship, and ended up TAing, and later being instructor of record, for a course required for all students getting a teaching license at the U. The course covered the history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and politics of American education, all in 2 fun-packed credits. This course has undergone a lot of change in its existence and will look completely different next year, as teacher preparation at the U is undergoing massive change overall. So it will be interesting to see where the course goes.
Anyway. I didn't want to have to teach this class. My first year, I just TAed, which meant mostly grading and tracking attendance, and I could mostly just sit in the back of the lecture hall while the professor taught. But my second year I became instructor of record for my own lecture section. I was dead afraid of standing up in front of 40 students (40! that's so many!) and having to talk for 2.5 hours, week after week. It was incredibly difficult for me that first semester - my heart pounded for hours before class, and for probably 30 minutes into each class as well. Once I got going it wasn't so bad, but the anticipation before each class was terrible. As a way to attempt to combat some of the dread, I started taking courses on teaching in higher education. I took the U's main Preparing Future Faculty courses, GRAD 8101 and 8102, and also many workshops offered by the Center for Teaching and Learning and by the Center for Writing. I also thought a lot about the materials I was teaching in my course on the social foundations of education for teachers-to-be, which included readings from Freire, Dewey, Greene, and others we're already touching on in this course. But I'm still working through what it means to me to be a teacher, or more accurately, what it means FOR me to be a teacher. How do I teach? How do I want to teach? How do my preferences, traits, and background inform my teaching, and do I want to accept those or change them? If I change them, how and why?
These are incredibly loaded questions for me. I am strongly informed by postmodernist and poststructuralist thought and I think I'm an existentialist at heart, so I resent feeling like I have to change myself in some fundamental way in order to be a good teacher. (Or more accurately, to fit someone else's definition of a good teacher. Let me tell you, in my field there's so much talk about "good teachers," and most of this talk is at the most superficial level. When you consider how student evaluations play into how a teacher is judged as being "good" at the higher education level, things get even more complicated.) Can't I do things my way? I want my students to be critical thinkers, to find their agency, starting with their thoughts and discourse. I want to teach in a way that gets them there.
So my goals for this course really are to continue reflecting on these issues, on my teaching as it has changed over the years, and on where I want to go with my teaching. I think it'll be useful to talk over these issues with people outside of education and with more attention to theory, as theory tends to get lost in discussions of "good teaching" as a checklist of things you can do (some of which are very helpful when you want to try a different activity or find some technology to facilitate discussion, for example, but obviously are not the whole story of teaching). I'm interested in doing some auto-ethnography here and writing a paper I can take to a conference and/or journal. And ultimately I want to find a way to be an effective teacher and still be myself.
I was not interested in teaching until just a few years ago. Both of my parents (and some other relatives too) were teachers at one point in their lives and I was always encouraged to consider becoming a teacher, a suggestion that I rejected for numerous reasons - I'm too much of an introvert, I don't like kids, a lot of students don't want to do their work and it's a pain to deal with them. But after spending two years teaching English in Japanese junior high schools (a job I took mostly because I wanted to live in Japan), I realized how much I care about education. I realized that I had overwhelmingly positive experiences in all levels of my education, and that while I'd taken this for granted, not everyone had the same opportunities or quality of experiences. I wanted to get involved with schools and with improving educational experiences for more students, so I enrolled in the U's principal licensure program. Eventually, I realized that being a principal wouldn't be the right fit for me, so I switched to my department's PhD program in K-12 educational policy and leadership. Because I was now a PhD student, I became eligible for a departmental graduate assistantship, and ended up TAing, and later being instructor of record, for a course required for all students getting a teaching license at the U. The course covered the history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and politics of American education, all in 2 fun-packed credits. This course has undergone a lot of change in its existence and will look completely different next year, as teacher preparation at the U is undergoing massive change overall. So it will be interesting to see where the course goes.
Anyway. I didn't want to have to teach this class. My first year, I just TAed, which meant mostly grading and tracking attendance, and I could mostly just sit in the back of the lecture hall while the professor taught. But my second year I became instructor of record for my own lecture section. I was dead afraid of standing up in front of 40 students (40! that's so many!) and having to talk for 2.5 hours, week after week. It was incredibly difficult for me that first semester - my heart pounded for hours before class, and for probably 30 minutes into each class as well. Once I got going it wasn't so bad, but the anticipation before each class was terrible. As a way to attempt to combat some of the dread, I started taking courses on teaching in higher education. I took the U's main Preparing Future Faculty courses, GRAD 8101 and 8102, and also many workshops offered by the Center for Teaching and Learning and by the Center for Writing. I also thought a lot about the materials I was teaching in my course on the social foundations of education for teachers-to-be, which included readings from Freire, Dewey, Greene, and others we're already touching on in this course. But I'm still working through what it means to me to be a teacher, or more accurately, what it means FOR me to be a teacher. How do I teach? How do I want to teach? How do my preferences, traits, and background inform my teaching, and do I want to accept those or change them? If I change them, how and why?
These are incredibly loaded questions for me. I am strongly informed by postmodernist and poststructuralist thought and I think I'm an existentialist at heart, so I resent feeling like I have to change myself in some fundamental way in order to be a good teacher. (Or more accurately, to fit someone else's definition of a good teacher. Let me tell you, in my field there's so much talk about "good teachers," and most of this talk is at the most superficial level. When you consider how student evaluations play into how a teacher is judged as being "good" at the higher education level, things get even more complicated.) Can't I do things my way? I want my students to be critical thinkers, to find their agency, starting with their thoughts and discourse. I want to teach in a way that gets them there.
So my goals for this course really are to continue reflecting on these issues, on my teaching as it has changed over the years, and on where I want to go with my teaching. I think it'll be useful to talk over these issues with people outside of education and with more attention to theory, as theory tends to get lost in discussions of "good teaching" as a checklist of things you can do (some of which are very helpful when you want to try a different activity or find some technology to facilitate discussion, for example, but obviously are not the whole story of teaching). I'm interested in doing some auto-ethnography here and writing a paper I can take to a conference and/or journal. And ultimately I want to find a way to be an effective teacher and still be myself.
Random Musings
Last semester, for Eric Daigre's teaching practicum (a required course for all graduate students with TAships in the English Department), we were instructed to write 5 "journal entries" about various topics related to teaching. He supplied us with a few prompts, noting that we could write about any of them whenever we wanted to, just as long as we answered each one. As I perused the list, I knew which one I was going to have the toughest time with: "Think back to your undergraduate experience. Who was your most inspiring professor? What classroom practices did he/she enact that made him/her so inspirational?." I dreaded answering this question, because I, in fact, had not a single inspiring professor throughout my undergraduate education - something I hate to admit, given the fact that I have a lot of love and pride for my alma mater.
I wish that I had already read bell hooks' essay(s) in Teaching to Transgress before I penned my acerbic response to the aforementioned prompt, because it was comforting to hear that none of her professors had teaching styles she sought to emulate, either. Maybe I could have pinpointed the issue with my lack of amazing professors: none of them had an interest in self-actualization, and that runs completely opposite to my teaching philosophy, the cornerstone of which is making my students feel confident, prepared and supported. hooks says that teaching is a performative act, something I adamantly agree with, but I also think it should be a transformative act - not just for the students, but for the teacher, as well (I think/know she would agree with me here). I think enthusiasm is grossly underrated in higher education, so that's something I want to continue focusing on throughout the course of this semester: how can my actions, my mind/body/spirit, my politics, my knowledge(s), influence the success or failure of my students' knowledge(s) being "enriched" and/or "enhanced?"
Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, I want to begin to seriously engage the critical aspect of critical pedagogy in this class. I want to interrogate how my assumptions impact my teaching practices and classroom behaviors/environments, and how/why these might change. I want to examine how and why I have capitulated to dominant classroom practices in the past, and how I can productively disrupt such structures to benefit both my students and myself. As I said in our first class, I especially want to think about this in terms of being a TA/discussion leader, as I find this position much more difficult than teaching a stand-alone course. When the course isn't your "own," you only see your students for 50 minutes a week, and there are already so many assumed practices and power relations at work, how can we encourage self-actualization and student agency in the classroom? Is this even an appropriate space for such an act? Is any learning space not?
I wish that I had already read bell hooks' essay(s) in Teaching to Transgress before I penned my acerbic response to the aforementioned prompt, because it was comforting to hear that none of her professors had teaching styles she sought to emulate, either. Maybe I could have pinpointed the issue with my lack of amazing professors: none of them had an interest in self-actualization, and that runs completely opposite to my teaching philosophy, the cornerstone of which is making my students feel confident, prepared and supported. hooks says that teaching is a performative act, something I adamantly agree with, but I also think it should be a transformative act - not just for the students, but for the teacher, as well (I think/know she would agree with me here). I think enthusiasm is grossly underrated in higher education, so that's something I want to continue focusing on throughout the course of this semester: how can my actions, my mind/body/spirit, my politics, my knowledge(s), influence the success or failure of my students' knowledge(s) being "enriched" and/or "enhanced?"
Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, I want to begin to seriously engage the critical aspect of critical pedagogy in this class. I want to interrogate how my assumptions impact my teaching practices and classroom behaviors/environments, and how/why these might change. I want to examine how and why I have capitulated to dominant classroom practices in the past, and how I can productively disrupt such structures to benefit both my students and myself. As I said in our first class, I especially want to think about this in terms of being a TA/discussion leader, as I find this position much more difficult than teaching a stand-alone course. When the course isn't your "own," you only see your students for 50 minutes a week, and there are already so many assumed practices and power relations at work, how can we encourage self-actualization and student agency in the classroom? Is this even an appropriate space for such an act? Is any learning space not?
Goals? I have a few?
I am sure I have a few goals for this class, however, I am not much of a blogger. Consider the effect of the medium! What happens to your brain/attention span while writing a blog? TOO MANY THINGS ARE ON THE SCREEN. (I do like to read food blogs though)
-- Eventually I will get over this blog anxiety. Until then, I'm sure I'll share whatever comes to my mind in class.
Maybe this is a goal? Huh, Robin? What do you think?
-- Eventually I will get over this blog anxiety. Until then, I'm sure I'll share whatever comes to my mind in class.
Maybe this is a goal? Huh, Robin? What do you think?
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