What they (and 'it') mean to me

Folks,


I promised to blog about my perennial need to 'teach to Siberia' (those with no stake in the stuff we teach, or maybe a fair amount of resistant hostility)--and how hard it was.  It's maybe the most basic of 'goals': what is this whole activity for for me? 


As I thought about it, a deeper issue surfaced, one brought out by Rachels' query about which clips to use to introduce basic film structures.  Almost instantly we found ourselves lining up for and against--say—Serenity or those 'canonical classics' we all think 'we should cover....'  Thanks Rachel, for being so open about how much is at stake in whether they will 'like it'--and for me, and more scary: whether they will LIKE ME.


This all goes to at least the following:


• how to select material for classes (the issue of disciplinary content—up against the 'banking' and 'Powerpoint' and 'No child left behind' dangers).


• managing the heartbreak (or just as dangerous: the thrill) of teaching—in general, or for any unit or mini-lecture, or case, or class, or, or, or.  This stuff has stakes, personal, identity-based, intimate.


• the political; Freire's conscientização, Fanon's conscienciser,  changing 'hearts and minds,' or as I've often joked about my goals: 'making little eco-socialists.'  Or 'sending them home unrecognizable to their parents at Thanksgiving.'  (Note irony flag waving.... Sort of.)  I really do want to effect change of consciousness.  I really DO NOT want to create little Robin clones.  I really am delighted when the president of the Minnesota Conservative Club says that ours was his best class yet (in The Daily).  I assume he remained a conservative..... In short: how do we ground political intervention?  More precisely: does critical pedagogy presume a politics (Marxist, anti-capitalist, feminist, whatever)?


Let me bite off 'heartbreak' and take a shot—the rest can wait (though 'the political' is absolutely linked):


In American psychoanalysis, training involves 'managing the counter-transference'; I like the idea. Basically, balancing the intense 'crush' or (gods help us: cathexis) that the patient develops on the shrink, is an even sneakier parallel one developed by the shrink on the patient.  [Insert Critical Pedagogy standard apology for uttering jargon about here....]  


The therapeutic (and pedagogical, and I'd claim all) relationships are deeply emotional. They constitute what I've called 'an emotional economy of self.'  A literal economy, building value for us. This is why bell hooks wants us to think about and be 'self actualized' before we go into the classroom.


Love them.  Hate them (Rachel knows which one we mean.....). Find them an affront.  Find ourselves validated. Feel a burning feeling in my gut when a kid is checking Facebook in the midst of class.   Spend hours processing the class in the Kitty Kat Club.  Wake up at night and groan.


I like the idea from psychotherapy that 'transference' is not some problem to be avoided (in favor of some teaching-degree-zero  [Insert Critical Pedagogy standard apology for uttering jargon about here....] neutral, rational, affectless interaction).  It's inevitable.  It's there in every interaction.  You MANAGE THE TRANSFERENCE (and countertransference).  The heartbreak and the thrill never 'go away.'  You've just got to be in charge of them a bit.  Not them in charge of you.  And this is tough.  


Confession:  I really don't want to teach to Siberia.  I want to sit in my office with Ben and Aaron and Julien, who followed my back from class on Thursday and talk about Science and Culture.  Ben is my best friend and advisee.  I love him.  Aaron is a CSCL major who gets, like, everything--and is taking Jacki Zita's GWSS class on 'Blood, contagion and sex.'  Julien is a senior Chem major who just got into Stanford's grad program with a full ride, and gets both science AND 'culture.' I'm falling in love with Aaron and Julien. The conversation was fast, smart and funny,  everybody dumping in references, ideas, stories; laughing and playing.  It's where I want to go when I die; as good as it gets.  The image of the 'small, liberal-arts college.'  Of why we went to grad school.


It's good, beyond question.  And dangerous, because I will compare other interactions, other students, other moments to this good time.  And Siberia will look cold, bare and not-fun.