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Monday, January 19, 2009
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
JC's End-Of-The-Semester Reflections: A Mini-Series (2nd episode)
A conversation I had with a friend quite a while ago, just as I was completing my undergraduate degree, has been looming around all semester. He told me that teachers have to be careful not to let whatever shtick they practice in the classroom get in the way of what they’re teaching. He’s an art professor that used to wear a kind of hard-ass but clearly caring persona. I’m not sure what identity he walks into the classroom with currently. I remember the flippant comment bothering me. I thought about what performances my own college teachers were conscious of when they stood in front of the classroom. Teaching, not unlike being a student, is about performing. The professor who helped me connect 'literature' to the real world was famous for long, strange tangents that made it difficult to get into one of his packed classes. I fell in love with the history of Western philosophy not because of Descartes’ dashing good looks or Heidegger’s singing voice, but because of a teacher who knew how to tell stories about these thinkers and seemed to be awe struck by what he was teaching (even though he’d taught the class every semester for several years). My forth grade teacher wore suits everyday except Friday. He was a veteran, commanded respect, and was seemingly stronger than my mythical grandfather. But he could launch into a fantastical story about surfing atop great white sharks or start dancing to a student’s mindless humming at any moment. His was a memorable shtick.
But did it get in the way of learning? I don’t know. I suppose I can’t remember what I learned in the forth grade, or if I’m positive those particular college teachers actually taught me anything. They inspired me, sure, but I think there’s a difference between inspiring and teaching. Most of us, of course, have all watched movies like
"Dead Poets Society," "Dangerous Minds," and "Freedom Writers." So we’re conditioned to think of the good teacher as someone able to connect to and inspire their students. They swoop in and open the eyes of the blind, fight the oppressing administrative bureaucracy, and lift their students out of complacency into self-reflective authenticity. I’ll admit I love these teacher-saves-all movies as much as the next sap, but the problem, I think, lies in the incessant celebration of the teaching persona over and above the students. That is, these movie-teachers simply do things to students. And in my short and relatively naïve experience, that’s generally not how meaningful learning takes place. A class that blew my mind and not only changed the direction of what I wanted to do inside academe, but the way I thought about the world was run by a woman with, well, no real teaching persona at all. Most the time, I didn’t even know what we were doing or what I was supposed to be learning. She was boring. It was called "Essay Writing," and she had us reading about 'performative speech acts' and social construction. It was weird and she just wasn’t good at telling me why any of it mattered. Slowly, however, I started to discover what felt like entirely new ideas. It was a class that had me pacing around my house at two or three in the morning, contemplating crazy implications in the reading and obsessing over every word in everything I wrote. I didn’t spend much time thinking about her, but I connected everything she taught in that class to my life.
Now I’m very much the kind of teacher that relies on a good persona. And while I like to imagine most of my students encounter some new ideas in our class, I worry that what they generally encounter is this persona I’ve reflexively created for the classroom. For example, I’ve just finished reading "analytical reflection" papers. Students reread all their work from the semester (I asked them to look at all their courses). Then they wrote about interesting developments, differences, improvements, insights, anything that stood out to them. They were fun. Most of my students built the essay around a particular passage of their own writing. They wanted their audience (which varied from next year’s incoming freshman to their future selves) to recognize what one word can do to a particular passage, and better, how to change the structure or rhetorical appeal in the work to generate different meaning. Many of them were unbelievable. (The first set I looked even made my eyes water a little. But in my defense, I read them after dinner and a few glasses of wine). Of course, what I started to realize is that quite of few of these students had learned how to appeal to the passions of my teaching persona. They were without question producing prose for a particular audience beyond me, and that’s great. But not so far underneath the surface of nearly every paper is a quiet expression of the same teaching persona I can’t help but wear when I get with my students. So, I have to spend this winter wondering if my friend was right—if a shtick can get in the way of discovery (learning).
But did it get in the way of learning? I don’t know. I suppose I can’t remember what I learned in the forth grade, or if I’m positive those particular college teachers actually taught me anything. They inspired me, sure, but I think there’s a difference between inspiring and teaching. Most of us, of course, have all watched movies like
"Dead Poets Society," "Dangerous Minds," and "Freedom Writers." So we’re conditioned to think of the good teacher as someone able to connect to and inspire their students. They swoop in and open the eyes of the blind, fight the oppressing administrative bureaucracy, and lift their students out of complacency into self-reflective authenticity. I’ll admit I love these teacher-saves-all movies as much as the next sap, but the problem, I think, lies in the incessant celebration of the teaching persona over and above the students. That is, these movie-teachers simply do things to students. And in my short and relatively naïve experience, that’s generally not how meaningful learning takes place. A class that blew my mind and not only changed the direction of what I wanted to do inside academe, but the way I thought about the world was run by a woman with, well, no real teaching persona at all. Most the time, I didn’t even know what we were doing or what I was supposed to be learning. She was boring. It was called "Essay Writing," and she had us reading about 'performative speech acts' and social construction. It was weird and she just wasn’t good at telling me why any of it mattered. Slowly, however, I started to discover what felt like entirely new ideas. It was a class that had me pacing around my house at two or three in the morning, contemplating crazy implications in the reading and obsessing over every word in everything I wrote. I didn’t spend much time thinking about her, but I connected everything she taught in that class to my life.
Now I’m very much the kind of teacher that relies on a good persona. And while I like to imagine most of my students encounter some new ideas in our class, I worry that what they generally encounter is this persona I’ve reflexively created for the classroom. For example, I’ve just finished reading "analytical reflection" papers. Students reread all their work from the semester (I asked them to look at all their courses). Then they wrote about interesting developments, differences, improvements, insights, anything that stood out to them. They were fun. Most of my students built the essay around a particular passage of their own writing. They wanted their audience (which varied from next year’s incoming freshman to their future selves) to recognize what one word can do to a particular passage, and better, how to change the structure or rhetorical appeal in the work to generate different meaning. Many of them were unbelievable. (The first set I looked even made my eyes water a little. But in my defense, I read them after dinner and a few glasses of wine). Of course, what I started to realize is that quite of few of these students had learned how to appeal to the passions of my teaching persona. They were without question producing prose for a particular audience beyond me, and that’s great. But not so far underneath the surface of nearly every paper is a quiet expression of the same teaching persona I can’t help but wear when I get with my students. So, I have to spend this winter wondering if my friend was right—if a shtick can get in the way of discovery (learning).
Saturday, December 13, 2008
JC's End-Of-The-Semester Reflections: A Mini-Series (1st Episode)
It would seem I am cursed to constantly relearn what it’s like to walk out of the classroom on the last day of class as an instructor rather than a student. As a student, the work is over—you’ve just completed the things that have not-so-politely been chewing about your head and shoulders. The monster of the final paper is dead—long live the end of a semester. I am, however, not remotely done; there are over sixty-five papers waiting to be graded on my desk, and a myriad of digital projects waiting to be downloaded and graded in my e-mail. So, like any sane person participating in academe as a student or otherwise, I’m stalling. And I know that stalling is a piss-poor idea because I know that another fifty or so paper ‘re-writes’ will be arriving before Friday this week. I’ve always had a policy that students could rewrite or recreate any project they feel could be better, and by that they take me to mean, any project they want a better grade on. Normally, a terribly small amount of folks take me up on that proposal. You remember being a student, it’s physically painful to reopen a project you’ve already turned in. But these Miami University kids are wild, yo! Well over half of them rewrite everything they don’t get an A on—bloody everything. It’s turned into a weird game that I don’t think they’ve figured out they’re playing. I write my comments, then get ready to record the grade (something I already despise doing), when I have to stop and have a little conversation with my pen:
“If you write the letter B, they’re only going to do it again. Why not just give them the A now and end it?” I ask.
“I’ll do whatever you say,” says pen. “No one’s looking and they never believe a word I say anyway.”
The subtle guilt trip always works, and I let the pen give the paper a B. It’ll be back.
But that’s not at all what I was interested in asking some of you. It’s true that I find myself simultaneously overwhelmed and lazy at the end of the semester, but it’s the holidays. Who doesn’t feel the pull of those two creative forces this time of year.
In an effort to feel like I’m not completely ignoring the stacks of student work all over my life, I’ve been doing some reflecting about a few issues I chose to ignore during the semester. One particular issue is bothering me because of a great project I found through Alex Reid’s blog (digital diggs) called the social media classroom. It rocks. Harold Rheingold, it’s creator, explains “that [the project] provides teachers and learners with an integrated set of social media that each course can use for its own purposes—integrated forum, blog, comment, wiki, chat, social bookmarking, RSS, microblogging, widgets , and video commenting are the first set of tools.” There’s little students can’t do. Nearly every form of media that students may or may not use is interconnected and easily accessible to exploit as they explore what it means to compose their own texts, and more importantly create a voice, even an identity for what gets called ‘New Media.’ (I’ve found too many definitions of that to know what it might actually refer to). “New Media” has its problems of course. It’s no secret that the web and digital communication, “Web 2.0” stuff, is generally employed by market capitalism. I think students are more aware of this than ‘we’ often give them credit for. And I agree, to some extent, that digital communication may not be fulfilling its promise to bring us closer together and give more voices power. I think what troubles me presently with projects like this one, and classes like mine that are built around what can be accomplished with New Media is what they might do to students perceptions of things like blogs, wikis, digital video sharing, and the like. It seems to me, regardless of how interestingly professors and instructors employ New Media in the classroom (and some people are doing wildly cool things), it’s still the classroom. That is, what happens to blogs, even social networking sites, when English (or otherwise) teachers get a hold of them? As it stands, the web is a space slightly free of the institution the classroom belongs to, which puts students (and teachers) in a place without prescription. No one is sure of the rules in these spaces, and that generates a lack of assumed expectations or discomfort, which can lead to sincere learning (sometimes). But what happens to these spaces as they get rolled into academe? What happens to a student’s perception of digital media when a ‘clever’ assignment requires that student to create a Facebook page and write about the rhetorical choices they made in a effort to generate an online identity? I’m concerned.
I’m not only concerned about the digital projects I’ve got in mind for next semester’s class, I’m concerned about the two graphic novels we’re reading. My hope is to use them as examples of fragmentation and the affect of New Media on the ‘old.’ But I also love graphic novels and the last thing I want to do is turn them into “those books we read in that class.” I believe in bringing every piece of popular culture I can get my hands on into the classroom. It makes what we do relevant and real; it helps my students look past what I want. But I’m under no allusion that we (my students and I) can escape the fact that most everything we bring into the classroom will be a little tainted by to ooze of academe.
“If you write the letter B, they’re only going to do it again. Why not just give them the A now and end it?” I ask.
“I’ll do whatever you say,” says pen. “No one’s looking and they never believe a word I say anyway.”
The subtle guilt trip always works, and I let the pen give the paper a B. It’ll be back.
But that’s not at all what I was interested in asking some of you. It’s true that I find myself simultaneously overwhelmed and lazy at the end of the semester, but it’s the holidays. Who doesn’t feel the pull of those two creative forces this time of year.
In an effort to feel like I’m not completely ignoring the stacks of student work all over my life, I’ve been doing some reflecting about a few issues I chose to ignore during the semester. One particular issue is bothering me because of a great project I found through Alex Reid’s blog (digital diggs) called the social media classroom. It rocks. Harold Rheingold, it’s creator, explains “that [the project] provides teachers and learners with an integrated set of social media that each course can use for its own purposes—integrated forum, blog, comment, wiki, chat, social bookmarking, RSS, microblogging, widgets , and video commenting are the first set of tools.” There’s little students can’t do. Nearly every form of media that students may or may not use is interconnected and easily accessible to exploit as they explore what it means to compose their own texts, and more importantly create a voice, even an identity for what gets called ‘New Media.’ (I’ve found too many definitions of that to know what it might actually refer to). “New Media” has its problems of course. It’s no secret that the web and digital communication, “Web 2.0” stuff, is generally employed by market capitalism. I think students are more aware of this than ‘we’ often give them credit for. And I agree, to some extent, that digital communication may not be fulfilling its promise to bring us closer together and give more voices power. I think what troubles me presently with projects like this one, and classes like mine that are built around what can be accomplished with New Media is what they might do to students perceptions of things like blogs, wikis, digital video sharing, and the like. It seems to me, regardless of how interestingly professors and instructors employ New Media in the classroom (and some people are doing wildly cool things), it’s still the classroom. That is, what happens to blogs, even social networking sites, when English (or otherwise) teachers get a hold of them? As it stands, the web is a space slightly free of the institution the classroom belongs to, which puts students (and teachers) in a place without prescription. No one is sure of the rules in these spaces, and that generates a lack of assumed expectations or discomfort, which can lead to sincere learning (sometimes). But what happens to these spaces as they get rolled into academe? What happens to a student’s perception of digital media when a ‘clever’ assignment requires that student to create a Facebook page and write about the rhetorical choices they made in a effort to generate an online identity? I’m concerned.
I’m not only concerned about the digital projects I’ve got in mind for next semester’s class, I’m concerned about the two graphic novels we’re reading. My hope is to use them as examples of fragmentation and the affect of New Media on the ‘old.’ But I also love graphic novels and the last thing I want to do is turn them into “those books we read in that class.” I believe in bringing every piece of popular culture I can get my hands on into the classroom. It makes what we do relevant and real; it helps my students look past what I want. But I’m under no allusion that we (my students and I) can escape the fact that most everything we bring into the classroom will be a little tainted by to ooze of academe.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Salutations!
Hello out there, "Against Chalk" readership! Please allow me to introduce myself: I'm "mhb", which is certainly clunkier than the two-syllable JC, but it's what I have to work with here.
JC invited me to be a contributing blogger, and I was thrilled to join him in this little project. But those of you who don't know me might wonder what my qualifications are. They are as follows:
1) I know JC in the real world. When we're in the same room we talk a lot, about a great many things, for long periods of time.
2) I read this blog and I left an obscenely long comment a while ago.
That's about it.
I also, like JC, enjoy thinking about learning, both online and in "meatspace". I come from a slightly different perspective which makes our conversations with each other - and, I hope, the upcoming conversation with you the readers - pretty fun. I'm still a student myself, working my way through a master's degree program in education where I'm learning how to learn how people learn. That's not a typo.
Whereas JC teaches various populations of college students, my hope is to teach adults who are even more "non-traditional" than some of his non-traditional students - specifically, adults who have been in prison and haven't yet finished high school. More specifically, adults who think (or who have been convinced) that they aren't able to learn. To keep this introductory post brief I won't delve too much into how I developed that particular interest, but I love to blather on about it, so don't you worry, you'll read more on that soon.
Whereas JC teaches various populations of college students, my hope is to teach adults who are even more "non-traditional" than some of his non-traditional students - specifically, adults who have been in prison and haven't yet finished high school. More specifically, adults who think (or who have been convinced) that they aren't able to learn. To keep this introductory post brief I won't delve too much into how I developed that particular interest, but I love to blather on about it, so don't you worry, you'll read more on that soon.
I have also found myself surrounded by interesting people who are fascinated with online learning, alternative education, religion in the classroom, the school-to-prison pipeline, undiagnosed learning disabilities, teen fathers in high schools... a vast array of interesting questions that all have something to do with learning and teaching. I would love to drag some guest posters in from that group to contribute to the brewing discussion here, or at least get their permission to heavily quote them. All I have to do is get them to respond to my phone calls.
I understand that some of you readers are teachers or students of some sort or another. What sort of learning environments are you working in? What brought you to this blog? What learning stuff are you interested in? Let's break the ice, shall we?
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't thank JC for his invitation. It's very exciting for me to collaborate with one of the most curious, brilliant and fun people I have the pleasure to know.
Now, off to work on my first "real" post!
I understand that some of you readers are teachers or students of some sort or another. What sort of learning environments are you working in? What brought you to this blog? What learning stuff are you interested in? Let's break the ice, shall we?
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't thank JC for his invitation. It's very exciting for me to collaborate with one of the most curious, brilliant and fun people I have the pleasure to know.
Now, off to work on my first "real" post!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Is There Any Real Way Around Grades?
So I recently came across a simple study by a couple anthropologists interested in the effects extrinsic rewards have on human interest. They put a group of people in an observed room with a complicated puzzle that involved word games, logic, and some geometry. (The report actually describes the puzzle for nearly two and half pages--weird). The first group of people, having nothing to do but wait, started working on the puzzle. When the observer came into the room, the subjects asked what it was they were supposed to be doing as participants in the study, but they also wanted to talk about the puzzle. The observer didn't answer their questions and only nodded in response to the progress they were making with the puzzle. The second time she (the observer) came in the room, the subjects were nearly finished with the puzzle and to use a word from the report, they appeared passionately connected to solving it. Not one of the subjects asked what they were supposed to be doing--they wanted to talk about the puzzle. The observer told them they we're free to go, but, you guessed it, they didn't leave until the puzzle was solved hours later. The next group the anthropologists brought into the same situation also started to work on the puzzle while they awaited further instruction. The big difference here was that when the observer came into the room, she watched them work on the puzzle and paid the participants whenever they solved a piece. What came next is not terribly surprising: the group only worked on the puzzle when the observer was present and not one of them was interested in finishing after they were dismissed.
Most of us have been warned of the dangers that might come from turning what we love into a way to make a living. This study certainly seems to shore up such a notion. It also lets scholars like Ken Bain ask questions about the value of grades. Can students connect in any personal way to knowledge if they are always given extrinsic rewards (grades) for the work they do? I imagine the answer is fairly dependent on the student. I know most the Freshman I teach don't feel a bit connected to their school work. By their own admission, they sign up for the classes that fulfill requirements, write papers, take tests, speak up in class, and study in order to get an A and a degree. That's it. And why should instructors expect anything otherwise? What the study concerning the effect of extrinsic rewards suggest to me is not so much the idea that grades prevent students from personalizing knowledge, from making it matter to the lives they lead outside the classroom walls. Rather, I think the study demonstrates that grades create fixed situations where deviation from a plan or even a lack of purpose is absolutely barred. The second group in the study quickly learned their purpose was to make money by performing well in front of the observer. (Sound familiar?). The first group never learned what they were "supposed" to be doing--nothing was ever solidified for them, so they used what was in front of them and did what they found interesting. And while I can only infer this from the study, the first group not only connected to their task (a task they thought was of their own choosing), they also connected to each other in a way the second group did not nearly approach. I wonder if grades don't so much ruin what might be authentic enthusiasm by "paying" or extrinsically rewarding a connection that doesn't require such an action, as much as they dictate what can happen in any given classroom. Grades are behind the student question that I can't stand (but I do understand): "How will this effect my grade?" They want to know how the direction of the class or an assignment fits the prescribed purpose of the class, which, and this is the kicker, is always to get a good grade. It doesn't matter what we write about our classes or how we invite students into the purpose of the class. Grades have already established the purpose, at least for the Freshman. Discussions that appear "un-scored," teaching styles that are difficult to predict, assignments that ask students to create rather than memorize might be uncomfortable because they don't always fit the mold built by our grading system. How can a student win a game where the rules are being created in collaboration? I don't know--but I can't think of better way to connect to whatever it is you're learning.
I've recently realized that much of my grading is based in emotion. And while that scares me and makes me question every letter I write on every paper, I'm starting to actually believe the voice in my head that keeps asking "why is this a problem?" If a student gets exited or worried or angry or whatever in response to their composition--if they connect to it, take risks, and sometimes (apparently) don't give a damn what I think, shouldn't I just give them an A? I wish that wasn't an option. I wish I could, like Evergreen State, Earlham School of Religion, and other schools, write each one of my students personal evaluations that would push them further into their thinking, their fear, their joy, their freaking lives. But for now, I'm stuck with letter grades and I don't know how to get around that.
Most of us have been warned of the dangers that might come from turning what we love into a way to make a living. This study certainly seems to shore up such a notion. It also lets scholars like Ken Bain ask questions about the value of grades. Can students connect in any personal way to knowledge if they are always given extrinsic rewards (grades) for the work they do? I imagine the answer is fairly dependent on the student. I know most the Freshman I teach don't feel a bit connected to their school work. By their own admission, they sign up for the classes that fulfill requirements, write papers, take tests, speak up in class, and study in order to get an A and a degree. That's it. And why should instructors expect anything otherwise? What the study concerning the effect of extrinsic rewards suggest to me is not so much the idea that grades prevent students from personalizing knowledge, from making it matter to the lives they lead outside the classroom walls. Rather, I think the study demonstrates that grades create fixed situations where deviation from a plan or even a lack of purpose is absolutely barred. The second group in the study quickly learned their purpose was to make money by performing well in front of the observer. (Sound familiar?). The first group never learned what they were "supposed" to be doing--nothing was ever solidified for them, so they used what was in front of them and did what they found interesting. And while I can only infer this from the study, the first group not only connected to their task (a task they thought was of their own choosing), they also connected to each other in a way the second group did not nearly approach. I wonder if grades don't so much ruin what might be authentic enthusiasm by "paying" or extrinsically rewarding a connection that doesn't require such an action, as much as they dictate what can happen in any given classroom. Grades are behind the student question that I can't stand (but I do understand): "How will this effect my grade?" They want to know how the direction of the class or an assignment fits the prescribed purpose of the class, which, and this is the kicker, is always to get a good grade. It doesn't matter what we write about our classes or how we invite students into the purpose of the class. Grades have already established the purpose, at least for the Freshman. Discussions that appear "un-scored," teaching styles that are difficult to predict, assignments that ask students to create rather than memorize might be uncomfortable because they don't always fit the mold built by our grading system. How can a student win a game where the rules are being created in collaboration? I don't know--but I can't think of better way to connect to whatever it is you're learning.
I've recently realized that much of my grading is based in emotion. And while that scares me and makes me question every letter I write on every paper, I'm starting to actually believe the voice in my head that keeps asking "why is this a problem?" If a student gets exited or worried or angry or whatever in response to their composition--if they connect to it, take risks, and sometimes (apparently) don't give a damn what I think, shouldn't I just give them an A? I wish that wasn't an option. I wish I could, like Evergreen State, Earlham School of Religion, and other schools, write each one of my students personal evaluations that would push them further into their thinking, their fear, their joy, their freaking lives. But for now, I'm stuck with letter grades and I don't know how to get around that.
Monday, November 24, 2008
An example to help explain my point
A close friend rightly wanted to know if my last post described a "trap...unique to Christians or is it widespread among all those who think in terms of right vs. wrong, regardless of what religion? Or limited to those who believe in Christianity as fundamentalists?" It's a question that has already been raised three or four times in the tiny world I inhibit, so I want to try to give it a little thought here. The first thing to admit is that I'm not at all sure if religion, in general or Christian fundamentalism as it's practiced around here, is what stifles good discussion in the classroom (the kind that students connect to their lives and don't require much of me). What I do know is that students who are chiefly interested in right vs. wrong rather than a religious narrative are often far more likely to push class discussions in interesting and meaningful ways.
An extreme example:
My Miami students read a essay about homosexual couples' right to adopt children written by one of their peers. There's an Ohio law preventing gay couples from adopting, and the student-writer wanted her senator to know she thinks the law is nuts. It's an eloquent, well-constructed piece of 'first-year' writing that I thought served as a perfect example of audience awareness. And while I did try to help my students discover that, they were far more interested in the essay's content. Quite a few of my students treated the issue of gay adoption as a no-brainer: of course it would be better for kids to be adopted than remain in foster care. Others, however, were more tentative. In two out of three of my classes, a few students weren't willing to easily agree with the essay. They didn't appeal to a religious belief. Instead they worried aloud and asked heaps of questions concerning the ramifications gay adoption might have on the kids and the structure of family. In fact, one student said, "I'm not trying to get religious on you guys, I just think we should think about the lives these children will be sort of shoved into." He went on to ask provocative questions that generated what looked like reflection and re-thinking. Lots of people ended up saying things like, "alright I see what your saying, but what about..." It was awesome. Most everyone in the room gradually grew a little uncomfortable while they tried to figure out what was right and wrong.
In each class that day, but in one particularly, there were also a few students who either checked-out of the conversation or made it obvious they thought the whole discussion was flat ridiculous. Lots of them wore knowing smirks (a pose I'm fairly sympathetic toward). These were my committed Christian students, and while I did everything I could to get their viewpoint into the room, it didn't work. This was not, as I assumed, because they were reluctant to share their religious views. They were fine with that. It turned out they thought the whole discussion was kind of silly, that trying to figure out what's right and wrong isn't all that necessary. Things were much clearer for these students...
...Maybe it's best to leave it at that--the same place the class more or less ended.
An extreme example:
My Miami students read a essay about homosexual couples' right to adopt children written by one of their peers. There's an Ohio law preventing gay couples from adopting, and the student-writer wanted her senator to know she thinks the law is nuts. It's an eloquent, well-constructed piece of 'first-year' writing that I thought served as a perfect example of audience awareness. And while I did try to help my students discover that, they were far more interested in the essay's content. Quite a few of my students treated the issue of gay adoption as a no-brainer: of course it would be better for kids to be adopted than remain in foster care. Others, however, were more tentative. In two out of three of my classes, a few students weren't willing to easily agree with the essay. They didn't appeal to a religious belief. Instead they worried aloud and asked heaps of questions concerning the ramifications gay adoption might have on the kids and the structure of family. In fact, one student said, "I'm not trying to get religious on you guys, I just think we should think about the lives these children will be sort of shoved into." He went on to ask provocative questions that generated what looked like reflection and re-thinking. Lots of people ended up saying things like, "alright I see what your saying, but what about..." It was awesome. Most everyone in the room gradually grew a little uncomfortable while they tried to figure out what was right and wrong.
In each class that day, but in one particularly, there were also a few students who either checked-out of the conversation or made it obvious they thought the whole discussion was flat ridiculous. Lots of them wore knowing smirks (a pose I'm fairly sympathetic toward). These were my committed Christian students, and while I did everything I could to get their viewpoint into the room, it didn't work. This was not, as I assumed, because they were reluctant to share their religious views. They were fine with that. It turned out they thought the whole discussion was kind of silly, that trying to figure out what's right and wrong isn't all that necessary. Things were much clearer for these students...
...Maybe it's best to leave it at that--the same place the class more or less ended.
Friday, November 21, 2008
An Inappropriate and Slightly Disjointed Rant
Generally Christianity gets in our way—especially in the classroom at Indiana University East. But it pops its dogmatic little head up plenty at Mimi University. Now I’m not going to make some sweeping, uncomplicated claim that America’s most popular religion is nothing more than an archaic obstacle that needs to be overcome. The Christian narrative is powerful and beautifully complex; I love it. I mean, some of my best friends are Christians. (It’s an odd feeling to use that line and have it actually be true). My issue with Christianity, at least as a college English instructor, is what it does to conversations in the classroom that threaten to complicate, to really muck up, whatever topic is at hand. These conversations have nothing to do with me—that much I’m sure of. What’ll happen (and this will probably sound familiar) is a couple of students will discover they actually believe what their saying in class. Suddenly, for them, the performance that we call ‘talking in class’ lessens and they find themselves committed to their particular point of view. Then, on really good days, the fun starts. Someone in the room challenges what was just said by the student still surprised by their sudden passion. And regardless if that challenge was mere performance, the air in the room moves a bit differently. I usually try to find a way to get to a desk if I’m not already in one—then I wait. Often I wait for nothing, and am forced to ask a question or rephrase a comment in a way that gets us all back to our prescribed roles so we can carry on with the production that is a class discussion. I’ve an obvious hunch that the real conversations (and thus learning) always take place “in the dorms,” apart from class. Sometimes, however, if I did my job accidentally perfectly and if the gods are on my side, the discussion happens right in the classroom, ignoring, maybe forgetting where it is.
The real satisfaction of a good class discussions is that there’s too many ideas swirling around, too many ideologies that need defending, too many feelings that get hurt, too many ‘sides’ that get named, too much to sum up, too much to talk about. It just keeps unfolding into more and more uncertainty. We, as a class, can’t get to a conclusive answer, but, and this is the best part, we aren’t willing to let everybody be right—no one is going to “agree to disagree,” not during a good class discussion.
I’ve been fortunate enough to be part of a few of these both as student and on the other side of the room. What I can’t pin-down is a pattern or a particular move that gets these kinds of discussions going. I have learned what kills them though, and sadly it’s the thing that probably should complicate them: Christianity. For all the strange and intriguing contractions which fill the pages of the Christian scriptures, one could make the argument (in fact I do) that it’s a tradition that should support what I believe is a good class discussion. But it doesn’t, at least it hasn’t. And having spent a couple years in my early twenties trying like mad to belong to fundamentalist Christianity, I think I get it—I think. This is a tradition that manifests in the classroom in the form of a monster that arrests and fixes the fluctuating and irregular nature of narrative. It’s got answers before the question gets a chance to breathe. Consequently, a discussion in an already structured (fixed) environment, like a classroom, is a cozy couch for the cranky side of Christianity. Instead of engaging, even entertaining, the demanding ideas that surface in a classroom discussion, I watch student after student pause, roll whatever notion was just put forth around in their head for a second, then condemn it as something that doesn’t fit into what they believe—it’s not binary enough, it lacks an clear right and wrong. We’re all guilty of this in one form or another, of course. But too often inside our class at Indiana University East, the fervor for the right answer, the comfortable all-encompassing truth drowns everything. The unsure won’t speak. It’s not my job to push my own ideology or value system on students, and I don’t. But I worry when discomfort and mystery are not only barred from leaving the room, they’re forced to become the kind of comprehendible flesh that my students can drive a nail through.
The real satisfaction of a good class discussions is that there’s too many ideas swirling around, too many ideologies that need defending, too many feelings that get hurt, too many ‘sides’ that get named, too much to sum up, too much to talk about. It just keeps unfolding into more and more uncertainty. We, as a class, can’t get to a conclusive answer, but, and this is the best part, we aren’t willing to let everybody be right—no one is going to “agree to disagree,” not during a good class discussion.
I’ve been fortunate enough to be part of a few of these both as student and on the other side of the room. What I can’t pin-down is a pattern or a particular move that gets these kinds of discussions going. I have learned what kills them though, and sadly it’s the thing that probably should complicate them: Christianity. For all the strange and intriguing contractions which fill the pages of the Christian scriptures, one could make the argument (in fact I do) that it’s a tradition that should support what I believe is a good class discussion. But it doesn’t, at least it hasn’t. And having spent a couple years in my early twenties trying like mad to belong to fundamentalist Christianity, I think I get it—I think. This is a tradition that manifests in the classroom in the form of a monster that arrests and fixes the fluctuating and irregular nature of narrative. It’s got answers before the question gets a chance to breathe. Consequently, a discussion in an already structured (fixed) environment, like a classroom, is a cozy couch for the cranky side of Christianity. Instead of engaging, even entertaining, the demanding ideas that surface in a classroom discussion, I watch student after student pause, roll whatever notion was just put forth around in their head for a second, then condemn it as something that doesn’t fit into what they believe—it’s not binary enough, it lacks an clear right and wrong. We’re all guilty of this in one form or another, of course. But too often inside our class at Indiana University East, the fervor for the right answer, the comfortable all-encompassing truth drowns everything. The unsure won’t speak. It’s not my job to push my own ideology or value system on students, and I don’t. But I worry when discomfort and mystery are not only barred from leaving the room, they’re forced to become the kind of comprehendible flesh that my students can drive a nail through.
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