This, of course, is not to say that I'm against letting kids know about issues of race, or gender, or sexuality, or any of the myriad other subjects that could easily stand in one of those others in my listing. I support these issues both personally and as a foundation for positive social building. Nevertheless, it concerns me that the two examples of this "out of the box" focus that we've seen in this class - Annette Harris Powell in "Conflicting Voices in the Classroom: Developing Critical Consciousness" and Sherry Cook Stanforth in Durst's Collision Course - certainly seem to excel at luring students into deeper thought patterns, but in a way that, to look at the individual writings, appears counter-productive to the students' sense of acceptance in the classroom.
Not surprisingly, I believe it was Phil who said it best in our small group discussion last week: Why do we have to push the envelope all the time? Sherry herself seemed to acknowledge that her choice of sensitive subjects had an inverse effect on student participation and involvement at times. Moreover, and it is here that she mirrors Powell, her very choice of topics betrays an agenda of presenting personal views with the adjoining assumption that these views will, by their very nature, eventually be adopted by students. Now, I feel a little Snidely Whiplash-esque at this point, since the views that Sherry and Powell each have chosen are certainly ones that I think all mature, socially competent thinkers should adopt; I am not attacking the individual views of these instructors. However, I do want to suggest that this model that they're showing us seems, to my young, inexperienced mind, to push students back on their heels, and not in a good way.
Looking at Nystrand's article on dialogic instruction, we have clear evidence that students benefit from a classroom paradigm that values discussion over recitation. However, if you're purposely picking viewpoints because they are foreign, and perhaps even hostile, to the viewpoints your students have of their own, it seems to me that any "discussion" the class generates will devolve into a barely concealed recitation of your own views as their own by the savvy students, or an angered refutation of the point by the stubborn ones. I can see, in Nystrand's terms, the ideal hope for the "transformation of understandings" through the presentation of loftier thought processes, but these are students whom we don't even trust to put verbs in every sentence. Not to say that they can't absorb this knowledge, but, frankly, that they won't.
Consider Brooke's discussion of "underlife" in classrooms. Students are well aware of the boundaries of their expected roles in the classroom, and are equally cognizant of the ways to subvert them. Also, we've seen throughout other readings for this course (notably Durst) that students can penetrate through the meaning of an assignment in order to view the brass tacks of the expectations of them. I will, in a simple phrase, offer my assessment of these facts of the classroom: That sucks. However, I have to ask, how can we know these things about students and still trust them to truly embrace a social lesson of the sort Powell or Stanforth offers? Especially when no effort seems to be made in disguising the teacher's personal agenda? Accepting this new view has now become a homework assignment, and though they'll grumble about it, my suspicion is that few students will risk their grades by clinging to their prior views. As for the ones that do, well, they've clearly misinterpreted all the presented information in class, and thus they were probably going to do bad anyway. Right?
Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Where is the harm in setting aside untouchability for a moment? I fully agree that social awareness is an admirable goal in any course, and that composition classes are a specially apt fit for its acquisition. However, if we're going to be so sure of the maturity of our students and the rightness of one view over another, why not let them realize what's "right" or "good" for themselves? By this I mean, present both sides of a two-sided issue! Or three sides of a three-sided, and so on. I would, if pressed, admit myself a liberal, but any statement in that vein would be exactly that: an admission for myself. There is an equally well-defined, though in my opinion "wrong," position to take on every issue, but it strikes me as pedagogically imperialistic to approach a class under the assumption that this "wrong" view must be wrong.
Again - why not let students decide for themselves? I've had classes, which I enjoyed, where instructors gave readings that illuminated both sides of an issue, and then challenged us, the students, to evaluate these interpretations side by side. Here is your Ms. Lindsay, Nystrand; here is your discussion model put into use, generating knowledge by asking students to determine it for themselves. Though I know now, and possibly knew then, that the teachers giving these assignments surely had their own opinions, and possibly even what those opinions were, they were not forced on me as the true meat of the lesson. Rather, they had the decency to presume that, if they were as right as they assumed, I would have no choice but to adopt the "correct" social view, and that, if I did not, I at least solidified my own interpretation of the world instead of being spoonfed someone else's.
And, it would seem to me, if we're going to praise the "Ms. Lindsay" model of classroom instruction, we also have to praise this possibility for dissent.
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