“For me, learning begins with questioning.” Bishop makes this statement on page 70 of her article, and I think it’s a great way to start off this blog post. I, too, learn through questioning (I think we all do), and I’d like to offer some thoughts on these two essays that set me pondering, not only about this week’s readings, but the ideas we’ve bandied around all semester, as well as the way we as TAs (and more broadly, as writing teachers), approach our classrooms. Like Bishop goes on to say, “For none of them do I have final answers, measurable outcomes,” but in the ‘spirit of inquiry’ that we’ve all been thinking about so much, I think the answers aren’t as important as the questions themselves.
I thought that these two essays were especially apropos, coming at the end of the semester as they have. Both Bishop and Powell bring to light one of the most, if not THE most important questions that faces any teacher: How do I translate theory into practice?
I’d imagine that this is a question that plagues all conscientious teachers throughout their careers (although, as Roskelly mentioned (p 65), very few college professors have any training as teachers, so perhaps such thoughts only plague those of us who have read pedagogy theory.) At any rate, it seems that as brand-new teachers, this question may weigh even heavier on us: We’re wet-behind-the-ears, idealistic, and have just swallowed a whole semester’s-worth of dense, philosophical pedagogy theory. We all desperately want to do the right thing, teach the right way, be open and supportive and enable our students to break out of circles and engage in the world in critical and self-actualizing ways. We all want to emulate bell hooks and change the world, and we should. And yet, Bishop mentions that “scholarly writings run the danger of distracting us from our work even as it allows us to reflect on that work” (73)
Because at the same time that we’re striving to emulate theory, we’re struggling with the everyday logistics of being a teacher (not to mention being a student at the same time). It’s incredibly important to study and understand theories about pedagogy, oppression, and ways to disrupt the status quo, but on a daily basis, it’s exactly like Bishop says: “When I look at a group of writing students…I don’t think about reproductive public spheres or corporate needs or cultural transmission. I think ‘Why doesn’t Summer have a draft again?’”(72). Oftentimes, it feels as though the realities of the classroom get in the way of teaching; or more specifically, in the way of how we want to teach, how we’ve been told we’re supposed to teach.
Because really, for a lot of us, teaching is tricky and often stressful business: It’s new and scary, but also exciting; freshmen can be horrible people (and, of course, wonderful people too); and for many of us, we’re in a new place, navigating the strange new world of graduate school at the same time. We’re grappling with ideas within the first few weeks of school that career writing teachers take an entire lifetime to think about. It’s overwhelming.
So what’s a TA to do? Well, I think we first need to take heart in essays like Powell’s and Bishop’s, and realize that everyone who teaches writing struggles with the potential disconnect between theory and practice; we’re part of a community. I think we also need to turn to our own teaching/learning/writing community here, and work together to figure out practical, concrete ways to implement theory in the classroom. Ask more questions, of ourselves, and especially of each other; “How do you do this in your classroom? What works for you?” Like Bishop says, “I owe as much or more to the actual as to the possible. Like all writing teachers, I need more time and space and support for tending to daily teaching transactions” (72).
Also, I think it’s important to heed Powell’s advice, and engage in a dialogue with texts that deal with these very issues. People have been thinking about how to teach writing for a long time; there’s no sense in us reinventing the wheel. But it’s important, too, not simply to swallow all of these theories of pedagogy (that would be falling right into the banking system of education, which we all know is a no-no), but instead, like I said, to engage in a dialogue with them. What do you agree with, and disagree with? What belongs in your classroom, and what doesn’t? Try to further emulate Powell, and write through and about your response to the texts and the issues. The best way to teach dialogics is to engage in it ourselves. The more we embody the theories we read about, the less foreign they become, and the easier it will be to break out of old pedagogical frameworks (the ones that many of us experienced in college, and fall back on as safe and familiar), and into new ones.
This brings me to my final point: as we read about race, gender, class, differentness, “otherness,” safety, trust, etc. etc., and the ways we need to rethink our awareness of each in the classroom, it sometimes feels as though we need to incorporate these big ideas specifically into our lesson plans. I don’t think, however, this is the case, exactly. Bishop says, “I’m drained if I try to teach civics to writing students, for that is not my expertise or interest” (72). Personally, I don’t think the writing classroom is the place to teach about these issues, but rather to teach through these issues. (How’s that for vague?) We don’t all need to become scholars of social inequality, but we need to be aware of the inequalities that exist, and use our classrooms as spaces to unpack the evidence of those inequalities as it arises. Readings like hooks and Roskelly go a long way to prepare us for these eventualities. Like Bishop says, we need to use those teachable moments, to be aware of our own biases and the biases that will arise within our students, and to use them as opportunities to enact theory in our practice. Over time, I think, the lessons we take from all the theory we’ve read will simply diffuse into our teaching. As Powell says, “In the practice of lived experience, this…is simply ‘what you do,’ is ‘the right way to behave,’ is the ‘way to be’” (571).
Melissa, yes, I do take heart in essays such as these. They come at a time when I have been, due in part to my Isearch research, asking myself many of the same questions -- and coming to many of the same conclusions. Those conclusions, honestly, being a big huge SHRUG and a look of bewilderment. I loved Powell's essay, and liked Bishop's, but in the end I felt I was no more "enlightened" about anything than when I had come into them. Both speak to the idea of individuality versus a collective whole, and Powell in particular I thought was going to lay out some words of wisdom about how to teach to a collective community rather than teach to individuals -- but in the end she just posed some questions, asked us to read a bunch of things, and made some vague statements about her beliefs ("Listen. Think. Learn. Live in the care you give and receive. Teach." -- ooh, thanks). But, wow, what else do I do as a composition teacher each day if not precisely that? Pose questions, tell people to read stuff, and vaguely allude to some wider belief system (the System, if you will, the System of Education, the Common Syllabus, the Administration, the Higher Ups...) Writing, as Powell says, is indeed an individual activity but is so shaped by sociality that it is in fact collective as well. But -- and here's my big question, and one of Powell's -- where does the teacher fit into this individual/collective construction of the comp classroom? If I am an individual then I am (according to Powell, and myself), "falsely" relinquishing power -- false because OF COURSE I still hold the power over my students, and to pretend otherwise is just that -- pretense. But if I am the leader of a collective, an "elder," (a position I think I believe the students might rather I hold, in terms of feeling safe with me, protected, nurtured, educated) then my power is more blatant -- but Powell says my needs will be subsumed by the needs of the whole. I can't pretend I completely understand this -- in fact, I don't at all. How, in accepting power and looking at my students as a collective, am I sacrificing anything? Okay, I suppose I am sacrificing a certain kind of honesty that I deeply value in my class -- the kind of honesty that allows me to admit mistakes, admit that I am just as clueless as they are, and ask their forgiveness and suggestions for my own improvement. In a collective writing classroom it is a me-them scenario, which may be more honest in some ways, but also allows for more dishonesty in other ways. Also -- practically -- how can one teach writing as a communal practice? I really had hoped Powell would explain this further, but she did not -- not really, anyway -- not beyond suggesting certain things and planting the ideas in my head. Bishop, who asked her students to design their own assignment, seemed to be practicing a collective AND individual practice -- she was "empowering" her students individually, while also allowing them a certain collective power.
ReplyDeleteI don't really know what I'm getting at here. Just. Confusion. Confused.
I think it is hard to read so much theory in the first semester of teaching. I have scarcely had the chance to formulate my own thoughts before I'm being bombarded with everyone else's. I wish WRIT540 were second semester!
Awww, Emma. I think confusion is normal and probably good. To not be confused would mean you were totally complacent.
ReplyDeleteThe tone of the Powell article kind of drove me up the wall. I get it--you're unconventional! But I did think the idea of "communal teaching" was an interesting one and well worth talking about. Yesterday I had my students revise the portfolio rubric to fit our classes expectations. I was kind of nervous about this activity. It seemed risky. I wanted my students to value the same things I did. Was I pretending to relinquish authority, like Powell talks about? Maybe. I was sort of acting like Kate does in 540, having the students create a rubric but making sure they knew I had final say. But, of course, as Emma points out, I AM the authority--it would be silly to pretend otherwise. I keep telling my students not to cater their portfolio to what they think I want to read, or the grade they want to get, but what else would they cater it to?
So I am also confused, just like Emma. I think it's hard to say how we can bring theory into practice when there are so many factors that we can't ignore. We can't ignore that this is a required class with specific requirements that our students do not want to take. So what can we do about it?
And how do we deal with other inequalities? As a first-time instructor, our inclination might be to ignore them. And our classrooms often lack racial diversity, which may be a sensitive subject but I think has a clearer dialogue in our society, if that makes sense? Like I wouldn't know how to address class differences in the classroom--that would terrify me. I agree with Melissa and John above that we can address these things in indirect ways--not teaching about social issues but teaching writing that relates to social issues. But I'm not sure exactly how theory meets practice here.
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ReplyDeleteI have to agree that I was also confused by the readings and found myself falling back on my I-search paper research and thinking to fill the gaps (as I've been thinking and reading a good amount about writing and identity). In that spirit, I'll take a stab at that big question Emma asked with the help of Powell: where does the teacher fit into this individual/collective construction of the comp classroom?
ReplyDeleteI don't want to pretend to have some definitive answer, but I also don't want to pretend that I'm too uniformed to make a go, so please people, reign me in if I'm not making sense. That said, I think there's something to be gained by voicing your privelidge/power to your class in order to form a community identity, something the entire class can turn to while maintaining their individual ideas of themselves. Of course, we as teachers set the tone, but we're fooling ourselves if we think that everyone in the class doesn't have at least at minimum a role to play in reinforcing that tone and at maximum in modifying or obstructing it. My goal is to shoot for everyone in the class to have the power to modify the tone of class and no one (including myself) to individually have the power to obstruct each other's learning.
I'm thinking here of something along the lines of what I believe bell hooks was discussing (though I might be mistaken and I'm paraphrasing anyway) "we're all together and equal here in so much as we're working to learn." I would add "of course, as the teacher I'm ultimately responsible for the class generally, but my goal, and I hope it will be yours, is to work and learn together." By acknowledging our status we also can go on to modify it, and hopefully, transgress it. I think this is true of any situation.