Fair
and Balanced to Death: Confronting the Cult of Neutrality
In the Teacher Education Classroom
Faith Agostinone-Wilson
Aurora University
Introduction
Contemporary conservative discourse
has provided a
different sort of challenge for the teacher educator.
Teacher education students often mask their
discomfort with class discussions and assignments that center around ethnicity, social class and gender by
asserting the
triple-threat values of neutrality, “individual responsibility” and
“equal-time” viewpoints. These
status-quo values are the yardstick for acceptability and “balance.” My job as a teacher-educator is to
re-politicize
these values and bring them out into the open in my foundations classes.
This three-part
paper begins with an overview of common components of contemporary
conservative
discourse in the wake of Fox News Network, both inside and outside of
higher
education, and how centrism has become the standard ideology in
education. Next, I compare excerpts from
my students’
writings and accounts of my own experiences in the teacher education
classroom
with (often conservative) student grievances submitted to the website www.noindoctrination.org. Finally, I offer several strategies that have
worked for me when it comes to introducing controversial or
social-issues
curricula into the teacher education classroom.
Right Becomes Center
Overview.
I was
interested in seeing how the ideologies of neutrality, individuality,
and
balance played out in student work so I began collecting copies of
response
writings from my philosophic foundations class. I
was also interested in what other teacher educators
experienced when
covering controversial material, so I located research articles that
incorporated
an analysis of student writings. The
relatively new website, NoIndoctrination.org was a subject of curiosity
on my
part. This is a site where students can
anonymously submit reports of “bias” they experienced in a college
course. The schools’ names, course numbers
and
professors are identified in these posts. Although
the site says it is non-partisan, the tone of the
posts was
overwhelmingly conservative. No post as
of this date complains of bias against “left wing” views.
I was interested in comparing these posts to
student writings to see if there were any common threads related to the
themes
of neutrality, personal responsibility/individuality, and equal
time/balance.
It
is important to mention that my teaching situation might be different
than most
teacher educators’. For one thing, I
work in a program that grants a masters degree plus certification. Consequently, I do not teach “traditional
aged” undergraduates. Most of my
students are older, live independently, have families, work during the
day, and
are looking for a career change. The
simple fact of having life experience under one’s belt might be why the
expression of overtly conservative views isn’t as common as some of the
teacher
educators describe in their articles.
What
is apparent, however, is the ideology of centrism.
As Valerio (2001)
and Nast (1999) point out, just the mere
mention of
controversial issues like race or social class can lead to an instant
reaction
of defensiveness on the part of students. For
teacher educators who have regularly experienced such
defensiveness,
this can be a double-whammy because we have to guard against
anticipating the
worst from our students and becoming defensive ourselves!
It is easy to become leery of students who
often see maintaining order and stability as more important than
transforming
the status quo (Titus, 1999, p.32).
We
have to realize that when we critique social injustice in a
centrist/rightist
culture, the very act of doing so can translate into student suspicion,
that we
lack “objectivity,” and can’t be taken seriously because we have an
“agenda.” This is complicated when the
teacher educator also happens to be a member of a minority group or
female
(Smith, 1999; Titus, 2000). Adding to the
complication is the entrenched neoliberal
ethos that
“the customer is always right,” where students have come to see the
professor
as providing a service that they pay for and being offended is not an
option (Nast, 1999). And
we
can’t forget the fact that “because these popular notions of
authenticity,
tradition, and nature offer a sense of identity, belonging, and
normalcy,
people often desire what is oppressive…and resist anti-oppressive
change” (Kumashiro,
2002,
p. 67). These combined notions build
student expectations of what “good” teaching is and what “good”
teachers do.
Neutrality & Common Sense. Neutrality is a powerful ideological tool
that is used not only within the classroom, but in society at large. It forms our sense of “reality,” often in the
guise of common sense. The irony of
neutrality, especially in a neoliberal
vein, is that
it is not at all “amoral,” but espouses a particular kind of morality,
what
Apple (2000) describes as a “thin morality” of individualism (p. 236). The accusatory term “political correctness”
is an example of the amoral posturing of neutrality, where “serious
moral
considerations are reduced to matters of mere etiquette” and “students
can
easily dismiss the demands of women or minorities as being interfering
or
irrational” (Titus, 2000, p. 28).
It
is quite common for teacher education students, when they encounter
controversial topics in their coursework, to bring up the issue of
“relevance”
(Nast, 1999; Titus, 2000) Kumashiro
(2000) describes how his students had no problem with learning about
different
cultures under the touristy guise of multiculturalism, but they did not
want to
learn about their own privileges in working towards an anti-racist
pedagogy. Their job as future educators
would be to teach students academics, not disrupt racism.
One of my own students had a negative reaction
to a class reading about anti-racist pedagogy, and brought the issue of
relevance to her response writing:
The
information I learned in this book was not helpful.
I don’t
think I will use any of it when
dealing with kids. The best way to
learn to
deal with kids is to go out and do it…I don’t know why we
have to make life so
complicated by breaking down groups and
analyzing how to react and
think about them…I think people
forget that we are all human
beings and need to be loved, not
studied.
The
site NoIndoctrination.org has several posts that echo the sentiment of
relevance (http://www.noindoctrination.org). This post is from a student enrolled in a
course titled Cultural Anthropology:
My
teacher very bluntly will compare societies in the book
and in videos she shows to the
then current situation with Iraq.
To
me, they have no correlation whatsoever but are just meant
to further demonize America
by making gross, unrelated
comparisons (entry #196).
The same post
later mentions how
another student he/she knows just wants to do the “actual work,” not
talk about
unrelated material.
Another
post is more direct, though amusing: “Why
should political orientation enter into
anthropological
discussion?” (entry #178).
One of my own students who describes
himself as liberal, addressed a struggle he was having making
connections of
relevance:
When Spring writes about
standardized tests
in schools in
modern
times, he implies that they are
a tool to maintain some
control.
He
fails to address who is the diabolical mind employing this
tool. I
also fail to
see the link between standardized tests and
his subsequent concluding
paragraph summarizing the methods
of the authoritarian state.
When
my own students grapple with the impossibility of being a neutral
teacher,
their writings often reflect an imagined liberal ideal. Some feel
that if teachers were neutral, then
the effects of students being negatively coerced by school could be
reduced. This view brings an almost
affirmative action flair to the table:
“I think it’s good that everyone is taught the same curriculum in
schools so everyone has the same chance to be successful or to choose
what path
they should take, not have it chosen for them or tracked into a certain
path.” Another student felt that if a
teacher could not maintain neutrality, they could be “aware of his or
her
coercive powers but practice the democratic principle of allowing
everyone who
wanted to have a say in class discussion and sometimes even in class
content.” This echoes Yob’s (1994) assertion that one can avoid
bias if one also
includes the values of “fairness, tolerance, honesty, and objectivity”
(p.
235).
Individual Responsibility. As soon as issues of social class take
center stage in the teacher education classroom, students typically
assert the
marketplace ideology of “personal responsibility” and itstwin sibling
“choice.” As Apple & Whitty (2002) explain, “Unleashing the free
market will be
the solution. If the poor are still poor
after this society is radically transformed around ‘the private’ then
we’ll
know that they got poor the old fashioned way; they earned it” (p. 74). Titus
(2000) describes how an attempt to analyze poverty
in terms of
structural forces that create and sustain it often result in students
continuing to blame poverty on individual failings.
Differences in social class are attributed
solely to hard work, with one’s wealth and possessions a measure of
one’s
industriousness, or at least the occasional “good fortune.”
The
danger in this hyper-individualism is that any obligation to the
collective
good has gone out the window: “Our very
idea of democracy has been altered so that democracy is no longer seen
as a
political concept, but an economic one. Democracy is reduced to stimulating the conditions of
‘free
consumer choice’ in an unfettered market” (Apple & Whitty,
2002, p. 74).
The tendency of
students to “deny that social problems are fundamentally structural” (McLaren, Hill, Cole, & Rikowski,
2002, p. 278) is echoed in this NoIndoctrination.org post:
The
professor made you feel embarrassed if you were brought up
on more than minimum wage and
had more than a single mom
to support our household. She further would automatically
turn a deaf ear on any one that
had a capitalist view on
welfare
or other government-funded
programs. It was as if your opinions
were completely negated because
we weren’t 16 year olds with
3 kids from 3
different problems…All
classroom discussion had the same moral: it
is America’s
fault that people are impoverished and they are therefore the victims. Those who work for the steady, middle-class
paycheck are privileged to be
able to work. I love being privileged
and waking up at 5:30 a.m.
every morning (entry #3).
The implication,
of course, is that
low-income people are personally irresponsible, immoral, and lazy (i.e.
they
don’t hold “good” middle-class jobs like the poster does).
Another
manifestation of individualism is “choice.” On
the surface, personal choice sounds like a democratic
concept because
it makes it seem as if individual volition creates freedom: all you have to do is choose.
One of my students wrote, “…you can choose
not to rob a bank, you can choose to study your texts.
You always have a choice between good and
evil; good and bad.” Another
explained,
“The United States has social classes, but you have choices to leave
the status
of the social class if you choose to.”
One student who was initially
taken off
guard by the
writings of Illich, later decided to read
some of his
works and changed her views about schooling. At
the time the following was written however, she was
trying to
integrate her beliefs about choice with the structural inequalities of
society:
Illich, however, faults the
school system, maintaining that
schools mislead these people;
he totally ignores the
influence and impact of
cultural values toward education on
their children’s successes…and
with the widespread
availability
of student loans, the
opportunities for post-secondary
education…
are an option for virtually
every student. The operative here is,
once again, choice.
Another
variant of individualism is the notion that no one should generalize or
talk
about issues in societal terms. “Students
discount any universality, often proclaiming
that it is just
one person’s perspective…their tendency here is to focus on exceptions,
particularly that of themselves and their own assuredness that they are
not
sexist (or racist…), claiming a personal exemption for themselves”
(Titus,
2000, p. 29). The unwillingness to
examine social groups makes it impossible to mobilize for change, a key
problem
with using postmodern philosophy to examine educational issues. Excerpts from two response writings by the
same student illustrate this refusal to engage in any form of
generalization. I was taken aback by the
demand for me to show her how to adapt rather than how to
change things:
them according to the
information presented in the book, you
would be stereotyping and
perhaps treating the person
inappropriately.
There
are problems and horrible injustices, but that is what
happens in life…they [books]
don’t give us instructions on
how to fix it [the world] or an
acceptance of how things
are.
Equal Time for Balance. In my nearly seven years working with
teacher education students, I have noticed that the call for balance
can take
many forms. Most commonly they are: a) all points are equally valid, b) you have
to present all sides of an issue (usually without critique, so the
student can
“make up their own minds”), c) don’t focus only on the negative, and d)
if I
don’t experience it (namely oppression),
then it
doesn’t exist.
In
my students’ writings, the notion of all points of view having an equal
say is
quite strong. When responding to the
question of how to ensure that outside groups have limited coercive
powers over
schools within a democracy, one student wrote: “I
think it is possible to achieve if everyone gets
involved. This would mean including
several different
groups on the school boards to share in the development of what should
be
taught.” Another student continues the
theme: “These individuals should be
taken from administrators, teachers, parents, politicians, religious
leaders
(from any denomination that wants to be involved in public school
content), and
other community members.”
Closely
related to universal validity, the mantra of fair and balanced requires
that
one present all sides to an issue, and, more importantly, that the
teacher not
interfere by asserting his/her views. This
was a common protest in the NoIndoctrination.org
postings:
The Souls of Black Folk and Black Boy
were emphasized
the most. These
two
books represent opinion and not
factual history.
If
the professor had wanted to use first-person
should have provided both sides
of issues (entry #203).
The
problem is, all of the readings basically give the same
view, but with subtle
differences. For example, one reading
might emphasize “income levels”
and another talks about
“class.” Overall
it’s
the same idea in different terms (entry #206).
One of my
students gave an example
of how to limit coercion and teach about war at the same time: “I feel that it is important to explain the
sides of other countries, have the students understand that there are
other
perspectives and not everything we do is right. Once
all the different perspectives have been presented, I
feel it
should be left up to the children to decide who was right, and
hopefully see
that many times it isn’t a black and white situation.”
The integration of
contradictory beliefs is probably the greatest challenge to maintaining
the
veneer of “balance.” Goodburn
& Ina (1994) describe an assignment for students to collaborate on
a social
issues research paper. The hopes were
that they would challenge each other’s views and do a reflective essay
about
this process, in addition to presenting the research.
What they found, however, was that students
were more concerned with maintaining group harmony and consensus. In addition, by framing their research as
“personal opinion” they were attempting to keep the teacher from
evaluating
their work, because how could one give a fair grade for a belief? One of the resulting research papers
presented viewpoints that advocated both placing limits on and an
extension of
gay rights, with no author challenging another and all views presented
as
equally valid.
The primacy of
personal experience is hard to confront in the classroom. Titus (2000)
relates
that “Both males and females angrily resent any suggestion that their
perception
of the world is incomplete or that their own individualistic experience
is not
sufficient to nullify a social pattern” (p. 25). Postmodern
feminists have made much progress
with the phrase “the personal is political,” so much so that students
come to
think that if they haven’t experienced oppression, then it must not
exist!
One of the most
troubling expressions of this theme was from a student of mine who
wrote,
“There are problems and horrible injustices, but that is what happens
in
life. It doesn’t make these things right
or wrong, they just are and they just happen. And
people have to deal with them.” When a
student isn’t able to identify hegemonic practice,
they often
invalidate or even try to rationalize what they see around them, in an
attempt
to adapt to the situation.
The curious
phenomenon of finding the positive counterexample takes on the form of
a quest
for many students. My students often
point out that my class can be depressing, but I typically reply that
some
issues are not subject to an upbeat “P.R.” campaign.
Berube (2003)
relates how one of his students complained that “there were no good
white
characters in the novel” they were studying (p. B7).
He managed to confront the student by sending
him an e-mail explaining that “we are not in the business of pursuing
reductive
identity-politics enterprises like looking for positive images in
literature,
regardless of what group images we might be talking about” (p. B7).
The demand for a
positive example is closely related to the notion that all opinions are
valid
and that there is a level playing field in terms of power.
We educators just have to play right.
If a teacher decides to look at the minimum
wage issue, for example, he/she is be
overly negative,
especially if there is a focus on the workers’ perspective. This implies that the employers’ perspective
hardly gets any press, and the workers’ view is being unfairly
privileged. These posts from
NoIndoctrination.org provide
an insightful glimpse into how students view balance:
We
were shown several theories on globalization that portrayed
Western
civilization as almost demonic, heartless, and ruthless
beasts that enslave the world
for financial gain. When I asked
whether there were other models
of globalism
that did not progress
such ideas, the professor threw
an angry glare my way and
said there
were no other models (entry #8).
When she speaks of America,
her tone of voice changes dramatically.
She
points out only the negatives, and tries to make us look worse
than places where people are
tortured and killed (entry # 196).
Professor
L. focused excessively on negative aspects of
American
history to portray a country of lies and contradictions,
while applauding Socialists and
Anarchists…he neglected to
comment on what positive things
were done by individuals
(entry # 203).
Strategies
Setting
the Tone. In my
philosophic foundations course, I have found that it is crucial to set
the
groundwork early on, never assuming that students have a familiarity
with a
classroom that seeks to interrupt neutrality and its attendant values (Butterwick & Selman, 2003; Kumashiro,
2000; Valerio, 2001).
Ignoring Ellsworth’s (1989) warning against using
“rationalistic tools”
like dialogue and reason (p. 313), we start the semester by looking at
what
discussion and dissent really mean.
To counteract the
“with us or against us” climate of the times, I created a handout
entitled It’s
Time for the Polarization Polka. In
it, I review on the first night of class the roles of dissent and
critique in
classroom dynamics, using a conversational prose. We
also talk about how what appears neutral
is actually a reinforcement of the status quo. For
example, I mention in the handout how teachers who
displayed flags
up to and after the Iraq
invasion were “going with the flow,” yet teachers who put up peace
signs or
anti-war materials were “politicizing” the classroom.
I pose the question, why is the first act not
political and the second commonly considered as indoctrination?
I also feel it is
also essential that students break the habit of labeling a position as
“___”
bashing just because an author happens to analyze or question what is
going
on. The media has done an excellent job
of making any sort of in-depth reporting as “picking on” the person
under
question. In philosophy, we have to move
beyond the notion that Ivan Illich is
“picking on”
schools or that Carol Gilligan “picks on” men. The
Fox News approach where polarization sets a future
shouting match in
motion has no place here.
In addition to the
handout, students also receive a copy of Carol Trosset’s
(1998) article about a study done at Grinnell
College concerning
student response
to open discussion and critical thinking. We
review the article’s findings, such as students not
seeing discussion
as useful unless consensus is reached or someone changes their
viewpoint (pp.
44-45). The article also addresses the
common fallacy of personal experience being the only source of
legitimate knowledge. While students
should be encouraged to share
their experiences in the classroom, the notion that one’s own isolated
situation trumps social justice issues needs to be questioned.
Another key
finding of the Grinnell study was that students felt they had a right
not to be
challenged. One student commented on
their survey that they had the right to “say what I believe and not
have anyone
tell me I’m wrong” (p.
47). Radical relativism, where
everything becomes reduced to an “opinion” is another common
misconception
about what should happen in a discussion (p. 48). The
fact that 84% of freshmen students chose
the statement “it is important for the college community to make sure
all of
its members feel comfortable” over “people have to learn to deal with
being
uncomfortable” demonstrates the mindset we often face as educators (p.
49).
This was the first
semester I used both the handout and the article. Because
we dealt with these topics from the
start, students seemed to feel more confident in participating in
discussions,
writing opinions down during group work, and challenging each other. We also had a fruitful conversation about how
we had experienced open discussion in the past. Many
students talked about negative situations where the
teacher, under
the guise of setting up a point/counterpoint debate for “multiple
viewpoints,”
allowed a few dominant students to attack others, using “below the
belt”
language. This created a Lord of the
Flies climate that, ironically enough, is the format most American
news
viewers prefer (http://people-press.org/reports/print.php3?PageID=837)!
Because students
are quite concerned about grades (despite my best efforts), I feel it
is
valuable to include a brief statement in my syllabus that ensures that
quality
of work, not one’s opinions, are what is being evaluated.
I echo Valerio
(2001) in that this is a way to assure students that while we might be
engaging
in some difficult topics with each other, grading based on “what I
might want
to hear” is entirely unethical. This
does not mean, however, that I will not address something I might find
troubling in their writings or what they say in class (Berube,
2003; Gibson, 2000, para. 5-7).
Guided
Discovery, Not Guided Reinforcement. Oftentimes
students are perplexed when I show skepticism at the notion of
non-interference
and the “turn them loose” variety of hands-on curricula.
After all, isn’t Dewey about active learning
and student-centered classrooms? I feel
it is important to explain to students that just because something is
called
“hands-on” it doesn’t automatically make it oriented to social justice. Self-selected learning is highly problematic,
no matter its form.
Kumashiro
(2000) points out that “repetition…is often a
comforting process because it tells us that we are smart or good. In contrast, education (especially the
process of learning something that tells us that the very ways in which
we
think and do things is not only wrong but also harmful) can be a very
discomforting process” (p. 6). Because education often means discomfort, the
teacher has to step in and sometimes push students to a place they
might not
like to be. If I were to simply stand
back and let students “make up their own minds” with zero input from
myself or
other classmates, what would prevent the reinforcement or repetition of
misconceptions or status-quo ideologies? This
is a decidedly non-postmodern way to view the role of
the teacher,
but one I find necessary, especially considering where most students
find the
so-called information needed to “arrive at their own conclusions” (i.e.
corporate-owned cable news).
The postmodern
approach of using non-interference or some phraseology such as
“enjoying the
silences” is not only irresponsible, it is dangerous.
As Apple (2000) argues, unless educators
honestly face powerful rightist tendencies in a tactical manner, we
will not be
able to build the counterhegemonic
alliance necessary
to confront the total marketization and
rightward
direction of education. Berube (2003)
defends the
necessity of his intervening, writing about a student in his post 9/11
literature class: “for all I know, John might be able to craft a lie in
which
he can deride African-American ambivalence about integration and defend
Japanese-American
internment camps without ever confronting anyone who disagrees with him” (p. B7). In
short, I cannot afford to have students come to their
own conclusions
prematurely.
When
students have a chance to approach a problem using reputable research
sources,
they are often surprised to discover that income inequality, for
example,
really does exist. Their resistance to
this information tends to decline when they “happen upon” a fact or two
about
the stratification of our society, rather than my just presenting the
information in a lecture, even if that lecture were of a
point/counterpoint
nature (Titus, 2000). This is different
than total hands-off learning because I serve as a guide, not as a
neutral
observer.
One
example of this guided discovery approach happened in a social issues
course I
taught last fall comprised of experienced classroom teachers. Instead of simply showing charts and graphs
to make the usual points about income inequality, I had the students go
to the
real estate values section (which included school district information)
of an
internet search engine (www.yahoo.com),
enter their home zip code and then compare the resulting demographic
information to another zip code less than 20 miles away.
The students were shocked to see large
differences in figures like per-pupil spending, household income, house
values,
etc. They quickly noticed how high home
prices correlated quite nicely with the “good schools” and that it
isn’t just a
matter of “choosing” or working hard enough to live in a certain
neighborhood. Students soon realized
that what was happening in the public schools amounted to income
segregation
where families were literally priced out of certain school districts (Spring, 2003).
When
doing methods such as this, I still think it is critical that we
regroup as a
class to talk about what just happened as well as share our reactions
to the
information. Short activities like the
one mentioned above are best used as a lead-in to an informational
lecture,
reading, or group discussion. Even the
most avid supporters of free market ideology in my class become quite
concerned
with the “unfairness” of school funding based on property taxes, or the
fact
that soft drink bottlers can tell school administrators how much pop
they have
to sell so their schools can receive much-needed revenue.
In the face of readily available data like
real estate values, they can see for themselves that the status quo
doesn’t
happen by “accident” and must be challenged.
Setting Up Group Work. I’m a big believer in group work, but
with some interventions on my part. The
typical small group scenario has the teacher distributing questions and
telling
the groups to appoint a “note-taker” in order to facilitate the process
as they
answer the questions. My past results
using this method were watered-down, consensus-oriented brainstorm
lists, no
matter the level of controversy or the openness of the questions. I soon realized that the topic and questions
weren’t the problem, it was the expectations and methods of the group
work to
begin with.
One
simple thing I now require is that each person in the group write
their own notes as they go over the discussion questions.
This way, there is a conscious understanding
that both group and individual are important, and that consensus isn’t
the
goal. When a group only tries to reach
consensus, often important issues go unexplored, for fear of rocking
the boat. Students end up hiding behind
their silence
as audience members. The missed
opportunity to challenge each other’s opinions can lead to the kind of
resentment that teachers never saw coming (Butterwick
& Selman, 2003).
As Valerio (2001) asserts,
“the
classroom is not a safe
place” (p. 24). Students have to realize
that one’s opinions do not exist within their own protected sphere. While they might become used to the teacher
asking probing questions, it is a lot riskier for them to do the same
with each
other. After changing the expectations
for group work, I observed (from a distance) several small groups in
progress
where individual group members began to challenge each other’s
statements. Because they could use their
individual group
notes rather than generating a consensus list, they felt more confident
asking
each other to clarify their position on an issue.
Don’t
Hide One’s Views. Teaching involves
the risk of a certain amount of openness (Smith, 1999).
Teacher openness can become an instructional
method itself, and a particularly useful one for building “counterhegemonic
common sense” (Apple,
2000, p. 226). Part of the problem of
teaching authentically is that teachers often desire to see their
students
embrace the same philosophies and approaches as they themselves
advocate (Liston, 2000; Kumashiro, 2000;
Smith, 1999). Though written from a
postmodern stance, Liston (2000) hits the
nail on the
head when he states that teachers “want them [students] to love what we
find so
alluring” (p. 74). Indeed, it can be a
difficult moment bordering on despair when we realize that students
have
rejected a pedagogy centered around social
justice.
Students
are keenly interested in teachers having a viewpoint of their own (or
at least
they maintain interest until this viewpoint contradicts their own held
views!). As addressed earlier, one of the problematics of teaching is how, as an educator,
to handle
revealing one’s views? Concerning the
question to reveal or not reveal, one student in my philosophic
foundations
course wrote in his individual group work notes:
Once,
a history teacher of mine stressed discussion with the purpose
of students discovering ‘truth’
by themselves not being told
what truth
is. I
liked the
discussions, but remember wanting to know what the
teacher thought was right/wrong.
Admittedly,
I’m not as comfortable with the day-one-here-I-am-so-deal-with-it mode
of
introducing my position on a topic. I
prefer a more subtle approach, revealing my viewpoints (typically in
the form
of probing questions or related commentary during lecture) in a
process-oriented manner, but will not hesitate to answer student
questions if
they emerge spontaneously. I also want
students to see the process I used to come to the conclusions that I
reached. I didn’t just pull these ideas
from the air,
so I try to make my answers as detailed as possible, but in a
respectful
manner. If controversial issues are
brought up and the teacher goes beyond the sterile point/counterpoint
format,
students will end up discovering the teacher’s position rather quickly.
It
is important that I avoid the pitfalls that Levinson (1997) outlines: “teaching as though the world were either
impervious to change or already transformed and thus no longer in need
of
alteration” (p.
438). The danger of revealing one’s
opinion without critical commentary is that students can interpret the
reveal
in either of these ways; that the world cannot change (i.e. if I
express a
cynical opinion without explaining the context) or that we have reached
the
pinnacle of society as we know it (i.e. that it’s the best we can do,
be
grateful, others are worse off, etc.).
When
teaching from a social justice standpoint, it is important to realize
that
students may not be used to thinking of themselves as “part of the
problem.” Sometimes this is a result of
genuine confusion or inexperience at reading hegemony.
But sometimes students claim naiveté as a
defense mechanism, to avoid authentically confronting problems like
social
class or racial inequality (Levinson, 1997).
Making the Case for Hope. Students have many ways they can resist a pedagogy for change. But
sometimes the unexpected happens. During a
lecture about Plato and the function of education
in
maintaining the role of the government, I mentioned how the real power
of
control lies in getting people to justify and accept their own
oppression and
authoritarian rule. Many contemporary
authoritarian governments do not have to use overt police force when
people
keep themselves in line, often with the explanation, “that’s just the
way it is.”
After
soliciting and talking about a few examples of hegemonic practice in
the United States,
a student raised his hand and asked,
“Does it always work?” I realized that
this student was thinking about the fact that people do resist
authoritarian practice,
and often resist successfully. By this
student asking a key question, we were able to move beyond simply how
authoritarian government functions to the concept that people can
struggle for social change, that the people/workers are always a
constant worry
for those in power.
The
veneer of neutrality is always at risk in the classroom, and that’s a
good
thing.
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This
paper was presented at the Rouge Forum Summer Institute on
Education and Society, June
26, 2004.
Correspondence
concerning this paper should be addressed to Faith Agostinone-Wilson,
College of Education,
Aurora University Lake
Geneva Campus, 350 Constance Boulevard,
Williams Bay, WI 53191-8567. E-mail: fwilson@aurora.edu