What's up, fellow teens!It was Language/Culture/Power/Hegemony day in COMM 1010 today, and it went about as well as I expected. There were some good conversations had, more than a few nods of understanding and/or solidarity, and a couple weird comments I had to press or redirect.
I put most of my focus on the "invisible," those pervasive concepts that often tend to go without discussion outside of certain critical academic cultures - hegemony, ethnocentrism, etc. Putting words to these sneaky forces and seeing my students' eyes light up as they start to see powerful systems they've always felt but never interrogated was one of the most rewarding experiences of my teaching career thus far.
Chapter 11 from the readings last week focused on the report of a problematic joke becoming an excellent tool for students to interrogate their identity in relation to others, and today I was able to see similar results in my classroom thanks to the privilege walk activity. Some students spoke only of their own positions at the end of the activity without relating those positions to their classmates' - I figured I had my work cut out for me, but every single time that happened other students took that work on themselves to great effect. One of my classes dove into a wonderful discussion (with minimal input from me) about what types of questions would shape the results of the privilege walk differently. We were all seeing generous and critical sides of ourselves and each other that had not yet surfaced in class.I was so worried about one of my sections - the day after I told my Pedagogy class how confident I was tackling these topics, a few students in the section revealed some things about themselves that gave me anxiety about the coming week. I was worried more about myself and my reactions than any of them. They proved however, to me and to each other, that open minds and calm discussion can prevail even when viewpoints differ.
As I reiterate to my classes fairly regularly, we're never showing our full self at any given time - though it may be hard at times to keep believing that there's a little good in everybody, today I found it hard to deny.
okay i'm really tired bye
Jesse, I really admire your pedagogical approach. You insight is wonderful and I am glad to hear your language,culture, and power lecture went so well! I love hearing about the conversations your classes have because I think you do a really great job at facilitating discussion (something I'm not so great at).
ReplyDeleteJesse, I am so happy your class discussions went over well. I also focused a lot on the invisibility of privilege, hegemony, ethnocentrism, and all the fun stuff. I think this helped some students feel less attacked. I also had many students who only spoke of their own positionality instead of relating it to where their classmates were located as we discussed the privileged walk. One of my class, took on the work of highlighting the relations between everyone’s final positions which was amazing! I was worried about my students who revealed beliefs that I thought would hurt the classroom climate. However, I just kept think about Fassett and Warren’s thoughts on giving everyone a chance to explain why instead of just dismissing their beliefs. Overall, I was pleasantly surprise at the discussion my second class facilitated. Glad you also had a successful last week.
ReplyDeleteYou rock,bro. I'm glad there was some productive discussion out of the whole matter. It's pretty easy to feel some anxiety with the topic of power and hegemony. Maybe next time you can have the people in the front have a conversation with the folks in the back. I think it creates a dialogue that simultaneously highlights the difference in position.
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