Teaching Good Girls

My favorite article that we read for class today is the one by Bell and Golombisky about Voices & Silences. I particularly identified with the section on Good Girls. I really liked that the authors acknowledged that they understand where Good Girls are coming from because they used to be them. I'm sure it will surprise no one who reads this to know that I fall pretty neatly into the category of Good Girl. Thankfully, I have had eye-opening experiences that have helped me become aware of both the performance and its consequences. Something that I'm invested in now is mentoring other Good Girls as they start to make the difficult transition to being Smart Women. As I write that, I want to acknowledge that I still fall into the Good Girl mentality at times, even now that I'm more self aware. I believe that this is something I'll need to keep working at throughout my entire life, because the pressure to be the Good Girl at all times is so insidious and pervasive.

 The anecdote that the authors recounted about not giving the student an answer of "okay" when she offered a superficial answer really hit home for me. Even after the two women had a conversation and got on the same page, "both women were bruised" (Bell and Golombsky, 2004, pg. 300). One of the characteristics of a Good Girl that comes naturally to me is the urge to protect others. I genuinely never want to cause harm to anyone else. However, this makes things difficult for me when it's a matter of short-term good/protection and long-term ignorance/harm, or vice-versa, as in the anecdote shared. By providing helpful feedback, the teacher was helping/protecting the student in the long run. However, in the short term, the exchange caused both participants a lot of hurt. I think it takes a lot of courage for someone who has been socialized as a Good Girl to be willing to cause short-term discomfort in order to help in the long-term.

As I reflect on the anecdote, my instinct is to try to think of alternate ways that the feedback could have been conveyed. My heart goes out to the student who was put on the spot and corrected in front of the entire class, especially within the context of this piece. What if that student often employed silences as a Good Girl and was pushing herself to participate in class in the example given? Being put in such an uncomfortable situation could have the effect of silencing her further. Certainly if I were put in a similar situation early in my undergraduate education, that would have been my response. I would have deliberately refrained from participating in class to protect myself from repeating such a demoralizing experience.

My point is, pushing the Good Girls too hard or in the wrong ways seems to me to have the potential to cause harm just as much as enabling the Good Girl behaviors. As I reflected in my previous post, forcing people to change before they're ready is a form of violence. I instinctively want to find a gentler, kinder way to help these Good Girls without causing harm to them. However, I also wonder if that's my own conditioning as a Good Girl raising its head, as I want to simultaneously protect these Good Girls and also help them learn and grow. But then I think about the literature we've read over the course of the semester about being an authentic teacher. To me, that instinct to protect and nurture is part of my authentic self, whether or not it came from my conditioning as a Good Girl. Palmer would say that I'm doing harm both to myself and to my students but not being authentic.

As I mull over these concepts, I find that I agree with Bell and Golombisky's conclusion to this section-- the best thing to do is to "make the dilemma explicit... thus re-skilling Good Girls to make informed choices" (Bell et. al., 2004, pg. 304). And as I offer feedback throughout the process of making the dilemma explicit, I will do my best to do so in a manner that is honest, straightforward, and also authentic to me.