I’m not used to reading “academic” writing that is hopeful and spiritual, so it was very refreshing (and empowering!) to read Palmer’s book, The Courage to Teach. My original post that critiqued Fish’s book as a technology of colonialism was my attempt to offer a contingent analysis about how the academy is an inherently political site. My engagement with Palmer’s book required a dialogue with myself. This dialogue confronted my identity and integrity as a teacher, student, and scholar within the academy. After our class’s discussion of the book, I think that teachers can implement Palmer’s pedagogy to academicize the classroom in the pursuit of liberatory education.
I agree with Palmer that teaching is heart work. Which is to
say that teaching is both a profession and a life that operates at the convergence
of intellect, emotion, and spirit. Put simply, one doesn’t stop teaching. In
class we joked about the analogy of the teacher as the heart or loom that joins
students, the discipline, and the teacher together as being sappy, but I also think
it is true…regardless of how effective that teacher is at teaching. To be a
good teacher therefore requires more than knowledge of one’s discipline and teaching
techniques; it requires knowledge of one’s subject position and how their
classroom operates as a political space. I would argue that denying these observations
would deny the radical potential of teaching because teaching requires knowledge
of the self as well as the students. As a student, it’s so powerful to feel
like you’re seen and validated by a teacher as someone that is worthy of academic
consideration. I thought it was very poignant when Palmer discussed how marginalized
groups like women and black folx have been oppressed and their silence can be
rooted in fear. This is important because as Palmer argues, traditional teachers
are fearful of students (fear of losing power, credibility, or being “bad” at
their job) and students are fearful of teachers. Most of these fears, are fears
of the heart and as a result, we need a pedagogy that addresses teaching and
education as heart work; otherwise, education is a product of exclusion and
oppression.
Teaching and learning through the heart require
vulnerability. This vulnerable heart work can create a community of learners or
a community of truth. “If we dare to move thorough our fear, to practice
knowing as a form of love, we might abandon our illusion of control and enter a
partnership with the otherness of the world” (Palmer, p. 57). In other words,
as teachers learn to love themselves, which includes their strengths which are
also their weaknesses, teachers begin to embrace their fears for the better. Teaching
from a place of vulnerability means teaching from a place of curiosity, hope, and
empathy. Instead of teachers becoming seemingly fearless and omniscient authorities,
teachers can recognize and acknowledge their fears, and in doing so, empower
their students to acknowledge and embrace their fears as well. Teachers can embrace
the awkward silences in the classrooms as well as their bad teaching days as part
of what makes them a good teacher while still holding themselves accountable for
improvement.
This leads me to my final point: vulnerable teaching and
teaching as heart work creates the conditions for ethical academization. As we
discussed in class, academization, in Fish’s terms, is teaching a topic and
class, in “academically” critical and fair way—one that is free of partisan influence
and free of political soapboxing. I’ve already discussed why this is
problematic so instead I turn to a way to reform this technology: a community
of truth with engaged scholars that learn from the texts as well from the experiences
of themselves as well as their peers, seems to be what Fish strives for when he
waxes about the beauty of academicizing. Palmer’s theorization of the community
of truth democratizes the classroom such that students can engage in legitimate
and nuanced debate about the subject matter while still recognizing the
historical and contemporary stakes of the topic. For instance, when I work with
my debaters to discuss how American Hegemony can lead to patriarchal violence,
I do not require that my students cite evidence before they explain their
personal interactions with the patriarchy. At the same time, I encourage my
students to situate their experiences and their thoughts within a context of a
global struggle. While I may be idealizing and cherry picking an example, I think
that it is fair to say that it is more than possible, it is necessary, and even
an act of joy, to validate and contribute towards my students thoughts, while
still challenging them to engage and utilize a deep knowledge base. As teachers,
students, and scholars, we are obligated to do more than acknowledge the politicization
of the academy, we have to actively fight to utilize the spaces that we are privileged
to access to help empower students and ourselves to engage in liberatory
practice.
#DecolonizeEducation
Hi Kinny,
ReplyDeleteThanks for providing such a critical and nuanced perspective on the imperative to #DecolonizeEducation! I love the example you shared about how you encourage your debaters to engage with their own life experiences, and those of others, while encouraging them to situate said experiences globally. Reading your post, I found myself thinking about hooks' (1994) discussion of transformative education in which she states:
"For those of us on the margins (people of color, folks from working class backgrounds, gays, and lesbians, and
so on) who had always felt ambivalent about our presence in
institutions where knowledge was shared in ways that reinscribed colonialism and domination, it was thrilling to think
that the vision of justice and democracy that was at the very
heart of civil rights movement would be realized in the academy. At last, there was the possibility of a learning community, a
place where difference could be acknowledged, where we
would finally all understand, accept, and affirm that our ways
of knowing are forged in history and relations of power" (p. 30).
I share that passage at length because I think it speaks to the power of working to #DecolonizeEducation by foregrounding the powerful and painful heart work you (and others we've read) describe. In order to "academicize ethically" we have ourselves have to be vulnerable and aware of our own positionalities so as to facilitate a co-intentional community of learning in which students' disparate experiences are valued. In so doing, we can apply critical pedagogical practices that affirm people in their wholeness, subverting the colonial logics that authorize Fish-like principles of oppression and domination in the academy. I hope this leads to the actualization of the imperative you outline - for teachers, students, and scholars to "actively fight to utilize the spaces that we are privileged to access to help empower students and ourselves to engage in liberatory practice."
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences!
-Leah