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.

Expanding New Horizons

I chose the hashtag “expandingnewhorizons” for this class because I’m really interested in how teachers can help broaden the intellectual horizons of their students. I’m particularly interested in how teachers can help students who have grown up in racist homes come to a fuller understanding of topics such as racism and hegemony. I know many people, including several of my students and people in my personal life, who simply haven’t had the life experiences to help them understand that racism is still a relevant problem. I believe that teaching Communication Studies gives me an opportunity to reach those people and help them see past their narrow lived experiences. Given that context, Fish was a very interesting read for me.

Fish’s primary argument, which he repeats many times throughout his book, is that teachers should do their job: no more, no less. According to Fish, then, I should not even try to expand the intellectual horizons of students, as doing so is overstepping. My job is to “academize” the subject by removing all value judgments from the conversation and focusing only on the rhetoric-- how each side is making its point (Fish, 2008, pg. 27). If I bring topics of conversation up such as racism, sexism, etc. I am stepping outside the boundaries of my job, and should be brought back in line. From what I can tell, Fish would have me teach Communication Studies simply by focusing on how students can become better communicators-- that is, the steps which they should learn and be able to follow in order to “master” communication. We could analyze various arguments that others have made to see how effectively they are communicating their point. Any larger discussions about moral or ethical implications of communication, however, should be strictly avoided. I would be able to show my students different examples of communication in which racism is a topic. I should not, however, try in any way to persuade my students that racism is an immoral thing which should be avoided (though Fisher doesn’t care if that is my personal belief.) I could examine the rhetoric of conversations about race and the historical conversation about race, but asking my students to make their own value judgments regarding racism (or any other controversial topic) should be avoided. Any discussion of those topics without academizing them is doing someone else’s job. I should stick purely to academia and let politicians, religious leaders, lawyers, parents, etc. do their jobs-- which involve educating about moral or political dilemmas. Fish later explicitly cautions, “Remember always what a university is for--the transmission of knowledge and the conferring of analytical skills-- and resist the temptation to inflate the importance of what goes on in its precincts” (Fish, 2008, pg. 79).

Fish truly believes that teachers who discuss anything beyond their subject are in dereliction of their duty. I can sort of see where he’s coming from here. Certainly teachers shouldn’t teach other things at the expense of teaching what they’ve been hired to teach. They also shouldn’t use their course as a way to proselytize their own beliefs, whatever they may be. I believe, however, that it is possible to help students develop their critical thinking abilities for themselves without crossing the border into trying to dictate what they believe. In fact, if students are taught to dissect things but not how to apply the results in their lives, I think that the teacher has failed. It reminds me of story problems-- it’s one thing for students to memorize the times tables, but it’s another thing entirely for them to be able to apply the principle to real world situations. The public school curriculum in math is created to help students be able to use math in their day to day lives. I believe that each subject is capable of facilitating that extension in students’ lives. Communication Studies, however, has a unique opportunity to help people understand the world around them in a more complex and nuanced way. And, in contrast to Fish, I do believe that students should learn core principles in school-- from respect to how to not be racist.

So how do teachers walk the line between teaching students to think critically without imposing their own beliefs on their students? I believe that the most important thing here is representation. As I am from a white, middle class background, I need to be intentional about inviting other voices into the conversation. This can be done in several ways, from inviting my students to share their experiences to using scholarly sources and media centering people with a wide range of positionalities. Another thing I can do to help students gain a fuller picture of situations is to examine multiple dimensions of any issue. And, of course, it is important to remember that my job as a teacher isn’t to convert people’s ways of thinking into ones that I approve of. Instead, I hope to teach them to think and reason for themselves so they can apply what they learn not only from my class, but from any class they take, even if their application looks different than mine does.

 

Welcome to the educators spa...... Come broken and leave refreshed!

A place where all bad teachers become good

Invite students to have dialogue in the classroom, so we can heal one another (as if we all need to be healed)!

I believe Palmer has a dream that one day bad teachers and good teachers will come together to find their happy place deep down inside. In “The courage to teach" Palmer, believes he can restore all teachers who are weary of teaching. In his book he urges teachers to return back to their first love. If a teacher is secure and has good integrity they can be a good teacher. All good teachers rely on service learning. Palmer believes that all bad teachers try to distance themselves from their students. Palmer urges teachers to create an open space in their classrooms. In this space don’t allow students to take over, but simply express their feelings. He talks about inviting students to have a voice in the classroom. He believes a functioning classroom is full of dialogue. The teacher and students should have room to express their feelings in the classroom.

Creating open space is vital in any classroom. This is a concept every new instructor should utilize. I’m a firm believer in creating open space in the classrooms. In my own life I have been in classes that don’t allow students to have a voice. I know for a fact teachers and students learn more when they create a community in the classroom.

Whenever students have freedom in the class they are more engaged and interested in the subject being taught. Palmer urges teacher not to occupy all the space in the classroom. In order to create learning environments teachers have to leave room for students to learn on their own. If a teacher continues to cram information down student’s throats they will never learn!

Do all professors began their teaching careers from a happy place?

Is it bad to teach from a dark place or to not express your feeling in class as Palmer speaks about in his book "courage to teach"?

J.A

#Ethicsofteaching

References

 
Palmer, P. J. (1998/2007). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. San Francisco: Wiley & Sons.

Student Engagement (Ethics Of Teaching)

Chapter 3 of “How Learning Works” is about what factors motivate students to learn. This chapter gives several instructions on how to motivate students to learn and keep them engaged in class.  In order for students to stay engaged in the classroom the author suggest, students need to have some type of motivation to stay engaged in the course material. The more students expect usually, the better they will perform. Teachers should always, supply the students with grading rubrics that undoubtedly, describe their standards in order to keep students engaged. The Venn Diagram Model of Student Engagement displays three main areas for student engagement. Motivation, Student Engagement and Active Learning. In "Student Engagement Techniques", Barkley mentions how  Motivation is a way to describe the reasons we engage in a certain behaviors. Motivation and active learning work together. In retrospect students who are actively, learning become more motivated. In order for teachers to keep their students motivated they must utilize varies channels to keep their students motivated. Barkley expresses, that students have to have confidence in their work in order to succeed in the class.
According to Barkley, if students don’t become engaged they will most likely, fail. An exceptionally, good instructor will find ways to keep students engaged. In my own life I have continuously, had to relate my course work to my own life, to better understand the course content. For example: whenever I have a test I create a game or song from the review sheet. Whenever I’m actively, engaged in the course content I always, recall the information. One of the reasons I became a Communications major, is because it’s one of the few majors that allows students to be actively engaged.
Lectures are not the only format teacher’s use, there are several creative ways to keep students engaged. Active learning leads into experiential learning.
#Ethicsofteaching
JA

 

References

Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How learning works: 7 research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Barkley, E. F. (2010). Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.