"Not Safe": how can teachers make oppositional readings safe for students?

Oppositional readings: understandings outside the text.

1)Explicitly say to the class that it is a safe environment for airing oppositional or contentious or argumentative perspectives.

2)Lead by example: be bold and present an oppositional reading first. Never criticize and be wary of constructive criticism.

3)Agitate the students' emotions (carefully). Potential for reward and potential for back fire.

4)Use groups to help with shyness/reticence. Experiment with different group arrangements. 1 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2.

5)Use debate tasks: give one student a 'dominant' agenda, another an 'oppositional' agenda.

6)Consider the sensitivity of issues: are there ways to make them more safe as they are presented?

7)Use encouragement: when a student ventures an oppositional reading give praise to validate and encourage further critical engagement with a topic or text.

8)Use a text that is oppositional in tone to facilitate oppositional thinking.

9)Present a procedure: something like the four questions we can ask:

1)Who is speaking? 2)From what authority? 3)Who is the (ideal) audience? 4)What kinds of people are described?
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Here's a poem I wrote for an undergraduate poetry class reflecting on my High school experiences (NB: the poem should be read with mini pauses between each line).

School

'Remember, boys
we are the school
on top of the hill'

When we practiced the haka
in assembly, one boy couldn't
do it right, he wasn't manly
enough, kept slapping his hands
like a girl, so the leader of
the rugby team pulled him out
front and made him do it
alone

In later years
one of the teachers
passing a third former
tied to a tree with his tie
asked if the boy was alright
on his way to class

You would think
the first punch
would surprise you
more than hurt you
but that wasn't the case
it hurt so much
i couldn't breathe

'Remember, boys
we are the school
on top of the hill'

Oppressed woman on airplane: responding to Curtis' blog

http://criticalpedagogies.blogspot.com/2011/04/woman-on-airplane.html

First off, I want to say that this post got me buzzing to find my own response to it. It's taken me awhile to post because I've had to wrangle with this a bit. I'm hoping that I haven't misunderstood Curtis' point, and that I'm presenting something of an addendum or an alternative to his perspective on how we are constructing power relations in an ongoing act of performance. If I fall into the pit of "the correct way to understand gender, class, or race (or other) oppression" so be it, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Yes, it is a pit, full of slimy snakes and mud and other assorted ugh.

I want to respond to Curtis' post and explore how interpretations of the Asian woman in the advertisement might change if we consider the woman as real and the situation itself as real. I'm imagining myself sitting in the plane several seats down watching this advertisement play out (NB: I've never tried business class and I have no intention of trying it).

I think that if the woman is real then 'NOT YES' is questionable. I would say that she is oppressed, but not by an oppressor, rather by her situation.

From this perspective it could be included that the man himself is oppressed by the situation: like the woman he is constricted by Gee's "interested" socialized discourse (presumably he would be unaware of it), and I think there is validity to this p.o.v (echoes of Paulo Friere and the need to include and free the 'oppressors' as well as the 'oppressed'), but that isn't what I mean at all. I would say that the "sexual overtones, the patriarchal alpha male, the submissive Asian woman ready to please him" do represent a situation in which the (real) woman has no real power to resist, no real power to express her voice. I would say that her "interested" socialized discourse is to deny her own discourse (and here I really am labeling the situation and her, I know, but I can hardly back out now can I? But how can we avoid labels? Whether we're aware of them or not, don't they just introduce more competing voices to the equation? Curtis used words like "defense mechanism" "flirting" "sexuality defense" "passivity" and to me they seem like solid jabs and hooks in a never ending boxing match for reality).

I don't accept that the (real) situation presents any meaningful way for her to resist being labeled. She is constrained by her need to behave successfully: if she fulfills the role expected of her she keeps her job and increases her chances of achieving success (Whoa! what is this thing success? Too big a question for this post). Completely powerless, no, quite powerless, yes...

This is a judgment I am making without access to most of the facts. I don't know what the particular circumstances of the woman are. I don't have any way to know for sure anything about why she responds the way she does. But I am making a judgment call because I think this is unavoidable and because it can be powerful.

In saying "yes, her situation is oppressive" I am hopefully conscious of the fact that not only am I reflecting "power relations in society" I am also trying "to create them as well". I'm not saying that it should be this way, I hope I'm saying it could be this way, and I think that's part of my responsibility as an entity responding to, informing and informed by, a struggle towards freedom. Likewise, it's a responsibility to resist the status quo by expressing an understanding of and opposition to the literacy/school myth.

If I were to share my interpretation with the Asian woman and she resented me for it, good! If she wants to resist my authoritarianism she has to use her own voice to dis-empower it. Power shift may not be static but it can be pretty darn slow. Power is voice: I think its the strongest medium through which an individual asserts their reality into/at/around others, it is p.o.v., it is inherently authoritarian. I remember saying something like this in last weeks class: "If you want power (for you) then you have speak" (I was mostly addressing the Korean students who I felt at the time, weren't taking as active and engaged a role as they should be). So power is always at play and we all want it... but do we know we want it? Not everyone is being productive.

Here I'm trying to confront Gee's/Plato's dilemma (Literacy and the Literacy Myth, p31): "if all interpretations (re-sayings) count, then none do, as the text then says everything and therefore nothing" (relativism)...vs. "if they cannot all count then someone has to say who does and who does not have the necessary credentials to interpret" (authoritarianism).

I'm trying to avoid the "normative" pit by acknowledging that I am making uninformed judgments, that all things are relative, but not equal, and here's my take on it. The act of performing is an act of judgment. Anyone pretending to have no claim to power is just hiding it (and/or hiding from it). Gee slips up when he uses the phrase "a genuine disinterested search for truth" (p 29). We're all interested in trying to shift reality somewhere. Where there is desire, there is a will to power to obtain satisfaction for that desire, and we all have heaps of desire (another over-generalization...groan...I can't seem to avoid them).

This war of interpretation belongs in any class room and it's the teacher that can let it happen. I guess going into battle for your interpretations is the easy part, encouraging a mental space that allows others to go into battle for theirs is the hard part.

Too neat...too primitive? I don't feel at all sure either way...maybe it is just a war of performances in which sometimes one side maybe knows a little more of whats at stake.
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*Literacy historically used to solidify social hierarchy, empower elites, and ensure that people lower on the hierarchy accept the values, norms, and beliefs of the elites (Gee, p36)

*Plato: attractive and hideous: His critique of writing: deterioration of human memory, no longer internalized, we know only what we can reflectively defend in face-to-face dialogue with someone else (Gee, p 27) but...authoritarian Utopian state: higher places in society based on in-born characteristics and various tests, wanting to restrict access and interpretation of his writing.

Incoherent Ramblings

Not incoherent in the sense that I don't know what I'm writing as I write it, rather incoherent in the sense that I have no particular idea where this post is going and that's the way I want it. So what's that about? It's about not needing a point, or rather finding a point through expression. That's relevant to education, that's relevant towards resisting education. As products of schooling we become docile creatures of habit. Do it this way! Use this form, that format, don't make that mistake. Conditioned ants scurrying from corridor to corridor. I resent it, I resent my schooling, I resent classes, I resent grading and I resent the idea that it's necessary. I remember how frustrating my High School experiences were. In my Math Calculus classes the teacher constantly fed us formulas/equations to practice with. Plug in the variables then calculate? But why? What are the variables, what are they doing? What are these rules for? No explanation was offered. I've been Scientifically Managed and I'm pissed off about it. What was the point? To get the job, get the money, raise 2.5 kids...pillar of the community...drive a nice car...contribute to society...I say screw society, its not on my side, I'm not on its.

Scope...to address the forces at "play", to buy that brand with a suitable sense of irony, to contribute meaningfully to the decisions of others, to inform your own decisions, layers within layers, to have real power, to meet challenges, to be more free, to rip knowledge to pieces like a rabid dog then toddle off to the kennel with the parts that tasted good, lining for the nest.

I applaud this Critical Pedagogies class precisely because there is more freedom. So well done to Curtis for slipping it through the system... it certainly is a deviation from the class norm. I fear for its survival because it is different, I hope it survives. I hope all of us in the class appreciate the opportunity it represents to freely express opinion. Weird, fresh and good.

"People are crazy, times are strange, I'm locked in tight, I'm outta range, I used to care, but...things have changed..."