Once again, we see a new intent for the composition classroom. As this is usually one of the first college courses a student will take, we use comp to introduce them to ideas that question their preconceived worldview, giving voice and credit to those that, in the middle-class white patriarchy, may not have it. Making students see how pervasive their biases are could be relevant, in some cases pivotal, to the rest of their college careers. I too, after all, am guilty of assigned reading "tokenism" when it comes to minority writers.
But this still raises questions. I have a poor-man's understanding of feminist theory, even less so about race and class theory. How would I acquire the confidence to teach these concepts to Eng 1000 students, some of which might be adamantly resistant to them? If I encourage discussion of minority or working-class experiences, how would I acquire the skills to participate in the discussion without coming across as clinical, pretentious, or naive? In other words, how would we, as instructors, begin to unlearn our own bourgeois biases and values?
I was especially intrigued by this statement: "As silence and obedience to authority were most rewarded, students learned that this was the appropriate demeanor in the classroom. Loudness, anger, emotional outbursts, and even something as seemingly innocent as unrestrained laughter were deemed unacceptable, vulgar disruptions of classroom social order" (178).
I totally see the point being made here--what is "appropriate demeanor"? What does this mean? If your students are mad, encourage them to be mad. If they thinks something's funny, let them laugh. Honesty is a good thing.
But where do we draw the line? Are there instances in which authority is needed to curb an excessively volatile or disrespectful student?
Consider this situation: my very first semester teaching lit at a community college, I had a very opinionated white male student. Discussions about race or gender would put him on the defensive immediately, and his talk so dominated the classroom that I could sense he was intimidating other students. There came a point when he basically said racial discrimination wasn't an issue because "everyone gets picked on"; after all, he'd faced discrimination when he was hazed during his first few months in the military. When nobody else in the class challenged this view, I tried to explain that I didn't think this was an accurate comparison. Following this, the student became openly hostile toward me, spending class time snickering under his breath to a boy sitting next to him. At one point he put his sunglasses over his eyes and announced that he felt "safer" with them on. This was clearly rebellion, it was clearly disrespectful, and it damaged the atmosphere for free discussion I'd managed to build in the classroom.
What I ended up doing was keeping the guy after class to tell him he couldn't act like that, though the very thought of going in to face him the next class day filled me with dread. I didn't want to see him, and I certainly didn't want to have a sit-down talk with him to ask him what his problem was, nor did I feel qualified to do so. What should we do in instances like this, where students are deliberately making it hard for us to teach? At what point does this ultra-tolerance break down and become an obstacle, not just for us, but for the students that are trying to learn from us? Do I have a right to tell a student no when he asks if he can write a paper that denies the Holocaust happened? Can I tell a student that she can't call homosexual couples "perverts" when arguing against gay adoption? In the instance in which free speech becomes disruptive, can it interfere with learning?
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Also, since we're posting cats, here's an unrelated pic of my animal, Crookshanks:
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