The Need for Headship

After experiencing what a revolutionary classroom is, I'm leaning more towards a happy compromise between all-out anarchy and the more structured system we presently have. I believe that human beings need some sort of headship in all arenas of life. We see this in the family structure and in various forms of government. The idea that the father is the head of the household might seem a bit old fashioned, but I believe that humans naturally seek to identify who holds the position of headship in all things. Take for example a system of governance where individual voters are allowed to choose the people who will delegate laws. Even though the people collectively decide which persons get elected, it is still up to the politician to present him or herself as a leader of sorts. In a democratic republic such as the United States of America, regardless if the citizens are involved in the decision making process there still needs to be a person who represents the head of the nation, and that person is the President.The Classroom is no different.

The classroom is a learning environment,and so a completely democratic system of governance would not work at all. It is true that a professor does learn from his or her students, but that doesn't mean that every class period should be taken up with banter from students. The principle of headship needs to come into play here as well. Headship exists wherever humans do because humans gravitate towards it. Even in a Marxist society you'll find figure heads or personality cults. Yes it's true that the education system can stifle a student's intellectual development, but that shouldn't be cause for abandoning having structure.

So you say you wanna revolution?

This weeks “class” goes down in history alongside the long list of failed Marxist revolutions. Since Marxism has been such an abject failure as a social or political philosophy I don’t know why anyone would assume it would work as an educational approach.   Here are some problems with the approach.  First, the teacher/student relationship is not oppressive but liberating.  It is fallacious to impose a sense of equality on to an unequal relationship.  Ignorance is oppressive.  When a student admits to himself that he is ignorant, he takes the first step in learning, the first step toward his liberation. An oppressive relationship would be a teacher trapping a student in ignorance by refusing to share knowledge. 

Ah but what about original thought?  Here, again, knowledge empowers the student.  A student with a full understanding of a subject is better equipped to expand, redirect, or rebel against convention.  If you gave me some numbers and let me work with them for several decades, I might be able to come up with some of the rudimentary aspects of algebra, or you could teach me algebra and I could start working on calculus.  Better yet, teach me calculus and I can start working on quantum physics.  Successful revolutions, the American revolution or Gandhi’s revolution in India, were not uprisings of the ignorant against those in power, rather the oppressed were led to freedom by leaders who understood the system well enough to reorder it.

This concept is accepted in most disciplines.  A math teacher does not just give their students numbers and questions and let them stumble around hoping they will come up with theories and systems to solve them.  A welding instructor does not just give the students torches and let them loose on the metal.  There is innovation in mathematics and in welding, but it comes from the highly educated, not from ignorant flailing.  

           

            The reason Marxist philosophy can survive in the English department is because we fear absolutes.  The graduate students in this class spent the first half of the semester reading articles that obscure conventional knowledge, “There is not set form for a paragraph” ect. Teachers doubt they know how to write, so they cover themselves by asking the student to come up with the answers on their own. In lecture, the professor does not teach but facilitates lengthy, often digressing, discussions that provide nothing, Then, as assignments, the teacher asks the students to read articles and simply write a summary and reaction.  This removes all responsibility from the professor. The student is given nothing of value since their reactions are already based on previous experience.  They simply reiterate their own pre-held, often misguided, opinions.  When it comes to grading, the professors either revert back to the conventions and punish the student for not knowing them, or they approve anything.  “If that’s how you see it then you are correct.”  

            

This attitude over took the arts departments a century ago.  Art teachers do not teach value, balance, line, or form. They simply bring models and paints and let the students go nuts.  As a result, artists produce cans of crap that are put into museums.  In the art department it is easy to mask the failure of the system by claiming that the cans of crap are revolutionary and beautiful according to a relative scale, but do you really want a plumber that plums like Picasso paints?  Do we want students who write essays the way Gertrude Stein writes poetry?     

The Banking System & Student-Centered Classrooms

When I think about what school was like in the olden days, I envision a stuffy school marm or superintendent standing at the front of the classroom imposing his or her knowledge and authority over the small, submissive students. Although I’m sure not every teacher was as domineering as I imagine, I know I wouldn’t want to be a student in such a sterile, oppressive classroom.

Educators like Friere have helped move American schools from this system to one that is more student-centered. Though I like teachers guiding the classroom (as do most students, as evidenced by the classroom experiment on Monday), I enjoy hearing the perspectives from other students and sharing insights. I think that Freire’s discussion of the banking metaphor and his call for it to be replaced with a problem-posing system was very important in making this kind of student to student and student to teacher interaction possible.

Articles published in the 70s like Freire’s “The Banking Concept of Education” and Murray’s “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product” seem to articulate, for the first time—as far as I am aware, the concern for student needs, expression, liberation, and development in the classroom. Rather than telling students what they need to know and why or what to write and how, educators are encouraging fellow educators to develop a more reciprocal relationship with their students and to give them more freedoms in their writing and academic pursuits.

These ideas radically changed our educational system and the results can be seen in our everyday classroom. In the education department, classes are offered on all kinds of topics geared towards meeting the needs of students in a variety of ways. There is a class on cooperative learning where teachers learn to group students in different ways to encourage learning. There is a class on diversity in education where teachers learn how to adapt to and incorporate cultural differences into the classroom. A course on instructional strategies is taught to help teachers differentiate instruction to meet the individual needs of their students and to reach all learner types. Additionally, in each of these classes and most classes I’ve been in, the students are required to participate in group discussions, comment in class, give presentations, and even develop their own assignments. Friere’s articulation of the need for a student-centered classroom served as a foundation for these kinds of changes to be introduced into the classroom.

There is More to Education than Information Transfer

I loved the Freire experiment and his essay on the “banking” concept of education. I especially liked how everyone freaked the hell out. Even I was uncomfortable, but that was the point. It really showed me how we as students and as human beings are more comfortable when we are being told what to do-- when we have a clearly defined path and a designated leader. It is much easier to be passive and to accept the status quo than it is to face the challenges of a democratic classroom.

As I said in my response, to someone who has never been oppressed, Freire’s ideas are pure nonsense. But to someone like me, Freire makes perfect sense. I grew up in Mexico, where my teachers taught with a meter ruler in order to make us learn, listen, and follow directions. Then I moved the United States, and although things were better, they were still not great. I grew up in Delano, California, the spiritual home of Cesar Chavez and the place where his movement made a giant civil rights statement. And while Chavez’s movement made working conditions better for the poorest of the poor and inspired people to reclaim their humanity, the education system there is still geared toward oppressing us and keeping us in our place.

In Delano, people are taught to take directions and follow orders. We are expected to take jobs in the grapevines, in the corporate warehouses, or in any other setting that does not require us to use our talents and our minds. I was an illegal immigrant until the age of 19. At that time, I joined the Navy. Ironically, it was then that I began to see my own potential and individuality. In my time off, I read a lot and became convinced that there was something wrong with our world in general, and our educational system in particular.

Freire is not talking about abolishing teachers but about making the teacher-student relationship more democratic. I am not going to pretend I know more than Dr. Rogers, for example. But I am also not going to pretend that I have nothing to offer even someone as educated as him. Freire’s views are only radical because we have been indoctrinated to think that information transfer is all education is, and that anything beyond that is subversive and dangerous.

If the purpose of education were simply to transfer information, teachers really would not be necessary, especially in this digital age when information is readily available even in our phones. A good teacher is not there simply to pass on information. A good teacher will challenge students to think for themselves and to use the information they receive to make the world a better place. But we as students must be willing to take on the challenge, uncomfortable and burdensome as it might seem.

Copypasta.

I do not think that everything is either black or white, especially with this topic. The banking concept is bad, yes, but the problem-posing method has its own problems. In our class discussion, we easily got sidetracked. We started on Frerie’s ideas but soon started talking about welding. The discussion remained on welding for about five minutes. When I finally stated that “these distractions are the reason I do not agree with the problem-posing method,” we managed to get back on track. I believe that this is the perfect example of my problem with this method: people get distracted too easily. While I do not mind getting sidetracked in boring classes, I do like to stay on topic in classes that I find interesting. There is a very large change that at least someone in each class is bored with the material, and that person is willing and able to distract the conversation. This is where the grey area is involved. Since a group of people cannot seem to stay on track, even in a class like ours, I believe that there needs to be a mixture of both methods. The class should be arranged in the best way possible for a discussion, and they should proceed on into their discussion; however, the one difference is that there is a teacher present who keeps the class discussions on topic and offers small suggestions to a stumped class. This method would support the problem-posing model by having the discussions kept relevant to the class topic. It would also help reach a “goal” by the end of the semester, or it would help answer the question: what did I learn in this class? I believe that this would be a great model, and I believe our class follows this model, if only loosely.

Anarchy!

So, after our experience with Freire today, what do you all think?

What? Me fail English? That's unpossible!

In the spirit of Eladio's post, I'll start mine with a Simpsons reference as well.

Most of the grammar superstitions I was taught were covered in class yesterday. At least the ones I can remember. Instead of covering those I thought I'd write about some of the superstitions I hear from students in the WC. Last week one came in that was so baffling I'm still in awe of it. Perhaps someone can help shed some light on it.

This specific grammar superstition came from a student (or rather, the professor) in an upper-level history course. It has two parts, both of which are equally amazing. Here it is:

1. Any sentence that has more than one comma is a list; and
2. You should never use lists in an academic paper.

You read that right. According to this student, the professor instructed the class that they should never use lists. Thinking the professor must have meant bullet-points or a numbered list like the one I used above, I mentioned this to the student, but she assured me that the professor had told them quite clearly that they were not to use lists and any sentence with more than one comma was a list.

The first problem with this is the assertion that lists have no part in an academic paper. The ramifications of this ridiculous claim are evident. For example, instead of writing the following sentence,

"Many scholars claim the primary causes of the Civil War were economic and social differences between the North and South, state vs. federal rights, the election of Lincoln, and the slavery issue."

the student would be forced to break it into three different sentences. Like this:

"Many scholars claim a primary cause of the Civil War was the economic and social differences between the North and South. They also claim state vs. federal rights played a role. In addition to this, the election of Abraham Lincoln was part of the cause. The slavery issue is also part of the cause."

It's long, wordy, and worst of all, there is no "FLOW."

The second fallacy, obviously, is claiming any sentence with more than one comma is a list. The sentence I am writing, right now, has more than one comma, yet it is not a list. Same with the one I wrote before it. Also, I'm pretty sure that, sometimes, there are other cases where, if you really think about it, a sentence can have more than one comma and not be a list.

Am I missing something here? This is completely ridiculous, right? Is there some obscure writing convention in Turabian that forbids a history writer from using more than one comma in a sentence?

Here's another quick example from a student: Never use 'they' in a paper.

As explained to me by the student, the professor had instructed the class that they were never to use the pronoun 'they' in a paper. Like with the list example, I first probed around to see if they had possibly misunderstood the professor. I'm guessing the professor was telling her to avoid using the gender-neutral "they" in place of "he" or "she." As with the first student, however, she insisted this wasn't the case and that she had been told quite clearly the word "they" (and its possessive form, "their") was never to appear in her paper.

The student had therefore replaced every instance of the forbidden word with "he or she." So a sentence like this,

"The Vikings were a ruthless group. They pillaged and plundered wherever they went."

read like this:

"The Vikings were a ruthless group. He or she pillaged and plundered wherever they went."

Or, another instance,

"The English people flourished as an international power by developing their navy."

read as,

"The English people flourished as an international power by developing his or her navy."

This poor student had filled her entire paper with these kinds of sentences. There were at least 15 instances, each more ridiculous than the last. She was completely aware of how strange it sounded, but felt like she had no other choice. Her hands were tied. She couldn't use the word "they".

When these situations come up I take the professor's side, as students don't always pay attention and are liable to misinterpret what was said. It's possible the first professor was merely asking the class to avoid extensive lists or bullet points (even though the student insisted that wasn't the case) and that the second professor was simply showing a few cases where "they" wasn't appropriate and that student had also misinterpreted it. I'd hate to think there are professors out there forbidding the use of "they" or claiming that any sentence with more than one comma is a list and lists are bad.

On the other hand, where else are these superstitions coming from?

Never end a sentence with a preposition, at.

The biggest grammar superstition I know of is, "never end a sentence with a preposition." I think in most cases, this one has disappeared from usage. While "To whom are you speaking?" may be correct, "Who are you talking to?" sounds much less pretentious. I have to laugh when people try to speak "correctly" and end up speaking wrong. One day while I was in Brazil, I was talking with some Brazilians and they were all speaking incorrectly. They were not matching their verbs and subjects. They were saying things like "Did thou see?" and "Thou went?" so I chimed in with a "Why speakest thou in such a manner?" and they all started making fun of me. I then told them that I was in fact speaking their language correctly and they were the ones messing it up. They all got kind of quiet after that.
I believe that these rules aren't exactly rules, but more suggestions. Teachers teach them to students and the students try to learn. I believe that, for the most part, this system works because it's easier to break the rules correctly once you know them. I often joke with my friends that the coolest thing about learning the rules of English is that it grants me the power to break them properly. Many great authors do the same things - Shakespeare pretty much invented the "un-" prefix. Mark Twain wrote many parts of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in a southern dialect which is oftentimes hard to read. If a student wrote "I don't got none o' that at home. You wanna come buy some?" in a paper, it would be wrong and would probably need fixing. However, because Twain understood the language and "broke" the rules for a reason, and it worked.
Back to my main point - the students who learn all of these "superstitious rules" get them engrained in their heads because they need boundaries. However, once they mature a little more, they can be taught the exceptions to the rules. Absolutes are easier to understand than abstracts, so the teachers say "Never..." instead of "Try not to ... unless it fits better, and ... in which case, you might be able to ..." It gets too complicated that way. I hope this makes sense - it is late and I am tired.