눈치 (nunchi, pronounced noon-chee,) is a complex concept inextricably woven into the Korean everyday. You can go here to read a little about it. I like that somebody mentioned paralinguistics in the post. However, I had to remove an idiot's product placement in the first paragraph and citing himself from a stupid book about Korean culture. I hate when people do that--and, go figure, the link was dead anyway. I'm only going to discuss my experience with nunchi in this post. I'm not going to go into tone of voice or social status and attempt to be objective about it. That would be impossible. I like to leave that sort of cultural anthropology for the colonialist social critics and tourists. There's blogs-a-plenty of haters and fetishists out there who love to oversimplify the Korean everyday. I try not to. Moreover, there's no need to address such things. When it comes to nunchi, some people have it and some people don't.
When I first arrived in Sillimdong (신림동,) Seoul, I lived in a neighborhood with few foreigners. That's not true. Very few native-English-speaking foreigners lived near me. My neighborhood has a diverse group of foreigners because of Seoul National University and a large Asian immigrant community. I spent most of the first two-months with my colleagues and the neighborhood friends I played soccer with on Saturdays. I think I was so fed up with the United States I only ventured out for social interaction with other foreigners once or twice. I hadn't studied the language before moving here, so I relied on my wits and desire to fit in to get by. Many days were lonely trials.
One of the concepts I learned about was nunchi because I was praised for having it. That's a good thing: you don't want to hear nunchi eopda (눈치 없다) used to describe you and your behavior. Unfortunately, you either have this or you don't. I know many foreigners believe you can learn it. If you don't have good nunchi, you can learn how to perform it, but we all know the difference. And my Korean friends seem to recognize the people who possess it as part of their ethos (habit and character). If you have to perform it at the right times, you're faking it.
I first learned about what this meant after going out on my first five or six weekends with my soccer team--I play with an all Korean team on Saturdays and nobody speaks English--and with teachers to hike and to learn about the neighborhood. To be honest, I had a blast figuring out who to sit with, how to play with, how to eat and drink with my new friends. I first thought this was nunch: doing the right things at the right times. Iquickly learned that was not it at all.
I think I first heard about my nunchi after a younger teammate who takes care of the club's money insisted I need not contribute because I was a guest. I told him I wanted to be a member and shouldn't receive special treatment. He didn't understand me and simply left me with my money. I had to out-insist him. I succeeded a little later after we were all good and drunk. I have paid dues ever since. It's important to note that I decided to pay without them hinting that maybe I should. I believe to this day they'd permit me to play as a guest and without paying dues. I had to make the decision and be consistent. But to do that only would be a performance, wouldn't it? There's something about the way I communicated wanting to be with them that they appreciate in addition to my decision to pay dues, and that's much more difficult to convey right now.
The insistence to pay is one thing I think many foreigners simply do not understand and find easy to oversimplify, as is the obligation to go out with colleagues. There's a lot of literature out there, many videos, many blogs about how to know when to pay and when to attend, but they're almost every one of them over-generalized and stereotypical nonsense. I suppose this misinterpretation of complex social fabric is understandable. People want some concrete statements about what to do and what not to do. Yet, I wonder.
Westerners love to understand others. Understanding others is part of our bigoted colonialist character. It's part of manifest destiny for US citizens, for sure. I hate it. I disavow it. We get a kick out of saying that we know what something means. We get a super-kick out of dominating foreign scenes as expats. I find it rather obscene, to be honest. I think this disavowal in connection with the way I want to participate is the key to my nunchi. I don't have to think about it.
I'll give you an example of what I mean. I was the first Native Speaking English Teacher (NSET) to teach at my school. I was brought here because the school wanted an experienced teacher. I was all-but-dissertationed from University of Denver and had been teaching since 1999. So, they got me. Nobody at my school was good at speaking English. (That's changed now, the younger English teachers are quite apt and, frankly, I'm no longer needed here.) The first year, my co-teachers were substitute teachers who'd never co-taught before. However, I had one helpful, permanent co-teacher who went out of her way to try to accommodate me and advise me about learning to fit into the faculty and culture of the school.
My school is tough. It's a poor school with poorly performing students many of whom will not attend university out of high school. They'll go to open university, I suppose, but that's not a very respectable thing here. The students are not happy and not interested in my class. I don't blame them. My school is proof that Korea is hurting for educational reform. My conversation class and speaking tests only add to students' English-language study load. They're already frightened about the future. I'd say 60% of the students like me but feel oppressed when I enter their classroom.
When I first arrived at school, the English faculty held many meetings to figure out my role here and our roles together. Nobody spoke English, so everything had to be translated. When we disagreed, the translation could cause trouble because comments were often accidentally and, sometimes, willfully misinterpreted. I once said, "Let's put the students' needs before teachers' desires" when referring to use of the only room with functioning technology and it was translated, I'm not kidding, as "Gary says we're incompetent."
I had to be patient. I had to be willing to take some abuse. (That willfully awful translation of my critique is what I'd call stubborn abuse, but after a little reflection, I recalled my experience as a faculty member in college and university English departments where such complaint is common, sometimes insulting, yet permitted as a way for colleagues to vent. It's permitted there. Why should it not be permitted in Korea?) My closest co-teacher and I came up with an idea that we called "Korean Time". We'd have our meetings. I'd appear in the first part and speak about my classes, lessons, complaints and/or questions. They'd respond. Then I'd leave and permit them Korean Time: time to talk according to their style about work and scheduling without my presence, which can be oppressive. Imagine having to explain yourself all the time to a person who thinks differently about your tasks than you and your colleagues do. Why it's like the government placed a white person in your school just to insist you justify your underpaid and overworked presence each and every day. I understand the contempt. I don't like it, but I get it.
It might sound silly, but it worked. And that's possessing nunchi. They needed not for me to go away or take unearned criticism but for me to understand that my presence really alters their working environment and, though it might pain me to admit, it wasn't necessary and it wasn't useful. It's sounds simple, but being able to publicly acknowledge that I'm not the center of their universe worked wonders. And many NSETs insist as a rule that they are the center of Korea's universe.
I know a lot of NSETs who'd disagree with my interpretation. I worked with a woman at a junior high school summer camp who routinely screamed at our Korean colleagues after common confusions. She didn't and still doesn't, I'm sure, possess nunchi. But she does have (as do her partner and their friends, yes I'm dishing,) plenty to say about Korea and Koreans. By the way, there is a time and a place for screaming in Korea. And I've had my fair share of tirades. You just have to do it properly. But that's for another post.
I don't know why I'm thinking about this right now. Maybe it's because I resigned from my position and will leave my school in August. I'm taking a year off to finish my novel and defend my dissertation before attempting to locate work in an English department at a university here, well anywhere. (Though I'm happy to say that Korean university folks have already shown interest. With a little patience, I'll have a nice position here and I continue to study the language and live in the US when I'm not teaching. Home for vacation and Away for work is a nice proposition.)
I think I'm going to miss my school and my neighborhood, too. We'll be moving to a different part of Seoul. Sillimdong and my high school were very good to me. It's not the hip part of Seoul. It's gritty and dirty. The working people around here are pushy, but I love it. They permitted me to fit in, which is more than I can say for the segregated neighborhoods I lived in back home where difference is shunned and severely beaten down as a rule of citizenship. For all the cries of nationalism I hear in foreigner discussions about Korea and Koreans, I've been welcomed much more sincerely here than in most place in the United States.
Of course, the reason I'm welcomed is that, for some unknown reason, I've got nunchi. I know how to act without having to perform. I know: I'm bragging. Fuck it. I've earned it.
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
On Teaching and Teachering (repost)
I wrote this almost a year ago. In my last post, I use the word "teachering". I thought I'd repost a portion of the blog when I first used the word.
From June 15, 2010:
***Judging from the bulk of lesson plans I see circulated and the general discourse about teaching (in Korea,) the less-experienced teachers seem to make the wrong decisions for what may seem like very practical (read, good) reasons. Teachers tend to decide that the requirements of the lessons and demands of the culture are so significant that they must insist students accept a classroom environment the teacher thinks will work best for them to meet curricula-determined goals. I disavow this practice. I guess this could be my reaction to useless lesson planning practices. After all, how long have teachers been composing plans based upon concrete goals that are met only after imposing a strict outline of timed classroom activities? It's stale; it ignores students.
A good lesson plan illustrates a teacher understands how to define an attainable goal. A good plan never addresses how and what students think about it. Moreover, detailed plans always determine how students should approach a lesson. Therefore, plans limit creative and critical discourse. Nowhere in these lesson plans are students visible. Students are unnecessary to its implementation, and they will be present when a lesson is discussed and assigned. They will be given a lesson. I know many teachers who can compose wonderful lesson plans who cannot teach, aren't interested in teaching. They are good plan implementers. And the students' grades are merely numeric representations of the quality of implementation. In fact, that's how both the US and Korean Republic see education. This is the prevailing theory of education: if students receive high test scores, then they are learning.
My Korean colleagues often sadly approach me and apologize because I have had to "lower my expectations" since coming to Samsung High School. When I first arrived, I thought this was because my Principal had read my CV to the teachers in a faculty meeting before introducing me. It was embarrassing. I'm proud of my work but I don't brag. And some teachers were intimidated. What was I doing here? They asked it; I asked it. But I have learned that they're thanking me for working hard and trying to be respectful. I'm not good with gratitude. I have a real problem seeing myself as good. And it's even harder for me to figure out how to return gratitude. I'm terrified of obligation and never quite get it right. . . . When I first arrived, were it not for my experience, I would have been shocked to discover that it's close to impossible for me to properly complete my contracted tasks--that much of my work, in the traditional sense of teaching lessons, is pointless.
But I have learned to stay focused on the students. To love my students and not necessarily their work. And so, when I'm reminded how sad it is that I have to lower my expectations, I respond with a smile and say "No problem." What's the point of explaining that I find such apologies demeaning to the student body? It's not worth it. I know how my colleagues think about my most recent approach to developing lessons: they see my newest take on teaching students here as a lowering of expectations. It is decidedly not that at all.
The level of English in my working-class district is lower than you might expect. I have 2 or 3 out of 35 to 45 students, in 20 classes, who can listen to a question in English and answer using complete sentences or meaningful clauses and phrases. That's about 60 out of 600-700 students I regularly see. As a result, the first thing I ditched was the English-Only Classroom. For me, that was the easiest part of the environment to change.
Even before arriving in Korea, I wholeheartedly disagreed that enforcing English-only in classrooms encourages and supports the students. Now I can say without a doubt that it's merely wishful thinking to suggest a classroom can be English-Only. It's a ridiculously limiting conception of language as well, as if language were only spoken. The students are not thinking in English. No matter what they say or think, the English language is always already in context with Korean language and culture. We might as well use that to our benefit. English-Only classrooms in Korea are much more about making English teachers more comfortable. I hate classroom power trips. Thus, my classrooms are proudly bilingual.
I would suggest that newer teachers in Korea think about ways to assert themselves in the classroom. Co-teachers will attempt to dominate younger and inexperienced teachers. They'll attempt to police your classrooms. If you need help and are a brand new teacher in search of guidance, this might be a happy coincidence. On the other hand, many teachers have practical experience and will find that Korea's classroom culture is odd, possibly alienating. One of the first things to learn while teaching here is how to fairly and positively manage a Korean English classroom. It takes some work. But the conflicts that will arise and headaches that follow are worth the stress. If you're a good teacher, they will respect your different style. If the students dislike you and you can't teach, they're going to get rid of you as quickly as possible anyway. And I agree with them. Korean students shouldn't be the lab rats for Western teacher wannabes. (I don't mean to be overly cynical or rude to younger teachers, but using another culture's student population as a tool to explore your options back home is unethical to say the least. It's something a teacher wouldn't do.)
The second thing I have learned is how to see the classroom as my students do: a boring, uninspired series of lessons about how to properly answer multiple choice questions based on reading, listening and thinking about ideas in English. Korean English teachers handle this aspect of the job. It's a teacher-stands-in-front-of-the-class-and-tells-you-what-things-mean kind of situation. And Korean students are often much more accepting of receiving such lessons from a Korean than a foreigner. Korean education culture mandates this approach as necessary to teach the students how to prepare for their standardized tests. The advanced students take notes and passively listen and the students who are slightly behind sleep or daydream. The issue for me, as an NSET (Native Speaking English Teacher), is a matter of role: What is my role in the Korean high school classroom?
I've decided my role is to be the one consistent English-speaking presence necessary to acclimate students to the sounds and logic of the English language. By using English with them, I'm performing what it sounds like, how it acts, what it means, and when to use it. In addition, I am what it looks like. This role is in opposition to how most foreign teachers work. This is not to say that they aren't well-meaning teachers with strong lessons. But who are they kidding? I have seen videos of lessons about idioms that drive students mad with laughter. But a PowerPoint presentation with videos and an active classroom is still a lesson about an idiom that relies on a stupid comparison between Konglish and English usage of English language words. It's simply not teaching language. It's teaching jokes. At best, it could be referred to as "reaching an understanding" about a routine. And, in many cases, a teacher risks reinforcing bad habits and lazy routines.
Many NSETs attempt to improve on the Korean English teacher's work and talk about teaching as a competition between co-teachers. At times, they wish to correct the mistakes and to encourage more contemporary usage. Many of the lessons online are based on improving the language the students already know. I think this approach almost gets it right but the flaw is in the pedagogy. NSETs like to be The Expert English Person on Campus. They like to own the language. They complain about the mistakes Koreans permit in their lessons and textbooks. They like to correct cultural errors. They like to transmit Western cultural lessons via language lessons. And as a result of playing the leader, they often find themselves very much an outsider in their schools. They become English Language Informers--the tool in their schools to illustrate who knows English well and who doesn't: somebody who is approached only when the locals can't answer a language question without an expert's help. I want nothing to do with this role. It's a means to alienate myself from my students. In addition, I may be an English teacher, but I do not own the language.
All NSETs should meditate on this mantra: I know I am not in Korea to change Korea.
On the other hand, I love Korea. So, why is it not enough for me to simply be myself using the language and being a teacher being myself using the language? It really does boil down to being a teacher or being like a teacher. Am I teaching or teachering?
I do everything I can to work with students on improving classroom discourse to permit as much student participation as possible yet insist that we maintain a useful direction. After all, we must succeed at focused study with a purpose. In my classrooms, even when I'm evaluating the students, I try to encourage them to use the language they have already learned in order to practice it and become more familiar with it. I insist they attempt to speak in coherent sentences when possible.
You may think I have set the bar rather low. I'd disagree. I have renovated the English classroom. Once a week the students feel at ease when an English teacher walks into the room. At ease because I am the Native Speaker, not in spite of it. (Although my co-teachers often feel alienated in my classroom. Yet again, that's for another post.) This serves an important purpose. I'm the guy you can speak your lousy English with because I'm patient and kind and want you to succeed. I'm not here to inform you that you're incorrect. Quite the opposite, I'm the one who will tell you, "I understand." I'm not concerned with your ranking nor your grade. I'll insist you use English, but I'll support your attempt. In addition, I'll not cater to you nor insult your intelligence. I'm the teacher who knows you know the answer but can't figure out how to say it. We'll figure out a way to say it together. Consequently, I'm the teacher who will insist that English is only possible in conversation with others no matter how much the government and anal Westerners insist it's about correctness.
I'll give you an example. This month we're working on illustrating six themes from the film, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. While some of my students are preparing to find jobs and begin a life of hard work, many students are working towards university life. So, it's important that they begin thinking critically about ideas they encounter in texts. They need to be able to generate reasonable statements about those ideas. They need to know how to use examples from texts to support their statements. And they need to improve their English speaking skills.
I don't have enough time with them to work on reading and discussing texts. I do have time to screen films. We watch a film; I hand out vocabulary. We discuss the language in the film and homework is to familiarize themselves with words and phrases that are new to them. I encourage them to use dictionaries but require their answers in class be in their own words. They aren't permitted to speak in dictionary-ese. The following week, groups have to stand and answer questions about the new words and phrases. We spend one week writing sentences about the meaning of familiar words from the narrative. I assign homework to group leaders who must organize their groups and get them to present a discussion about one of six themes. In their presentations the following week, they must use the language from our earlier vocabulary work. Again, I assign homework asking the students to draw an illustration of their group work about a theme. Their illustration must contain a slogan that captures the spirit of their chosen theme. I sneak a little practice on writing a summary into an art project. The following week, group leaders present their work and the class evaluates the presentations.
It sounds like difficult work, doesn't it? It is and it isn't. These are smart lessons that permit duplication. In other words, in any given school year, I can help the students develop comfort with new vocabulary and English language culture using a format that entertains them. The material in each lesson is new, yet it recalls prior work. The students can become comfortable with my teaching style and a classroom routine without me having to give up the complexity I think is necessary to actually promote learning. I have a lesson ideal and a general direction that maintains a focused and accurate purpose.
The most time-consuming part of the preparation is putting students into groups because I make sure the groups contain high-performers and low-performers, students who both know and don't know English. The students teach one another by listening to their group members discuss how to complete the work and other groups present their work. They become the experts. Students learn who to trust and ask one another for help. I encourage the groups to routinely give others the answers. I encourage students who know the answer that a person standing doesn't know to share their answer. Students know there is nothing wrong with hearing an answer and then repeating it. Of course, they must learn to hear the most correct answer. As a result, I have discovered a way to permit a noisy classroom.
It's much more complex and demanding than anything they're accustomed to as students of English, yet they enjoy it. The difference is that we work in groups and share our results and discuss our problems understanding the meaning of the English language in both Korean and English. The classroom becomes less about the assignment and a teacher's evaluation than it does about the discourse needed to address the questions at issue within each stage of the assignment. Moreover, the students are involved with evaluating their performance as the final lesson requires classes to discuss group performance.
Ultimately, I'm satisfied because this is a practice I'd use with Seoul's most privileged students. It's not something developed with my students in mind; it's something that works regardless of social class. The lessons permit useful participation from all kinds of students, and their participation is required to be in concert with their classmates' work. I'm engaging with them on what can be thought of as their terms. In other words, I'm not reinforcing the stupid ranking system where the best and brightest are rewarded as they shame their classmates who haven't scored as high on their tests. (This is a problem in US classrooms, too, where teachers use the smart kids to motivate the kids who aren't doing as well. It's demeaning. As far as I'm concerned, it's a kind of training for corporate life that should be banned from the classroom.)
I've been using a word lately to distinguish between useful and useless teaching practices. Teaching is always useful teaching. Teachering is when what you do in the classroom fulfills your obligations but does not necessarily have anything to do with your students. Teachering is always useless.
From June 15, 2010:
***Judging from the bulk of lesson plans I see circulated and the general discourse about teaching (in Korea,) the less-experienced teachers seem to make the wrong decisions for what may seem like very practical (read, good) reasons. Teachers tend to decide that the requirements of the lessons and demands of the culture are so significant that they must insist students accept a classroom environment the teacher thinks will work best for them to meet curricula-determined goals. I disavow this practice. I guess this could be my reaction to useless lesson planning practices. After all, how long have teachers been composing plans based upon concrete goals that are met only after imposing a strict outline of timed classroom activities? It's stale; it ignores students.
A good lesson plan illustrates a teacher understands how to define an attainable goal. A good plan never addresses how and what students think about it. Moreover, detailed plans always determine how students should approach a lesson. Therefore, plans limit creative and critical discourse. Nowhere in these lesson plans are students visible. Students are unnecessary to its implementation, and they will be present when a lesson is discussed and assigned. They will be given a lesson. I know many teachers who can compose wonderful lesson plans who cannot teach, aren't interested in teaching. They are good plan implementers. And the students' grades are merely numeric representations of the quality of implementation. In fact, that's how both the US and Korean Republic see education. This is the prevailing theory of education: if students receive high test scores, then they are learning.
My Korean colleagues often sadly approach me and apologize because I have had to "lower my expectations" since coming to Samsung High School. When I first arrived, I thought this was because my Principal had read my CV to the teachers in a faculty meeting before introducing me. It was embarrassing. I'm proud of my work but I don't brag. And some teachers were intimidated. What was I doing here? They asked it; I asked it. But I have learned that they're thanking me for working hard and trying to be respectful. I'm not good with gratitude. I have a real problem seeing myself as good. And it's even harder for me to figure out how to return gratitude. I'm terrified of obligation and never quite get it right. . . . When I first arrived, were it not for my experience, I would have been shocked to discover that it's close to impossible for me to properly complete my contracted tasks--that much of my work, in the traditional sense of teaching lessons, is pointless.
But I have learned to stay focused on the students. To love my students and not necessarily their work. And so, when I'm reminded how sad it is that I have to lower my expectations, I respond with a smile and say "No problem." What's the point of explaining that I find such apologies demeaning to the student body? It's not worth it. I know how my colleagues think about my most recent approach to developing lessons: they see my newest take on teaching students here as a lowering of expectations. It is decidedly not that at all.
The level of English in my working-class district is lower than you might expect. I have 2 or 3 out of 35 to 45 students, in 20 classes, who can listen to a question in English and answer using complete sentences or meaningful clauses and phrases. That's about 60 out of 600-700 students I regularly see. As a result, the first thing I ditched was the English-Only Classroom. For me, that was the easiest part of the environment to change.
Even before arriving in Korea, I wholeheartedly disagreed that enforcing English-only in classrooms encourages and supports the students. Now I can say without a doubt that it's merely wishful thinking to suggest a classroom can be English-Only. It's a ridiculously limiting conception of language as well, as if language were only spoken. The students are not thinking in English. No matter what they say or think, the English language is always already in context with Korean language and culture. We might as well use that to our benefit. English-Only classrooms in Korea are much more about making English teachers more comfortable. I hate classroom power trips. Thus, my classrooms are proudly bilingual.
I would suggest that newer teachers in Korea think about ways to assert themselves in the classroom. Co-teachers will attempt to dominate younger and inexperienced teachers. They'll attempt to police your classrooms. If you need help and are a brand new teacher in search of guidance, this might be a happy coincidence. On the other hand, many teachers have practical experience and will find that Korea's classroom culture is odd, possibly alienating. One of the first things to learn while teaching here is how to fairly and positively manage a Korean English classroom. It takes some work. But the conflicts that will arise and headaches that follow are worth the stress. If you're a good teacher, they will respect your different style. If the students dislike you and you can't teach, they're going to get rid of you as quickly as possible anyway. And I agree with them. Korean students shouldn't be the lab rats for Western teacher wannabes. (I don't mean to be overly cynical or rude to younger teachers, but using another culture's student population as a tool to explore your options back home is unethical to say the least. It's something a teacher wouldn't do.)
The second thing I have learned is how to see the classroom as my students do: a boring, uninspired series of lessons about how to properly answer multiple choice questions based on reading, listening and thinking about ideas in English. Korean English teachers handle this aspect of the job. It's a teacher-stands-in-front-of-the-class-and-tells-you-what-things-mean kind of situation. And Korean students are often much more accepting of receiving such lessons from a Korean than a foreigner. Korean education culture mandates this approach as necessary to teach the students how to prepare for their standardized tests. The advanced students take notes and passively listen and the students who are slightly behind sleep or daydream. The issue for me, as an NSET (Native Speaking English Teacher), is a matter of role: What is my role in the Korean high school classroom?
I've decided my role is to be the one consistent English-speaking presence necessary to acclimate students to the sounds and logic of the English language. By using English with them, I'm performing what it sounds like, how it acts, what it means, and when to use it. In addition, I am what it looks like. This role is in opposition to how most foreign teachers work. This is not to say that they aren't well-meaning teachers with strong lessons. But who are they kidding? I have seen videos of lessons about idioms that drive students mad with laughter. But a PowerPoint presentation with videos and an active classroom is still a lesson about an idiom that relies on a stupid comparison between Konglish and English usage of English language words. It's simply not teaching language. It's teaching jokes. At best, it could be referred to as "reaching an understanding" about a routine. And, in many cases, a teacher risks reinforcing bad habits and lazy routines.
Many NSETs attempt to improve on the Korean English teacher's work and talk about teaching as a competition between co-teachers. At times, they wish to correct the mistakes and to encourage more contemporary usage. Many of the lessons online are based on improving the language the students already know. I think this approach almost gets it right but the flaw is in the pedagogy. NSETs like to be The Expert English Person on Campus. They like to own the language. They complain about the mistakes Koreans permit in their lessons and textbooks. They like to correct cultural errors. They like to transmit Western cultural lessons via language lessons. And as a result of playing the leader, they often find themselves very much an outsider in their schools. They become English Language Informers--the tool in their schools to illustrate who knows English well and who doesn't: somebody who is approached only when the locals can't answer a language question without an expert's help. I want nothing to do with this role. It's a means to alienate myself from my students. In addition, I may be an English teacher, but I do not own the language.
All NSETs should meditate on this mantra: I know I am not in Korea to change Korea.
On the other hand, I love Korea. So, why is it not enough for me to simply be myself using the language and being a teacher being myself using the language? It really does boil down to being a teacher or being like a teacher. Am I teaching or teachering?
I do everything I can to work with students on improving classroom discourse to permit as much student participation as possible yet insist that we maintain a useful direction. After all, we must succeed at focused study with a purpose. In my classrooms, even when I'm evaluating the students, I try to encourage them to use the language they have already learned in order to practice it and become more familiar with it. I insist they attempt to speak in coherent sentences when possible.
You may think I have set the bar rather low. I'd disagree. I have renovated the English classroom. Once a week the students feel at ease when an English teacher walks into the room. At ease because I am the Native Speaker, not in spite of it. (Although my co-teachers often feel alienated in my classroom. Yet again, that's for another post.) This serves an important purpose. I'm the guy you can speak your lousy English with because I'm patient and kind and want you to succeed. I'm not here to inform you that you're incorrect. Quite the opposite, I'm the one who will tell you, "I understand." I'm not concerned with your ranking nor your grade. I'll insist you use English, but I'll support your attempt. In addition, I'll not cater to you nor insult your intelligence. I'm the teacher who knows you know the answer but can't figure out how to say it. We'll figure out a way to say it together. Consequently, I'm the teacher who will insist that English is only possible in conversation with others no matter how much the government and anal Westerners insist it's about correctness.
I'll give you an example. This month we're working on illustrating six themes from the film, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. While some of my students are preparing to find jobs and begin a life of hard work, many students are working towards university life. So, it's important that they begin thinking critically about ideas they encounter in texts. They need to be able to generate reasonable statements about those ideas. They need to know how to use examples from texts to support their statements. And they need to improve their English speaking skills.
I don't have enough time with them to work on reading and discussing texts. I do have time to screen films. We watch a film; I hand out vocabulary. We discuss the language in the film and homework is to familiarize themselves with words and phrases that are new to them. I encourage them to use dictionaries but require their answers in class be in their own words. They aren't permitted to speak in dictionary-ese. The following week, groups have to stand and answer questions about the new words and phrases. We spend one week writing sentences about the meaning of familiar words from the narrative. I assign homework to group leaders who must organize their groups and get them to present a discussion about one of six themes. In their presentations the following week, they must use the language from our earlier vocabulary work. Again, I assign homework asking the students to draw an illustration of their group work about a theme. Their illustration must contain a slogan that captures the spirit of their chosen theme. I sneak a little practice on writing a summary into an art project. The following week, group leaders present their work and the class evaluates the presentations.
It sounds like difficult work, doesn't it? It is and it isn't. These are smart lessons that permit duplication. In other words, in any given school year, I can help the students develop comfort with new vocabulary and English language culture using a format that entertains them. The material in each lesson is new, yet it recalls prior work. The students can become comfortable with my teaching style and a classroom routine without me having to give up the complexity I think is necessary to actually promote learning. I have a lesson ideal and a general direction that maintains a focused and accurate purpose.
The most time-consuming part of the preparation is putting students into groups because I make sure the groups contain high-performers and low-performers, students who both know and don't know English. The students teach one another by listening to their group members discuss how to complete the work and other groups present their work. They become the experts. Students learn who to trust and ask one another for help. I encourage the groups to routinely give others the answers. I encourage students who know the answer that a person standing doesn't know to share their answer. Students know there is nothing wrong with hearing an answer and then repeating it. Of course, they must learn to hear the most correct answer. As a result, I have discovered a way to permit a noisy classroom.
It's much more complex and demanding than anything they're accustomed to as students of English, yet they enjoy it. The difference is that we work in groups and share our results and discuss our problems understanding the meaning of the English language in both Korean and English. The classroom becomes less about the assignment and a teacher's evaluation than it does about the discourse needed to address the questions at issue within each stage of the assignment. Moreover, the students are involved with evaluating their performance as the final lesson requires classes to discuss group performance.
Ultimately, I'm satisfied because this is a practice I'd use with Seoul's most privileged students. It's not something developed with my students in mind; it's something that works regardless of social class. The lessons permit useful participation from all kinds of students, and their participation is required to be in concert with their classmates' work. I'm engaging with them on what can be thought of as their terms. In other words, I'm not reinforcing the stupid ranking system where the best and brightest are rewarded as they shame their classmates who haven't scored as high on their tests. (This is a problem in US classrooms, too, where teachers use the smart kids to motivate the kids who aren't doing as well. It's demeaning. As far as I'm concerned, it's a kind of training for corporate life that should be banned from the classroom.)
I've been using a word lately to distinguish between useful and useless teaching practices. Teaching is always useful teaching. Teachering is when what you do in the classroom fulfills your obligations but does not necessarily have anything to do with your students. Teachering is always useless.
Testing, Testing (Part Two)
This is a continuation of "Testing, Testing" posted last week, April 13. In that post, I wrote:
First, I'll discuss the work we completed over a four-week period leading up to the conversation exams. I teach 20 classes each week, each class has 35-42 students. Korean high schools have three grade levels, first through third. I teach the first and second grades. For three weeks, we watched three short-films and worked in groups to discuss and write sentences answering questions about settings, themes, characters, moods, and genres. In the fourth week, we reviewed the three shorts in detail, trying to focus on how to speak about the more interesting scenes in each story and to reinforce new vocabulary. The fifth and sixth weeks have been for the speaking tests. Next week, the students will take their regular, midterm exams. As you can see, I've developed a method for teaching my high school English conversation class that builds a conversation over a four week period. I do this to reinforce new vocabulary, to promote acquisition and to build confidence through familiarity with the chosen subject.
I like this method for two reasons. As I mentioned in my first post, my students' English language skills are lower than expected and desired for university-bound 16-19 year olds. Rather than focus on rudimentary language games that entertain as much as teach, that they've played since early childhood, and rather than focus on building confidence through staging scenarios for conversation via cheesey conversation-starter exercises, I believe my lessons reinforce the kinds of English my students will be required to use as students over the next five years. The lessons are designed to be accessible to almost all my students while being practical for those who will attend university. In addition, my approach doesn't insist that I teach only to the smartest students who are likely going to be competing with many thousands of students, many from higher ranked schools, for positions at the most respected Korean universities. And I simply refuse to teach to the middle, which is always teaching in opposition to critical thinking. My lessons produce space for all students regardless of their English proficiency to practice English and build skills, vocabulary, understanding and confidence.
As teachers we ought to help create a potential for learning to occur rather than work on teaching learning. We help make it possible to produce spaces of learning. We don't create the space and then permit students entrance to it nor do we enter a space already created and then direct students how to use it. We produce space with the students and work in it together. In Korea and United States, the dominant mode of teaching is what I like to call teacher-ing. Teachers perform for the students. If you want to see heinous examples of this, go to You Tube and search for English Conversation Classes in Korea. You'll find many examples of teachers as clowns. Entertaining, maybe. Hard work, maybe. Not teaching. But the kids and colleagues think it looks like what good teaching should be. In a future post, I'll offer a further critique of this kind of teaching.
Teacher-ing contains things: information, data, language, personality, ethos (both habit and character), intention and equipment. Students are offered an opportunity by teachers to learn what is provided within the well-rehearsed performances. Students who figure out how to score well on exams are rewarded. In addition, students who behave well are rewarded. Some teachers are great performers, but the learning that occurs is never related to the performance. We're all too aware of this; some teachers and administrators love the performance so much that they are unwilling to actually give up and teach. They're dedicated teachers, for sure. They're just not good teachers. They're good performers; good at being the center of attention; they're good graders. In fact, we're learning, much to the chagrine of the education business and its biggest supporters and benefactors, that scoring well on exams and good behavior are not only inaccurate indicators of learning, they may measure something other than learning altogether.
Teacher-ing is the performance of the material in a lesson combined with a sincere hope that students will model the performance and through modeling learn the lesson. I use the word teacher-ing because I believe the performance is actually one step removed from teaching: it's a teacher doing teaching. Good teachers look like good teachers because they're doing things teachers are thought to do and thought ought to do and their students react well to the performance. Teaching, on the other hand, is about working within the public discourse community to produce a space in cooperation with students, school administration and others in the community in which learning occurs through purposeful discourse about different subjects. The objective is that students learn to actively participate in the subjects in a manner that can benefit themselves, the teacher, the school, the community. They learn how to do, to think and to create in cooperation and work with others. Teaching is something one does in a discourse community. It's a role, certainly, but not performed as if on a stage. A teacher's work is performed in media res.
I could continue to make this issue more complicated. In the US, for example, individualism is tied up with the idea that we are sovereign unto ourselves though we are citizens of a state and as such participate in the maintenance of a social contract, whether or not we are conscious of what that means. In Korea, this sense of sovereignty may in fact exist but is not much permitted in school. It's just not encouraged. Here, school is a place of highly structured collectivist culture. And not in the way Americans often think of it: school spirit, clubs, fraternities, sororities, etc. At any rate, I'm not addressing this significant aspect of teaching in this post. I'm trying to articulate I believe we ought to create lessons that promote teaching rather than resort to teacher-ing.
My classes are 50 minutes in length. I like to have 15 minutes of group work each week, and I usually explain/lecture for about 10 minutes. Half of each of my classes is spent either speaking with the students and them speaking with me, so in some sort of conversation, and/or listening and observing something that is presented in English. This year I'm using short films with little to no dialogue. The films tend to be around 2-3 minutes in length. My rule is that they never be more than 10 minutes. I want at least 15 minutes of conversation in each class.
I can't assign reading in my classes for two reasons. We have few materials and little money for materials and I have no way to insure the students will complete homework. Basically, I get 50 minutes a week with 20 classes. It's very difficult to cultivate a productive and useful space for English language learning and acquisition to occur in a meaningful and consistent manner.
I must bring all materials to class and leave with them and must be able to set-up the classroom in a matter of minutes or else I lose valuable time with my students. I decided that bringing a laptop and necessary cables was the best solution. I can start a class in the time it takes for a projector to warm up. While I get the computer, screen and projector set up, my students form groups and distribute my weekly handout. I'm going to focus on one lesson rather than all three, but describe to you the procession of lessons in summary. Though I've created a routine for my classes, the lessons build on each other. In my classes, we really do work together to approach a useful, meaningful and somewhat interesting English conversation about our subject.
Over the last month, my students have practiced speaking first about setting and characters, second about themes and kinds of stories, and third about how stories make us feel. The fourth week, we sat back and watched all three short films, one after the other, with the volume down low, and we spoke about each scene using the vocabulary I provided them on the handouts.
My next post will present, in detail, one of the three lessons. The following will discuss the speaking test. The third will offer a critique of what I think about the kind of teaching I have witnessed in classrooms here. Needless to say, I am not impressed and happy about it. I have to attend a teacher training session next week, and I'll pan my third post so I write about it as well.
I’m working on two posts that I’ll soon publish. Maybe I can complete them this evening. The first will explain the work I planned for my classes and illustrate the expectations I had looking ahead to the tests. The second post will illustrate the test and discuss the results, student reception, and their apparent study habits. I’ll try to offer an honest evaluation about the success of the lessons and exam.I've been sidetracked because the work on my critique of progressive libertarianism and meritocracy has been rather fun. Sidetracked isn't the best term, I guess. I've been reading and haven't taken the time to write about the last month at school. Here goes.
First, I'll discuss the work we completed over a four-week period leading up to the conversation exams. I teach 20 classes each week, each class has 35-42 students. Korean high schools have three grade levels, first through third. I teach the first and second grades. For three weeks, we watched three short-films and worked in groups to discuss and write sentences answering questions about settings, themes, characters, moods, and genres. In the fourth week, we reviewed the three shorts in detail, trying to focus on how to speak about the more interesting scenes in each story and to reinforce new vocabulary. The fifth and sixth weeks have been for the speaking tests. Next week, the students will take their regular, midterm exams. As you can see, I've developed a method for teaching my high school English conversation class that builds a conversation over a four week period. I do this to reinforce new vocabulary, to promote acquisition and to build confidence through familiarity with the chosen subject.
I like this method for two reasons. As I mentioned in my first post, my students' English language skills are lower than expected and desired for university-bound 16-19 year olds. Rather than focus on rudimentary language games that entertain as much as teach, that they've played since early childhood, and rather than focus on building confidence through staging scenarios for conversation via cheesey conversation-starter exercises, I believe my lessons reinforce the kinds of English my students will be required to use as students over the next five years. The lessons are designed to be accessible to almost all my students while being practical for those who will attend university. In addition, my approach doesn't insist that I teach only to the smartest students who are likely going to be competing with many thousands of students, many from higher ranked schools, for positions at the most respected Korean universities. And I simply refuse to teach to the middle, which is always teaching in opposition to critical thinking. My lessons produce space for all students regardless of their English proficiency to practice English and build skills, vocabulary, understanding and confidence.
As teachers we ought to help create a potential for learning to occur rather than work on teaching learning. We help make it possible to produce spaces of learning. We don't create the space and then permit students entrance to it nor do we enter a space already created and then direct students how to use it. We produce space with the students and work in it together. In Korea and United States, the dominant mode of teaching is what I like to call teacher-ing. Teachers perform for the students. If you want to see heinous examples of this, go to You Tube and search for English Conversation Classes in Korea. You'll find many examples of teachers as clowns. Entertaining, maybe. Hard work, maybe. Not teaching. But the kids and colleagues think it looks like what good teaching should be. In a future post, I'll offer a further critique of this kind of teaching.
Teacher-ing contains things: information, data, language, personality, ethos (both habit and character), intention and equipment. Students are offered an opportunity by teachers to learn what is provided within the well-rehearsed performances. Students who figure out how to score well on exams are rewarded. In addition, students who behave well are rewarded. Some teachers are great performers, but the learning that occurs is never related to the performance. We're all too aware of this; some teachers and administrators love the performance so much that they are unwilling to actually give up and teach. They're dedicated teachers, for sure. They're just not good teachers. They're good performers; good at being the center of attention; they're good graders. In fact, we're learning, much to the chagrine of the education business and its biggest supporters and benefactors, that scoring well on exams and good behavior are not only inaccurate indicators of learning, they may measure something other than learning altogether.
Teacher-ing is the performance of the material in a lesson combined with a sincere hope that students will model the performance and through modeling learn the lesson. I use the word teacher-ing because I believe the performance is actually one step removed from teaching: it's a teacher doing teaching. Good teachers look like good teachers because they're doing things teachers are thought to do and thought ought to do and their students react well to the performance. Teaching, on the other hand, is about working within the public discourse community to produce a space in cooperation with students, school administration and others in the community in which learning occurs through purposeful discourse about different subjects. The objective is that students learn to actively participate in the subjects in a manner that can benefit themselves, the teacher, the school, the community. They learn how to do, to think and to create in cooperation and work with others. Teaching is something one does in a discourse community. It's a role, certainly, but not performed as if on a stage. A teacher's work is performed in media res.
I could continue to make this issue more complicated. In the US, for example, individualism is tied up with the idea that we are sovereign unto ourselves though we are citizens of a state and as such participate in the maintenance of a social contract, whether or not we are conscious of what that means. In Korea, this sense of sovereignty may in fact exist but is not much permitted in school. It's just not encouraged. Here, school is a place of highly structured collectivist culture. And not in the way Americans often think of it: school spirit, clubs, fraternities, sororities, etc. At any rate, I'm not addressing this significant aspect of teaching in this post. I'm trying to articulate I believe we ought to create lessons that promote teaching rather than resort to teacher-ing.
My classes are 50 minutes in length. I like to have 15 minutes of group work each week, and I usually explain/lecture for about 10 minutes. Half of each of my classes is spent either speaking with the students and them speaking with me, so in some sort of conversation, and/or listening and observing something that is presented in English. This year I'm using short films with little to no dialogue. The films tend to be around 2-3 minutes in length. My rule is that they never be more than 10 minutes. I want at least 15 minutes of conversation in each class.
I can't assign reading in my classes for two reasons. We have few materials and little money for materials and I have no way to insure the students will complete homework. Basically, I get 50 minutes a week with 20 classes. It's very difficult to cultivate a productive and useful space for English language learning and acquisition to occur in a meaningful and consistent manner.
I must bring all materials to class and leave with them and must be able to set-up the classroom in a matter of minutes or else I lose valuable time with my students. I decided that bringing a laptop and necessary cables was the best solution. I can start a class in the time it takes for a projector to warm up. While I get the computer, screen and projector set up, my students form groups and distribute my weekly handout. I'm going to focus on one lesson rather than all three, but describe to you the procession of lessons in summary. Though I've created a routine for my classes, the lessons build on each other. In my classes, we really do work together to approach a useful, meaningful and somewhat interesting English conversation about our subject.
Over the last month, my students have practiced speaking first about setting and characters, second about themes and kinds of stories, and third about how stories make us feel. The fourth week, we sat back and watched all three short films, one after the other, with the volume down low, and we spoke about each scene using the vocabulary I provided them on the handouts.
My next post will present, in detail, one of the three lessons. The following will discuss the speaking test. The third will offer a critique of what I think about the kind of teaching I have witnessed in classrooms here. Needless to say, I am not impressed and happy about it. I have to attend a teacher training session next week, and I'll pan my third post so I write about it as well.
Friday, April 15, 2011
The many are one and are increased by the one.
In my last post I wrote:
I'm going to go with the flow of thought here and see what I can get out of it, so I can see what I think about the ideas implicit in my statement. I'm not sure vertically integrated is the best way to put it. I'm trying to argue that classrooms are spaces typically, uncritically and horizontally constructed to reinforce and passively instruct traditional power structures. Most of us would likely agree with this. Only an authoritarian would take issue so soon.
I believe teachers have the ability to dis-include--in this case, I like dis-include more than exclude--and disrupt traditional, passively accepted power structures by teaching in media res so to speak. Simply describing a teacher stepping from the front of the classroom into the middle of it may seem trite but to accomplish such a small step first requires many more complex rhetorical moves than may not be apparent. Many theorists have discussed what it means to teach in media res. It's not a new idea. So, I'll leave the groundwork alone at the moment.
Rejecting traditional, horizontal hierarchies in the classroom in favor of a vertical framework permits active critical thinking, promotes a tolerance for social difference, insists that conflict can be resolved peacefully, and instructs students and teachers that there is more to cooperation in our society than the future cooperation between employee and employer, boss and worker, master and slave. In addition, it allows for the cultivation of a multi-dimensional classroom.
The traditional classroom is one-dimensional. It occupies a particular space in time and insists that it stays put statically reinforcing an important power structure for future members of the workforce, of consumer culture. It becomes a voice in the unconscious, dogmatically instructing citizens how to behave. Students can look back to their notes only to point to what they learned because the traditional, horizontal structure is not dynamic. It's remembered, stored away, celebrated on anniversaries, nostalgic, lifeless.
I'm trying to get at intention. The horizontally-constructed space of traditional classrooms promotes the worst aspects of rugged individualism in our culture. Traditional classrooms are populated with students and teachers who are permitted to possess their own intentions, goals, objectives, and points-of-view only in so far as their claims are articulated within their appropriate positions within the hierarchy. For example, a student can disagree with her teacher as long as she agrees to obey the teacher. (Two things about this need to be developed further: the agreement to obey is silent and conversation about it is generally not permitted; students are taught that they are free to participate (see freedom of contract and employment at will) and that they can have opinions, but they must decide to choose the authorized correct answers exams. Both of these things are considered good cooperation.)
Traditional classrooms construct and model social space that prohibits critical thinking from successfully working. Traditional classrooms conduct discourse that insists dynamic rhetoric exist in static positions. We really do dis-empower the radical potential for public discourse and habituate participants to embrace self-interest as an interest that knows its proper place. Moreover, a student who competes for the highest position must also be willing to dispossess classmates. Self-interest as an interest that knows its proper place is a grotesque representation of the democratic ideal that the many become one and are increased by that one.
This is why selfish and static ideological and political positions represented by libertarianism are so popular with young people. Libertarianism is the unapologetic acceptance of self-interest for benefit of an individual in competition with everyone else and companion to none. For no rational reason, we teach students that this is in everyone's best interest. We instruct students to become individuals in spite of their communities rather than individuals that produce their communities. Community is represented as a burden. We teach that John Galt is a heroic individual rather than the reality about his static, lifeless, dreadful existence as a sycophant to the wealthy elite.
In traditional classrooms, teachers insist that a community is only as strong as its weakest link. Teachers and students together work to create value for their classroom, as the best communities can make more money, can learn more, can enrich themselves. (See Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan and Race to the Top.) The traditional classroom passively models the market in such a way that knowledge and experience become much less important than a good work ethic no matter what the task. In this way, the traditional classroom produces a society of slaves to the authority of an elite class.
If we reject, even silently reject, the traditional classroom and produce a vertically integrated space in which to conduct lessons, we can provide classrooms wherein multiple intentions can conflict and daily discourse permits original social difference yet requires grand attempts to reach a healthier consensus. This is the fulfillment of the many become one and are increased by that one.
I suppose the key to what I'm thinking about here is that by teaching in media res--refusing to (re)produce a horizontal space that promotes status-seeking behavior and refusing to play master to a student's slave--we can actively destroy the worst aspects of capitalist culture, combat Empire without aggressively politicizing the classroom, encourage students to understand that thinking for themselves doesn't mean competing with other self-interests, fully recognize a healthy consensus in a society that embraces original social difference, and empower students to be strong, confident, critically-minded individuals because they're confident that we're all working together for different ends with similar means towards a common cause.
The longer I teach, I began in 1999, the more I become a student advocate, the more I see my role in the school and classroom as vertically integrated with role my students perform. The more I see our role in direct opposition, in a healthy and productive manner rather than destructive, to the administration and state. Being a student advocate permits me to be an advocate for teachers.(Updated on April 16: Beginnings of an essay I'm writing about producing space in classrooms. I'm trying to figure out how to address my concern with space and horizontal and vertical just don't cut it. The two words are shitty training wheels for me to get my thoughts straight as i try to find a better vocabulary. One-dimensional v. multi-dimensional and horizontal v. vertical aren't the best way to put it, but it'll do for now. Maybe i need to think about words like transversal. Your suggestions, input are always welcome. Love dialogue. Also want to note i'm using a Whiteheadean concept, the many become one and are increased by that one. I didn't write that. I'm citing it, implementing it.)
I'm going to go with the flow of thought here and see what I can get out of it, so I can see what I think about the ideas implicit in my statement. I'm not sure vertically integrated is the best way to put it. I'm trying to argue that classrooms are spaces typically, uncritically and horizontally constructed to reinforce and passively instruct traditional power structures. Most of us would likely agree with this. Only an authoritarian would take issue so soon.
I believe teachers have the ability to dis-include--in this case, I like dis-include more than exclude--and disrupt traditional, passively accepted power structures by teaching in media res so to speak. Simply describing a teacher stepping from the front of the classroom into the middle of it may seem trite but to accomplish such a small step first requires many more complex rhetorical moves than may not be apparent. Many theorists have discussed what it means to teach in media res. It's not a new idea. So, I'll leave the groundwork alone at the moment.
Rejecting traditional, horizontal hierarchies in the classroom in favor of a vertical framework permits active critical thinking, promotes a tolerance for social difference, insists that conflict can be resolved peacefully, and instructs students and teachers that there is more to cooperation in our society than the future cooperation between employee and employer, boss and worker, master and slave. In addition, it allows for the cultivation of a multi-dimensional classroom.
The traditional classroom is one-dimensional. It occupies a particular space in time and insists that it stays put statically reinforcing an important power structure for future members of the workforce, of consumer culture. It becomes a voice in the unconscious, dogmatically instructing citizens how to behave. Students can look back to their notes only to point to what they learned because the traditional, horizontal structure is not dynamic. It's remembered, stored away, celebrated on anniversaries, nostalgic, lifeless.
I'm trying to get at intention. The horizontally-constructed space of traditional classrooms promotes the worst aspects of rugged individualism in our culture. Traditional classrooms are populated with students and teachers who are permitted to possess their own intentions, goals, objectives, and points-of-view only in so far as their claims are articulated within their appropriate positions within the hierarchy. For example, a student can disagree with her teacher as long as she agrees to obey the teacher. (Two things about this need to be developed further: the agreement to obey is silent and conversation about it is generally not permitted; students are taught that they are free to participate (see freedom of contract and employment at will) and that they can have opinions, but they must decide to choose the authorized correct answers exams. Both of these things are considered good cooperation.)
Traditional classrooms construct and model social space that prohibits critical thinking from successfully working. Traditional classrooms conduct discourse that insists dynamic rhetoric exist in static positions. We really do dis-empower the radical potential for public discourse and habituate participants to embrace self-interest as an interest that knows its proper place. Moreover, a student who competes for the highest position must also be willing to dispossess classmates. Self-interest as an interest that knows its proper place is a grotesque representation of the democratic ideal that the many become one and are increased by that one.
This is why selfish and static ideological and political positions represented by libertarianism are so popular with young people. Libertarianism is the unapologetic acceptance of self-interest for benefit of an individual in competition with everyone else and companion to none. For no rational reason, we teach students that this is in everyone's best interest. We instruct students to become individuals in spite of their communities rather than individuals that produce their communities. Community is represented as a burden. We teach that John Galt is a heroic individual rather than the reality about his static, lifeless, dreadful existence as a sycophant to the wealthy elite.
In traditional classrooms, teachers insist that a community is only as strong as its weakest link. Teachers and students together work to create value for their classroom, as the best communities can make more money, can learn more, can enrich themselves. (See Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan and Race to the Top.) The traditional classroom passively models the market in such a way that knowledge and experience become much less important than a good work ethic no matter what the task. In this way, the traditional classroom produces a society of slaves to the authority of an elite class.
If we reject, even silently reject, the traditional classroom and produce a vertically integrated space in which to conduct lessons, we can provide classrooms wherein multiple intentions can conflict and daily discourse permits original social difference yet requires grand attempts to reach a healthier consensus. This is the fulfillment of the many become one and are increased by that one.
I suppose the key to what I'm thinking about here is that by teaching in media res--refusing to (re)produce a horizontal space that promotes status-seeking behavior and refusing to play master to a student's slave--we can actively destroy the worst aspects of capitalist culture, combat Empire without aggressively politicizing the classroom, encourage students to understand that thinking for themselves doesn't mean competing with other self-interests, fully recognize a healthy consensus in a society that embraces original social difference, and empower students to be strong, confident, critically-minded individuals because they're confident that we're all working together for different ends with similar means towards a common cause.
My Students and I will kick your ass. Have a nice day!
The longer I teach, I began in 1999, the more I become a student advocate, the more I see my role in the school and classroom as vertically integrated with role my students perform. The more I see our role in direct opposition, in a healthy and productive manner rather than destructive, to the administration and state. Being a student advocate permits me to be an advocate for teachers.
This manner of approaching pedagogy and labor permits me to extend my beliefs about open and democratic discourse based in original social difference from the classroom to the school to the community to the state. It transforms the site for learning into a site for radical social work. It resists compartmentalizing experience in the way capitalism encourages us to do. And it does so in a manner that is much more inclusive than any contemporary debates about speech in the classroom permit.
The students need not be aware of this for it to work.
This is a fact and it's what irritates conservative theorists and politicians about the nature of the classroom. By definition, it's a radically transformative space. Without regulation of discourse, there's no telling what might happen.
My vocation is a consistent "Fuck you!" to the white power structure in the United States, and in Korea for that matter. And it's a reminder to Conservative Culture that it will lose every time.
This manner of approaching pedagogy and labor permits me to extend my beliefs about open and democratic discourse based in original social difference from the classroom to the school to the community to the state. It transforms the site for learning into a site for radical social work. It resists compartmentalizing experience in the way capitalism encourages us to do. And it does so in a manner that is much more inclusive than any contemporary debates about speech in the classroom permit.
The students need not be aware of this for it to work.
This is a fact and it's what irritates conservative theorists and politicians about the nature of the classroom. By definition, it's a radically transformative space. Without regulation of discourse, there's no telling what might happen.
My vocation is a consistent "Fuck you!" to the white power structure in the United States, and in Korea for that matter. And it's a reminder to Conservative Culture that it will lose every time.
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