By I wrote above, in the section on Alienation Vacation, “I seemed to observe” my students in their alienation vacation because coming from traditional monologic teaching where all students are expected to participate in the same required learning activities at high levels of engagement, I am not sure if I may have wrong pedagogical expectations and desires about students’ self-generated participation in their own learning when such opportunities are given to them. At time of taking class or just because the students overall learning trajectory and interests, some students may require more peripheral participation (if at all) than other students. Life outside of formal education institutions encourages and often legitimizes learners’ diverse forms and intensities of participation and non-participation in activities. As one OSE student wrote to me in an email explaining her frequent missing the class,
In short, I am having a terrible semester. I have bit off more than I can chew in having a part time job and taking 2 honors classes as well as extracurricular activities. When I miss class it is because I am either working extra hours at work or I am cramming for my next exam. I realize I have not been the ideal participant in our class but I can assure you I do really enjoy our EducXXX class and the topics we discuss. Urban education is a passion of mine and I looked forward to this class until I became so stressed this semester. It probably obvious to you, as well as to myself, that because of our open syllabus and "no grades" policy, that I have used this class as a cushion for my heavy workload. I apologize because I know I have taken advantage of what was supposed to beneficial to my learning and our class. I don't know how to make up for the class time that I have missed except to tell you that I really have enjoyed what I have been there for and that I have tried to use webtalk to understand the days I missed. I hope you see that when I am in class I enjoy participating and have a lot to offer[1] (email, November, 2012).
On the one hand, I try to work hard on breaking the conventional Assignment-based Chronotop of education by diversifying mediums and forums of education to incorporate students with diverse educational needs and life circumstances. On the other hand, I remain torn between these possibilities legitimizing low involvement of some students and my concern that I need to improve my guidance to engage these students (and stop rationalizing my teaching failures) or that the Anarchist OSE may not work for some students with low will – but, alternatively, how can a student’s will be developed if his or her opportunities for taking control of his or her learning is constantly taken away by imposed requirements?! Am I accepting and respecting students’ non-participation and non-cooperation OR am I accepting my own pedagogical laziness, conservatism, and impotence? Do I have a wrong pedagogical desire of making all of my students like and highly engage in our class or am I trapped by conventional educational institutional practices and relations that I uncritically accept? Where are limitations of my responsibility for students’ education when I accept that the students are the highest authority for their own learning? Should some graduate approaches like Opening Syllabus Education, where learning freedoms increase gradually through the course by promoting choices and engaging students in decision making about the organization of the class and their learning, be used for these students. Giving a lot of freedom at once to people with a long history of educational oppression by the totalizing non-negotiable impositions may be as detrimental, if not deadly, for the students’ learning agency as giving unlimited food to people experienced prolonged and intense starvation. As we do not give too much food to starving people, should initial freedom of learning be limited for students who are severely traumatized by conventional oppressive schooling? Some students may desire to be forced while disliking being forced or imposed, which can be a paradox in itself (or, alternatively, a vicious circle of distrust in and surrendering one’s own agency).
[1] In my view, the student’s experience of deprioritizing her desired learning and reflection on it, promoted and supported by the instructor, is very important for students’ development of her learning agency as an active learner. The student volunteered to discuss this point in class at the end of the semester when a visitor came and asked the OSE students about their experiences with the OSE.
In an Opening Syllabus class on diversity in education with a teaching practicum (with Open Dialogic Instruction) I had an undergraduate student, future elementary school teacher, who was very disengaged. I tried many things to engage her in the class material and with African American elementary school kids at the practicum (she was texting her cell there or tried to chat with other UD students). Nothing worked. At the end, she did minimum work in class and got C. I thought she was my teaching failure.
A year after the class, I bumped into her on Main st. on campus. I expected her to pass me by pretending that she did not recognize me but instead she jumped on me and hugged and smiled being joyful to see me. I was shocked thinking that she might confuse me with some other professor. I asked her, "Do you remember that I gave C to you?" But she replied, "Your class was the best that ever happened to me. I'm so thankful to you. You changed my life." I was surprised, "How come?! By giving you C?!" She laughed, "No, not for that. But I saw how much you tried to connect me with the class material, to make the class interesting for me, to make me relate to the class and the kids. And then, I started asking myself, why I was not so interested. And I came to an important conclusion that I did not want to be a teacher and work with kids. Instead, I wanted to be an actress. I switched the major and now I'm the happiest person on the Earth. I already got a role in a professional play. I'm afraid that if I hadn't experienced your class, I kept reading stuff, passing exams and arriving at profession that was not mine." This is where I realized that education is not just about engaging but also about testing students' own desires. The only thing I regret that I gave her C and A. Now I think that she got an excellent education in my class.
On the other hand, I don't want to rationalize my real teaching failure in the future. I wonder if trying hard to engage all students is the right thing or not. I'm still high ambivalent about that because:
On the one hand, my pedagogical desire of high engagement of all students in each subject matter can be wrong:
On the other hand,
What do you think? Eugene