Re: in/formal or non/coercive?

diane hodges (dchodges who-is-at interchange.ubc.ca)
Sat, 30 Jan 1999 13:53:45 -0800

Hey Donna -

At 10:36 AM 30/1/99, Donna Phillips wrote:
>Diane,
>
>Your comment...
>
>teacher-education needs to be more liberal arts than
>"pedagogical" - in
>short, less management and more inquiry. I sound like a
>sick Noam Chomsky
>parrot eh?
>
>reminded me of the scene early in "The Miracle Worker"
>in which Annie Sullivan muses that Helen must first
>learn discipline (management?). Only then will language
>(inquiry?) open up wider worlds for her. Perhaps I'm
>playing fast and loose in comparing your concepts to
>Annie's, and in suggesting that management may need to
>assume an initial and primary role.

The word itself is ugly, but the conceptual relations of "management" are,
I think, bigga bigga trouble. Managing is controlling. Slotting.
Organizing. What is troublesome is the concept-as-tool relation for
mediating the already complex relations in a typical class -
to manage presumes something needs to be managed, it is unmanageable, and
displaces why managers were invented, for what; and how those are
ideologically inscribed in the gr.4 class announcement at 3:15PM...

"This classroom better settle down or there will be no story..." WHY? It's
15 minutes until the bell. LET "EM GOOOOOOOO!

> The challenge seems
>to be in striking a tolerable balance between the two
>as expeditiously as possible. How DO we avoid fighting
>ideological wars and encourage negotiations instead?
>Solving that conundrum should keep us busy for a few
>dozen academic careers.
>
>Donna Phillips
>RPI

a few dozen at least: I recall reading somewhere that "...curricular
negotiations are never encouraged, they are managed." (maybe I just made it
up? ha)

BUT there is a way. I can only speak from early childhood teaching, and as
I have shared more often than is called for perhaps, I was being trained to
manage the children and realizing that I needed skills for managing
schools, not kids.
my teacherly skills were utterly theatrical, sound effects, voice impersonation
( once did a "Cookie Monster" impersonation that had two kids suddenly
gving my dental work with sticky-jam fingers, 'cause they wanted to see the
voice. So, I taught everyone how to do voice imitations instead of "These
are the 'people' in yr neighbourhood;

Is it at all possible that a good teacher doesn't need to manage the room,
because learning how to manage oneself in an institutional setting is
probably the first thing kids have to learn (I recall the kindergarten
"circle" was an *open square* (LOGIC SEARCH! ! BREAKDOWN!!_) mapped out
with masking tape which represented "The Line". Kids never cross the line
into the "circle" that was a square (hey kid, 2+2=5, know what I mean?)

and so sure enough I story-tell with puppets and theatrics (a closet stage
ham I am)
and the kids freak and leap into
the "circle" to see the puppets... and sure you bet my partner teacher
bellows, the two fascist words, the dictum of her managment, threatening
nothing but the violation of "THE LINE!!"

and then *I* freaked because they scrambled back to their seats so fast I
expected the cattle prod was used on the last one back behind The Line.
Stupid stupid rules like that are what can be tackled first - and the
problem is, as always, that institutions and ideologies are inter- and
intra-subjectively engaged with;
so it is about labour, and parents, and people's beliefs...

I do think that my own background in philosophy, literature, history, etc.,
made me a better teacher because I understood historical relations enough -
academics say it all the time, that history is
narrative/fiction/story-telling - Many old rhymes were written as political
editorials - "Ring around the rosie..." [Bubonic Plague]
That kid who stuck his thumb in a plumb? Property theft.

The blackbirds singing when some pie was open? Castle spies.
THIS stuff is interesting as hell.

There are always some kids can/will work autonomously, or with others who
need support;

eliminate age-segrgation and then you could set up a very cool school.

the very important point about ideology is that it only pops up in
conflicts and struggles, and so each time management overides
participation, the subject could change to ideology. Spell it. Learn it.
Teach it. Demand it be acknowledged - Management is designed to reduce
conflicts: so there is little room for negotiating if a teacher is
misdirected by the resolution and not to the conditions that made the
conflict/struggle occur.

management is coercive, and I am not absolutely convinced that the question
is one of balance so much as it might personal, in that not all teachers
are good teachers and maybe a first step is in admitting that.
every school knows their worst teachers. And their best. If they don't,
poll the students, do a study, but whatever the quantity:
a) keep the folks who don't need to manage,
b) send the ones who do know how to manage to the business sector for
replacement (it is where they must have come from!)
and

c) hire new people on the basis of their passion and perfomance, their
respect for intelligence in children; respect for children as human beings.
Someone who is kind, reflective, critical critical critical and prepared to
build critical questions into every aspect of schooling and not in service
to the curriclum.

Here schools are in a position to demand less "management" oriented
pedagogical cognitive structures and development-o-rama emphasis, and more
kinds of philosophy, literature, critical history, critical geo-historical
sites (Gaza Strip, Northern Island, Yugoslavia, Cape Breton ( a canuck ref)
and so on.
The more breadth & depth, the better equipped the teacher is to understand
what is going on, in terms of actual events, disruptions, when they occur.
So: here's a plan:
Find the people who recognize curriculum as schooling, and teach that
(curriculum is schooling is curriculum is recess lunchtime may I go to the
bathroom please? and so on) ...

Then, e.g., students could be learning about schooling as
compulsory, underfunded, and so on - ooh let's talk about textbooks (I
recall every math lesson we would ceremonouly beging by gently dropping our
texts to the floor; and then we'd laugh; and then we'd calculate ratios
into fractions or something...

I'd say by 9-10 yrs old kids are ready to start asking how come everything
in school is timed? Can't it be more flexible? If music class is rocking is
it ok to skip math? WHY NOT? Who in the HELL invented long division!

There are always ways, and kids - if they have a competent support teacher
- are an awesome force of sweet sweet change.

So much to say, so much else to do...
thanks Donna.
diane

"When she walks,
the revolution's coming.
In her hips, there's revolution.
When she talks, I hear revolution.
In her kiss, I taste the revolution." Kathleen Hanna
(Bikini Kill)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^

diane celia hodges
centre for the study of curriculum and instuction,
faculty of education
university of british columbia
2125 main mall,
vancouver, b.c. canada
V6T 1Z4