Re: Bewilderment, ambiguity, and understanding
Jay Lemke (JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Thu, 11 Apr 96 21:55:30 EDT
No one like the answer to this question. Yes, we can make
transformative learning more likely to occur, but it requires
that we subordinate the curriculum to the emerging agendas of
the student (or the students/us). This means backing off from
the assumption that we know what is best for students, to
just hoping we know things that can help them find/do/learn
what they want (which is always changing, and always in part
a function of significant interactions with us and others).
It means we do not require, we negotiate, or even _serve_.
It means we drop the paternalistic rationalizations for our
exercise of power (even if this means taking a risk). We then
acquire new obligations (helping minimize the risk to the
student without pre-empting their own judgments and rights).
It means we help the student acquire some of our cultural
capital, but not without the ability to be critical of
the political economy of culture that endows certain
knowledge and practices with social value (i.e. value to
those whose interests benefit from these practices,
often not including, except peripherally, us or our
students, or especially our students' communities and
peers). It means we have to be honest about our own
second-thoughts about what we teach, that we have to be
ready to accept radically different alternatives from
students, that we accept the obligation to explain the
risks and the ugly facts of power, domination, and
hegemony, and that we are prepared to be disbelieved
even about these. JAY.
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU