I enjoyed Diane's poem very much, well, it did have a poetic ring to it. I
liked the differentiation between stupitity and ignorance. It reminded me
of an Ed Policy class I was in, in which upon discussing class issues and
the state of some schools I was of the conclusion this could only exist
because of ignorance. There was so much information it could only happen
because of ignorance, a deliberate attempt to stop caring, a conscious
attempt that as long as my school is o.k. everything is fine. What
surprized me was the other students, mostly from nice middleclass suburbs
were actually shocked at the inequality. They couldn't believe it existed,
if only someone had told them that this kind of inequality existed. Rather
than ignorance they were stupid in Diane's sense of looking but not seeing.
> (A young would-be teacher asks me what to do about homophobia if she
> doesn't believe in homosexuality...and all i can think is she isn't even
> thinking about what she is asking - she isn't thinking. Teacher? NOT.Will
> she be? YA!! Blond haired, blue-eyed Christian girl, sweet as all get
out -
>
Doesn't believe? Doesn't believe it exists, or doesn't believe a group
should be dignified as human. I remenber when during my internship we did
a unit on difference which focused heavily on homosexuality, and was
bothered by the emphasis on demonstrating homosexuality or aids was not a
sin, so they did not deserve to be treated less than human. What bothered
me so much about this reasoning was that if one could demonstrate, it was
aids in particular, that it was medical instead of moral one had no
justification in treating them less than human. What that left open was
the reasoning that if we can villify a group or group of people on moral or
other grounds treating them less than human is legitimate. Morality, tends
to go hand and hand with who is human or not human. If we can demonstrate
a group as immoral then we are justified in treating then in a certain
fashion. Children are immoral or "ignorant" so we are justified in
treating them in a certain way that we would not treat "humans". Delpit in
discussing developmentalism with Native Alaskans reflects on what an elder
said, "we don't think in that way, we see children as humans from the day
they are born.
The joke, the joke, tell it again, please!
NATE
> nate eugene, and others,
>
> I have been reading this chain of thought, and it was nate's mention of
> the reference to the stupid teachers than spurred this all, that first
> stupid and ignorant are different - ignorance is willful; stupidity is a
> lack of depth, a contentedness with appearances and surfaces - not bad or
> good - but different.
> and there are stupid teachers and stupid students with way high GPAs,
> and there all kinds of einsteins on the street bumming quarters;
stupidity
> is satisfaction with what seems to be. seems to be straight A's. GPA
Rules.
>
> ...of course, a GPA means they are good students -
> just as teachers can get good GPAs and still be stupid.
> these are not epistemological evaluations, so it isn't actually about
stupidity.
> frankly, something as structural like syllabi, contained in the same
space
> as the imprecision of sponteneity are like atoms smashing in the
> accelerator - i mean, that could be brilliant or stupid, depending on
what
> is valuable to the folks who are looking.
>
> as far as smarts and stupids and education, thought, isn't it time to
admit it?
> the romance is over and the relations have changed...?
> Rousseau is dead; Sophie is a physicist; Emile is a drag-Queen
>
> And really, really, Democracy is a tyranny of mediocrity that thrives in
> its own reproductive banality and
> wretches in its own excess.
>
> and _that's_ the stupidity. how do you make calculus matter when entire
> genocide doesn't matter? there is no value to human life: what could
> possibly matter anywhere, when there is no ethic of acting as human
beings
> with each other?
>
> Maybe i will differentiate what's stupid
> and what's ignorant?
>
>
> Shoshana Felman (1987)_Jacques Lacan and the Adventure of Insight:
> Psychoanalysis and comtemporary culture_ (Harvard Univ. Press)
>
> Felman
> writes two invaluable chapters for educators,
> (and Felman writes intelligible and readable text:)
>
> Ch. 3: "What difference does psychoanalysis make? Or, the Originality of
> Freud;"
>
> and Ch. 4: Psychoanalysis and Education."
>
> In the latter, Felman makes a compelling case to support the
sociocultural
> implications of ontology and epistemology collapsing (e.g., identity is
> knowledge = we are Who by What we Know, which is what we recall,
remember,
> revive, renew, and by constantly letting go of old knowledge so that
> learning is always happening, she said thinking she might puke with the
> sappines).
>
> So: "...ignorance is linked to what will not be remembered, what will
not
> be memorized...[which is] tied up with
> repression, the imperative to forget..."
>
> - this alludes to more than "how-to" make this idea/concept stick;
> but asks instead: what associations make it necessary to forget?
>
> Lacan goes on, "Ignorance is not a passive state of absence, a simple
lack
> of information: it is an active dynamic of negation, an active refusal of
> information." (Felman, 79)
>
> In a relation that cuddles up nicely with Foucault's power/knowledge
> traces, Lacan (ya he was demented, sure, but not without his moments of
> insight) also writes that the
> phenomenon of transference, (where a person transfers her relational
issues
> to the person/object with whom she is confiding/interacting) is
inseparable
> from a transference with
>
> knowledge:
>
> that is, knowing provides the same function as psychoanalytic
transference,
> which is the opportunity to interpret one's own language and symbols,
> where knowledge provides responses, metaphors, options, allegories,
> history, fiction, characters, scenarios, ... visceral/organic relations
> with historical Others who wrote/write - all with the desire/need to
> understand.
>
> so, the transference is to the object/and(or/author of knowledge; it is
> sought for understanding, it is sought with the intuitive need for a
> relation with an other in order to understand; and without
understanding,
> one cannot move on...
>
> wittgenstein, i believe, also who claimed no one could move
> forward without understanding - and understanding took place in a kind of
> linguistic crisis, or turning point where meanings are potentially open
to
> the instant of the need for that word; essential and terrifying; but as
one
> moves to understand, it remains possible to move on
>
> Lacan writes that as he sees the need to "...to support the idea of
> transference, as indistinguishable from love, with the formula of the
> subject presumed to know [e.g., the client with repressed unconscious
> knowledge/student who refuses to learn], I cannot fail to underline the
new
> resonance with which this notion of knowledge is involved. The person in
> whom i presume knowledge to exist thereby acquires my love...transference
> is love... it is love directed towards, addressed to, knowledge." (In
> Felman: 86)
>
> there are many bright/brilliant/transcendently visionary/life-changing
> educators out there; and there aren't; there are also people who have no
> idea
>
> what schooling is about, and refuse/ignore the issues that children/youth
> must contend with.
> (A young would-be teacher asks me what to do about homophobia if she
> doesn't believe in homosexuality...and all i can think is she isn't even
> thinking about what she is asking - she isn't thinking. Teacher? NOT.Will
> she be? YA!! Blond haired, blue-eyed Christian girl, sweet as all get
out -
>
>
> Stupidity: it is a looking that does not see, eyes skim the surface of
> things already seen and remembered; it is the teacher who ignores the kid
> who just growled "fag!" at the hall monitor;
>
> it seems like all we know is that to teach is not to reverse the inverted
> trajectory of how to learn.
> but we are guessing about learning, so -
>
> just thinking aloud, as usual.
> gracias,
> diane,
>
> p.s. i'm sure i've told y'all the joke about the speed of stupid.
> ha ha.
>
> """"""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""
> 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.
> (by Kathleen Hanna: Riot Grrl)
> ******************************************
> diane celia hodges
> university of british columbia
> faculty of graduate studies,
> centre for the study of curriculum and instruction,
> vancouver, british columbia, canada
>
> email: dchodges who-is-at interchnage.ubc.ca
>
>