Phillip, I think it IS the dominant culture and I doubt that it will change.
Certainly at the doctoral level many of us see our task as preparing our
students for situations (classrooms, journal articles, dissertation
defenses, conference presentations, department meetings, tenure reviews,
etc.) where it is often necessary to present yourself as an expert, defend
your position, present a coherent and logical argument, and so forth.
Whether this culture does any good in the world beyond perpetuating itself
is debatable. An interesting perspective on this is an old paper by Dorothy
Sayers called "The Lost Tools of Learning" (available at
http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html) that essentially presents the argument
that we do our students a disservice if we do not teach the skills of
debate, argumentation, persuasion, etc. There are many other skills, of
course, that could be equally valuable: story telling, example,
collaboration, practical action, etc. My own position is to promote as many
types of these skills as possible and allow people to choose which they will
emphasize...........djc
-----Original Message-----
From: Phillip White [mailto:Phillip_White@ceo.cudenver.edu]
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 3:29 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: FW: TP Msg. # 384 NOT FOR WOMEN ONLY
Don forwarded a post that included an essay by Mannix, a part which i've
highlighted.
Women might also find the learning method in graduate school
unfamiliar, intimidating, or difficult. No more lecture-study-test
that defines the undergraduate years. In graduate school, learning
stems from critique and discussion. Some women tend to feel
browbeaten when bombarded with seemingly harsh questions or consider
them personal affronts. Negative feedback should be viewed as part of
the process. Learn to evaluate criticism (opinion) and decide if it's
valued, say the authors. Females also tend to internalize problems,
which leads to discouragement and feelings of self-doubt. The man "is
more likely to think the equipment was bad or the gods were
conspiring against him," says Lazarus. "He is more likely to
externalize the problem."
i too have often found myself feeling browbeaten or marginalized by
harsh questions - this has been a terribly difficult process to
negotiate -
however, it seems as if the ultimate message is: the dominant
culture is
not to be expected to change - so those of you who don't fit into the
dominant discourse will have to adjust/adapt.
do you think i'm misreading this?
phillip
* * * * * * * *
* *
The English noun "identity" comes, ultimately, from the
Latin adverb "identidem", which means "repeatedly."
The Latin has exactly the same rhythm as the English,
buh-BUM-buh-BUM - a simple iamb, repeated; and
"identidem" is, in fact, nothing more than a
reduplication of the word "idem", "the same":
"idem(et)idem". "Same(and) same". The same,
repeated. It is a word that does exactly what
it means.
from "The Elusive Embrace" by Daniel
Mendelsohn.
phillip white
doctoral student http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~hacms_lab/index.html
scrambling a dissertation
denver, colorado
phillip_white@ceo.cudenver.edu
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