ESTHER SAXEY GOLDSMITHS UNIVERSITY OF LONDON ESAXEYGOLDACUK ‘ARGUING AGAINST

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Esther Saxey, Goldsmiths, University of London.

[email protected]


‘Arguing against the word of God’; pedagogy, sexuality and the power of student discussion.


• Part 1 Abstract


This paper explores areas of overlap between critical pedagogy and models of lesbian, gay and bisexual politics. Published first-person accounts from lecturers and teachers reveal how this overlap creates areas of intense potential – and areas of great tension - within the teaching approaches of individuals.

The paper focuses on student speech. Both critical pedagogy and sexual politics have characterised speech as a tool for redistributing power/authority and revising knowledge. However, while seminar discussion can promote learning and empower students, it also allows students to voice homophobic points of view. Lecturers’ strategies (for minimising harm and maximising benefit) vary greatly. Some close down debate, others promote it. Some lecturers characterise homophobic ‘knowledge’ as rote-learning or ‘transmitted’ (from parents or churches); discussion, they believe, will replace homophobia with better knowledge, learned in better ways. Most perform a complex balance between claiming and renouncing authority, and between openness and control.


• Part 2 Outline: a maximum 1000 word paper (not including references)


This paper explores the areas of overlap between critical pedagogy and models of sexuality, and the conflicts between them, particularly when the world comes into the seminar room. The paper draws on first-person accounts from teachers and lecturers, published in anthologies (One Teacher in Ten, Unmasking Identities and Lesbian Teachers) and articles (by Skelton, Silin, Kreber and Crew).

A shift occurs in both pedagogic philosophy and sexual politics in the 1970s and 1980s. Critical pedagogy advocates less hierarchical and authoritarian teaching; it works with students' existing knowledges rather than seeing them as a ‘blank slate’. It suggests that student speech within spaces of learning may empower students. Gay liberation (and allied movements) similarly disrupts models of authority and knowledge, and again privilege the speech of the disempowered. While earlier civil rights organisations called on expert (heterosexual) authorisation for their project, ‘liberation’ movements promoted LGB individuals themselves as knowledgeable experts.

This paper interrogates the areas of convergence, and the conflicts, between these two philosophies, as seen in the teaching practice of individuals. There is one key contradiction: critical pedagogy is often written by teachers exploring how far they can, or should, surrender and redistribute their authority. By contrast, sexual liberation texts are written by (and speak to) the disempowered, advocating the seizure of authority. The LGB teacher is therefore in the middle of two opposed dynamics, claiming authority as an LGB individual, but seeking to give up a portion of their teaching authority to promote learning. This double dynamic also applies to their students. Students are under the authority of tutors, but may themselves claim various forms of privilege over their tutor, or over other students. First-person accounts from lecturers describe the complex ways they balance these multiple subject positions.


This paper explores one area of teaching practice in particular: the use of discussion in seminars and its intersection with student homophobia. Speech, as noted, is seen as a key tool by both critical pedagogy and sexual politics. Who speaks in the classroom is one of the most obvious signs of who has power; critical pedagogic writing often advocates replacing the traditional lecture model with the more egalitarian seminar. For critical pedagogy, student speech in the classroom serves a double purpose, both personal and social: the individual students learn (through debate and discussion), and wider power relations are productively disrupted. The speech of lesbian and gay individuals is also seen as having both a personal and social purpose: first one speaks to define oneself, then to claim a wider authority and create social change.

However, speech is no panacea. Ellsworth (1989) and Orner (1992) argue that disempowered individuals can speak without being liberated:


How is the speaking received, interpreted, controlled, limited, disciplined and stylised by the speakers, the listeners, the historical moment? What use is made of 'the people's voice' after it is heard? (Orner, 1992, p. 76)


Many participants in Jackson's study are in favour of 'Listening to Student Voices' (as one section is titled) as a more equitable teaching method. They also believe it to be effective in undermining homophobic student attitudes. For learning to happen, students must be able to articulate and interrogate their own pre-existing understandings, as Todd Morman states:


I wanted it to be OK for a student to say “The thought of two men together disgusts me” [...] reasoning that little long-term good would come of a student pretending to be accepting if that weren't really the case. It seemed to me that the best way to encourage tolerance was to model it myself. (Morman, 1994, p. 239)


But teachers also wish to protect students from homophobic remarks from their peers. The desire for a space where it is safe to speak can clashes with the desire for a space where it is safe to be.

Some teachers acknowledge these problems but believe they can be minimised. Tony believes his presence as an out gay teacher can help ameliorate the damage done by homophobic comments (Jackson, 2007). In a situation such as this, the two-way dynamic mentioned earlier comes into play. Tony is both empowered as a teacher, and disempowered as a gay man in a homophobic environment. He is using his authority as an adult and a teacher to raise the status of gay individuals, to outweigh the negative opinions of students (who are younger and seen as less knowledgeable), and thus create a kind of safety net. But he is enabling a form of teaching – student discussion - which deliberately surrenders part of his authority. He aims at a precarious middle ground: not authoritarian, but still authoritative enough.

The ways student homophobia is conceptualised by teachers is often supported by, and in turn supports, their preferred pedagogical models. Several teachers describe how negative ideas come from parents (Gruenwald, 1994, p. 149) or religion, and that discussion is the best way to subject these pre-existing ideas to critical scrutiny. Gray's study explores this belief most fully. Leslie speculates that: 'maybe they’re in the presence of something that they’ve bin taught is not allowed, an’ that makes them very nervous, an’ angry.' (Gray, 2010, p. 123) Kate states: ‘…you’re arguing against the word of God. There’s little me, there’s little queer me an’ then there’s big God (but) kids are really quite open-minded if you give them the opportunity to ask questions.’ (Gray, 2010, p. 131) Homophobic ‘knowledge’ is understood here as rote-learned, transmitted (by parents and churches) rather than learned through critical methods or experiential routes. Thus homophobia is allied with older, discredited ways of teaching. Teachers believe that critical debate will reveal the holes in the homophobic knowledge, and replace it with better things, learned in better ways. I argue that this approach, while partially successful, underestimates the tenacity and flexibility of heteronormative systems of knowledge.

Most LGB lecturers perform a complex balance: claiming and renouncing authority, juggling openness and control. This paper highlights some individual teaching strategies, and locates them within wider pedagogic beliefs and sexual politics.



Bibliography



Jennings, K. ed. (1994) One Teacher in Ten: Gay and Lesbian Educators Tell Their Stories (Alyson Press)

Crew, L. (1977) Thriving Decloseted in Rural Academe, After You're Out; Personal Experiences of Gay Men and Lesbian Women (Pyramid Books) ed. Karla Jay and Allen Young.

Gruenwald, T. (1994) So what does happen when you answer "yes" to the "L" question? One Teacher in Ten: Gay and Lesbian Educators Tell Their Stories ed. Kevin Jennings (Alyson Press)

Gray, E. (2010) 'Miss Are You Bisexual?' The (re)production of heteronormativity in schools and the negotiation of lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers' private and professional worlds. <http://rmit.academia.edu/EmilyGray> [Accessed Febuary 28th 2013]

Jackson, J.M. (2007) Unmasking Identities: An Exploration of the Lives of Gay and Lesbian Teachers (Lexington Books).

Khayatt, M.D. (1992) Lesbian Teachers: An Invisible Presence (State University of New York Press).

Kreber, C. (2010) Academics' teacher identities, authenticity and pedagogy, Studies in Higher Education, 35:2, pp 171-194.

Morman, T. (1994) Among Friends, One Teacher in Ten: Gay and Lesbian Educators Tell Their Stories ed. Kevin Jennings (Alyson Press) pp 238-243.

Silin, J. G. (1999) Teaching as a Gay Man: Pedagogical Resistance or Public Spectacle? GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 5(1): pp 95-106.

Skelton, A. (2000) ' “Camping it Up to Make Them Laugh?” Gay Men Teaching in Higher Education' Teaching in Higher Education, 5:2, pp 181-197.

Ellsworth, E. (1989) Why Doesn’t This Feel Empowering? Working through the Repressive Myths of Critical Pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 59:3, pp 297-324.

Orner, M. (1992) Interrupting the Calls for Student Voice in 'Liberatory' Education: A Feminist Poststructuralist Perspective  Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy. Ed.  Carmen Luke and Jennifer Gore (Routledge)



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