| Friday, April 20, 2007 |
| Teaching |
When I asked Ms. Richardson about her style of teaching and her pedagogy, she responded:
"I most like teaching graduate classes in feminist theory. My teaching style is feminist...a lot of silence in the room, while we all think about the questions; a lot of discussion; a lot of writing and exploring of the "personal as political,:" a lot of challenging of our assumptions, including the feminist ones; a lot of thinking outside the box..."
The definition of a pedagogy (from www.dictionary.com) is "1.the function or work of a teacher; teaching. 2.the art or science of teaching; education; instructional methods." A feminist pedagogy, however, is a little bit different. It derives from Paulo Freire's work, and is directly in line with a post-modernist belief system. According to Carolyn Shrewsbury (http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~cbury/web/Welcome.html) the four main themes in the feminist pedagogy are empowerment, community, social action, and reflexivity. It is also important to know that a feminist pedagogy does not teach the belief in female dominance--it is instead a more discussion-based format for learning without a patriarchal structure. The summary of this is simply that the teacher is not standing in the front of the room lecturing, the students sit in a circle and are active participants in learning and discussing the material. Finally, a classroom that uses the feminist pedagogy will be more open to peer and teacher evaluations--in order for the student to have an upper hand in their own education.
When Ms. Richardson said that she likes to explore the concept of "the personal is political" she is referring to a theory that began in the 60's--that problems that certain races or genders or classes were suffering were not simply a personal inadequacy, but rather a flaw in society as a whole. The horrible things happening to these women an men were not happening in small, under-rug-swept cases, they were happening in mass to many people. This means that their situation needed attention on a government level--"the political".
Laurel Richardson basically defined her pedagogy as a feminist one, but I was surprised to learn that this style of learning was not a dictorial kind of feminism, but a theory that could be used by men and by all kinds of classes. It makes both the teacher and the student share an equal standing--everyone is being challenged to think differently, and to express themselves without fear of being ridiculed.  |
posted by J Mancini @ 3:48 PM  |
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