My object is a syllabus, which I thought was important to include in its entirety, so rather than cutting-and-pasting it here, I've posted it to the forum on the Moodle. Do take a look.
It is a syllabus for a graduate seminar I took last year here at the U. I include it not because it is a source of continued bitterness (which, in the interest of full disclosure, it is), but because it provides such good evidence of where pedagogy that seems like it will be critical can actually turn out to be anything but. Solid theoretical framework -- check. Troubling established narratives -- check. Inclusion of diverse socio-economic-cultural perspectives -- check. Collaborative instruction -- check. Regardless, the course had subtle and fatal flaws, which led to failure on almost every account (based on talks I've had with nearly everyone who took it): students learned little to nothing, they disliked the course and their experience in it, and they felt routinely disempowered.
I could rant about this class forever. Here, however, I will limit myself to a discussion of three of its most prominent fatal flaws.
FATAL FLAW #1: the scorn and frivolity that pervaded the class from the outset. This has more to do with the course than with the syllabus itself (contra academic bureaucrats everywhere, a syllabus and a course are not the same thing) -- from the start, an in-crowdish environment pervaded -- but you can see traces of it in the syllabus. First of all, I did not sign up to take "Performance and Political Modernity." On One Stop, it's called "History and Theory of Western Theatre: Enlightenment Through Naturalism." The post-colon part of this course description, you will note, is shouldered aside in the course description as one of those narratives that the course will be "troubling" (read: ignoring). No question, mind you, of whether the students in the class actually wanted to "trouble" it. In fact, most people in the class (myself included) were really interested in learning about western theatre, if from a critical perspective. No dice. The professor was so "critical," she did not bother to inquire into the generative questions of her students. This scorn and frivolity continues into the list of topics and readings. Look at Week 2. Hegel, Marx/Engels, Weber, Simmel, Baudelaire, Kant, and Mill in one week? Really? Oh, right, we're just reading these so that we can throw them all under the bus and get on with the "critical" (read: trendy) work (as if all of these people weren't critical of modernity, even as they participated in it). The sheer volume of reading made it impossible to take any of these texts particularly seriously -- and made it less likely that some of us (not naming names) did any of the reading particularly carefully.
FATAL FLAW #2: the organization of topics and readings. Part and parcel to real critical pedagogy, at least as I understand it, is creating a classroom space in which students and teacher collectively create knowledge together and build their expertise and literacy in the subject matter (their knowledge and their ability to express it) as the course progresses. Such a process is precluded by the organization of this course. Each week presents brand new topics, brand new theories, brand new case studies, and brand new historical, cultural, and geographic contexts. There was very little in one week that you could use to better understand the material in the next. Students perpetually started from square one. Nor did the syllabus, or any subsequent professor-generated document, give students any clue how the weeks fit together, what the guiding questions were, etc. The teacher was the only one with more detailed information, and with the agenda. Basic example: when we move from China one week to Cuba the next to Ghana the following, there is no way to understand history and context at anything but a superficial level. The only recourse that the syllabus leaves open is to study this material by reading the work of (white privileged European mostly male) theorists, and seeing how (mostly white privileged Euro-American) academics took the work of said theorists and applied it to the performance practices of brown folks located elsewhere. Which, incidentally, reinscribes the course in exactly those hegemonic practices it set out to "trouble".
FATAL FLAW #3: the collaborative instruction. Yes, I know. Collaborative instruction is a good thing, right? I certainly think so, and I use it a bunch in my own teaching. But effective collaborative instruction is built on (1) an environment of mutual support and trust, and (2) a growing mutual literacy in the subject matter. These were, as discussed above, not present in this environment. The "collaborative instruction" amounted to flailing around in the dark, with little idea about direction, priority, etc. Students were provided no guidance, or opportunity to collaborate with the instructor. Each week thus brought a different set of teachers, equally poorly informed, with whole new agendas about where to go and how to get there; the professor's role was reduced to that of occasional commentator. In addition, the requirement that they bring in supplemental readings and objects further contributed to the glut of material and made it virtually impossible to discuss any given material in any depth. The result: a mess.
I'll stop here...for now.
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