tara's tierra

Ode to Kicking Fences

Perhaps it was a result of the fourteen hours I spent in transit yesterday or perhaps it was a result of a thousand other things, but today was not the hottest for me. I went to bed with a splitting headache and woke up with a splitting headache. I was seated on the plane last night to a woman who was pregnant, which I suppose might be fortunate for her, but was rather unfortunate for me because she seemed to think that her physical state meant that my seat was, in fact, her seat. This seat creepery (coined term by author) was compounded by the fact that the woman next to her (thankfully, I had the aisle) was me times eight. But anyway, it was a long flight indeed.

But, the day turned around when I walked into class. And, I think most of us who teach would agree,  beautiful moments in classrooms don't happen all that often. It's not anyone's fault -- student's or teacher's-- it just is a fact that not every class can be a tear-jerker. Thankfully. But today, it really was! Our students (I co-teach) had to do group presentations based on the title of our course, "Memory and the Sorrow Songs." Group One went today and I was really overwhelmed by how thoughtful and inspiring their presentation was. They set up these six "stations" as if the classroom were a museum exhibit. Each stop had an elaborate poster with a description of a traumatic event in U.S. history that led to the creation of a song to memorialize it. Each person played the song they had chosen on their laptop for us, and explained why they had chosen it.  Breaking all fire code rules, the students even lit candles in the class, adding aura to the experience. They also gave out brochures at the beginning that included the lyrics to each of the songs they had chosen. I was so proud of them and I felt like, wow, I just learned something from my students, cliché as it may sound.

Here is a poem that one of the students chose. It really moved me for myriad reasons.  Wayne Leman, a Native American, wrote it and it is titled "Breakout" :

The map states the boundaries
The fence makes them firm
It's there to protect --
Who?
We who live within the fence
Or those who live without?
Roads run through
And we can drive away at any time
But when we do we're
                         scrutinized
                         criticized
                         patronized
                         demeaned
The outside does not belong to us
                        it belongs to others
                        those who live outside the fence
Reservation is called inside the fence
Reserved for us
But it seems that we are the ones
                        who are reserved
                         for it,
                         to stay inside the fence
Prisoners of the fence
                         and social fences
                         and our own ambivalence
                         and crippling dependence
                         our souls long for deliverance
                         freedom
                         space
                         acceptance
                         breakout
Can breakout be for those of us
                         within the fence?
And what is breakout, anyway --
                         geographical
                         psychological
                         cultural
                         personal
                         spiritual?
Can we breakout by leaving on the highway
                         or can it happen
                         inside the fence?

 Anyway, like I said, ode to sappiness, learning, and kicking down fences. With boots.

 

Pedagogical Quandries

I had a funny conversation with a friend the other day. I was sipping on an iced tea wondering whether I should embark on academic journey A or B. I explained that when I talked about B I felt entirely unsure and scared but that it seemed more exciting. My smart friend advised, "Well, I think you should be writing your dissertation about something that, when you explain it, you have no *ucking idea what you're talking about." We both started hysterically laughing, but this is, afterall, true to a degree. If I want to stay interested in what I am doing for two years, I better have little idea what it is I am after. I need to grapple with slippery terms and ideas and then figure out what it is I am talking about later. This coffee break chatter got me thinking about teaching, though -- about who knows what, about who does not know what, and about the delicate balance between pushing the student yet giving her or him enough to encourage hard thinking and creative scholarship.

I have had on the whole extremely invigorating and thought provoking classes during my four years of course-work at Berkeley, both in the Spanish department and outside. However, here are some observations on the pedagogical environment of graduate seminars:

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(1) The Pedantic Graduate Student: Graduate students' ideas (no matter how profound the individual thinks they are) are often vague, inarticulate, and plain wrong. If they go on for too long (and hell yeah, I have certainly been one of these people), the rest of the students get so fed up they want to throw their novel and impossible theoretical text at said student. Secretly, they also become jealous and think, "Why is this shmuck receiving so much attention?"

A good solution is a balance between lecture, guided conversation, and presentations. Of course, I am sure that guided conversation is entirely impossible to manage, but as long as the professor interjects occasionally things can go a lot smoother.

(2) The Dumb Graduate Student: Half kidding. I like that professors want to push us and not spoon-feed us, but I also think that it would have been really helpful if more information was given out, such as, "the reason why Homi Bhabha is relevant (or totally irrelevant!) is because he fits into a historical trajectory resembling this...(see professor draw or outline such trajectory on the board). I seriously think that there are such massive gaps in basic knowledge of what the relationship between post-structuralism and post-modernism are, and without clarification it takes the graduate student 5 years of his or her own head-banging to arrive to an answer that the professor might be able to clarify from day one.

(3) The Bridge: Again, I don't want to act lazy when in fact I think the contrary is true. But sometimes a little bit of help can help the graduate student develop more enthusiasm for a topic. There were many occasions when the connection between a visual slide and a written text were left hanging in the air as if they were readily apparent. There were also many times when the connection between a theoretical piece and a primary text were never touched upon, each was discussed as a discrete text whose relevance was in a self-referential bubble.

It is the graduate students' responsibility to make many of said connections and build his or her own bridges in papers and presentations, at the end of the day. But, if the notion of the bridge itself is never pointed out then I think some younger students are left thinking theory is A and primary text is B. A and B are separate entities. This will not cut it when they go to write dissertations.

(4) The Unsure Professor: Professors at Berkeley are brilliant. They are startingly brilliant in myriad ways. Scary. Frightening. Geniuses. They have gotten jobs at a Research 1 University and they basically know more than anyone on their topic. So, they should walk into the classroom and OWN the entire room. Not that they should be so intimidating as to scare us from saying a word, but they are the lighthouse for the three hours and should lecture as such at the beginning of class.  I think an opening commentary is immensely helpful for setting the parameters of discussion and for providing a foundation for dialogue. When they walk in and say things like, "So, what did you think of this text?" then number 1 immediately happens and the class slips away with many bewildered and a few thinking they are the demigods of their departments.  We are lost ships banging into each other. Be the beacon.
***

I have no idea how hard it must be to teach a graduate seminar. I also know I would not have learned how to be a more articulate speaker in Spanish or English if I had not been allowed to ramble on aimlessly in search of a point. I  do want to learn how to be a good teacher and I do want to learn how to help future students be amazing students. If any of my readers out there have more thoughts on this, feel free to share since I think this is a really important topic.