• jeanne's Introduction
• The "affective component" of learning
• What Do You Mean By? by Rebecca McLaughlin, UWP.
• Some of the theory behind affect and learning
• Discussion Questions

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Introduction

This is a summary of data from the Spring Break in 2001. Gale and Mac were hard at work on their papers for Reno. jeanne was desperately trying to restructure to site so it would be intuitively simple to use, which was not easy as fast as it was growing. And Susan, well, Susan was trying to eke a sabbatical out of all this. Spring Break found us all at home, working feverly for our Reno meet at the Western Social Science Association. And, of course, all online again. First time since the semester started up in January.

I plan to make the qualitative data, the e-mails themselves, available for secondary analysis. But that will have to wait for the summer and a larger harddisk. This teaching essay is just a tidbit of that data to give you a chance to follow the reflexive methodology we are trying to use as we search for means to develop transformative discourse in the university undergraduate curriculum.

I got so caught up in the e-mail dialog, I never got to exclusion from the backstage. I'll try to do that Sunday evening or Monday. But nag me and we'll get there. jeanne, late Saturday night. April 14, 2001.

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On Saturday, April 14, 2001, Susan wrote:

the emotional side of learning is the "affective component" of learning. teachers, in general, have overemphasized the importance of the cognitive component, but in "learning is messy," often it is the affective component that comes up. some of our most valuable lessons in life are those "painful" ones, extra "messy" ones (hence, the affective component happening). it's also the "really real" lessons, too.

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On Saturday, April 14, 2001, Mac wrote:

Mac: Jeanne....good deal. I have a few theories of my own as to what you've identified so well as "normative" in virtual,

jeanne: You should just go ahead and state them, Mac. This isn't the stage of academic discourse at which you "need" precedents. This is the process that used to take place in elite doctoral programs, when teachers and students could still afford this time to talk over academic theories and practice. This is how they (not we, because Susan and I never had that option) taught the young aspiring professors. And there was an is a hierarchy there. (I'll put up resources on that later.)

So I've identified one kind of hierarchy: the kind that excludes students at non-elite schools from such academic discourse. References: Bourdieu, Academic Discourse - will find links for you later. Nag me. Susan and I are trying to transform academic discourse to (1) break down the class hierarchy inherent from the early years of the American university, and (2) to break down the assumption of privilege that has prevented academics from recognizing that not all students have been equitably prepared for such discourse and so need introduction (or a dinner table.)

Mac: unfortunately, I have no one that I'm aware of that has already stated this.

jeanne: That's OK. That's the next stage, when we share with colleagues our seach for alternative theoretical paths to understanding the problem we've set ourselves.

Mac: It's likely then to have loose ends that need tied up.

jeanne: I'm sorry. You ARE stating what you're thinking. Good kid!

Mac: I'm curious to what you've referred to twice already, as a sort of hierarchy that I've interpreted you to mean as being an obstacle? Can you please explain in more depth what you're referring to about hierarchy so that I may better understand?

jeanne: Yes. And yes, I do see hierarchy as a barrier, for it is based on power, and so, just as easily abused. First, there is the classist hierarchy of schools, with the elite (well-funded) schools having traditionally provided more academic discourse to their own budding professionals than could the working-class schools. (This is from a study done at Stanford Graduate Center? School? for Research in Education; presented at Queens College in 1990, I think it was. The papers are buried somewhere in my basement, but Stanford should be able to identify its own research.) When budgets were so drastically cut in higher education that NSF grants were ever smaller and smaller at even schools like Stanford, and there was little seed money forthcoming from the schools, even elite schools afforded less time to the process of weaning future professionals on academic discourse, and the working-class schools began to turn the young professionals into technical directors of the labs. Then, when Ph.D.s were earned, the working-class Ph.D.s were hired to be lab directors, and the elite from the elite schools were hired to be the future scholars of the field. Yes, I consider that a barrier. Unequal access for what may well have been equal scientific talent, but without the financial resources to prepare at the elite school.

Then, on a completely different level, Duncan Kennedy , in Kairys, Politics of Law (again, some of this online - will have to find it) , in both editions, complains of the hierarchy in the educational system, in which he sees the arrogance of professors who bully the students, who learn to acquiesce to the bullying. He also complains that this hierarchical pervasiveness overcomes the "liberal" student, who ranks higher on teacher evaluation forms the bully than the professor who respects him/her and does not bully them. Kennedy concludes that the liberal students are seduced away by the greater power they sense in the arrogant bullies than in the "mushy" centrists. He's talking about Harvard Law students! I have always disagreed with Kennedy on this issue, since I think the arrogant bullying of their legal colleagues should be taken on by the "mushy centrists", not by young people trying to carve out their careers, with all the uncertainty that entails.

We can add to this at a later time, as we follow the argument, but this much might help for now.

Mac: And can alterity work in reverse? What are the confines? ....when you get back or get a chance.

jeanne: Can alterity work in reverse? hmmm . . . Well, alterity as I am using it, means the process of taking the "Other" into account, of hearing the "Other" in good faith, and of taking the "Other's" validity claims into account as we make decisions that may indeed affect the "Other." To work in reverse would therefore seem to mean that the "Other" should also take "Person's" validity claims into account. In that sense, absolutely, alterity works in reverse. For the word "Person" is interchangeable with the word "Other," the only difference between them being that "Person" holds the power to make decisions affecting them both, while "Other" has no such power. The basis for making one "Other" is usually class, race, color, and/or gender.

Does this help?

Hey, Mac, you're writing theory. love and peace, jeanne

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On Saturday, April 14, 2001, Susan and jeanne wrote:

Susan: these are educational researcher terms, (right, jeanne?).

Jeanne: Right. These are real terms in educational research and in learning theory.

The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Affective and Cognitive Domain, by Bloom and Krathwohl, were two early volumes (early 70s, late 60s?) on behavioral objectives, while we were still not totally committed to education as a corporate enterprise. The fairly traditional cognitive domain included: recognition, recall, application, analysis, synthesis, as I recall. But Bloom and Krathwohl understood that didn't say it all in the complex reality of the real world. And so they looked to the affective component. I have both volumes, I think, or did, and have some of it online.

See further comments below:

At 08:59 PM 4/14/2001, Susan Takata wrote:

Susan: when i teach race and ethnic relations courses, the theories i introduce turn some students' world views upside down. like a little pin i picked up from a street vendor in Berkeley while I was a grad student reads: "Considering alternatives." isn't that neat?

jeanne: Yep! Alterity!

Susan: sometimes when your world view is turned upside down, it's a "painful" lesson. lots of affect.

jeanne: Typically the understanding of the latent learning of racial discrimination is scary to whites. "I am not prejudiced." time Wise in White Denial of the School Shootings addresses this phenomenon. On site.

Susan: i've had students angry at me but later they stop by (sometimes three and four years later) to let me know that they've had time to think about it, and such and such point does hold true or have an impact.

jeanne: Yep! Education is supposed to stretch the corners of your mind.

Susan: back in 1989 the interim report on the stanley mosk undergraduate moot court still remains the best reference i've got on the elements of our teaching/learning model. it was hall's levels of learning -- the most affect is attached to out-of-awareness informal learning. the least affect is attached to technical learning. edward t. hall --jeanne?

jeanne: Yep. Edward T. Hall ( I think that's for Titmouse - ask Pat, the name has always fascinated her), The Silent Language, first half of the book. I never liked the second half.

Susan: (don't have the reference in this report). there is affect because you care about what you're learning; because what you're learning is hitting a sensitive chord, too.

think about some of the most painful lessons learned, like when you flunked an exam with painful consequences. but sometimes it didn't happen in the classroom but on the playground when your group of friends decide you don't "belong."

going back to the comforts of teaching in the traditional style of droning lectures, little student input, tests on those horrible scantron sheets -- it's all too predictable and is a comfort to those teachers who don't like taking risks.

jeanne: Interesting comment, Susan, Brings to mind Anthony Giddens' comment on direct risk taking and manufactured risk - he's unclear at defining the "manufactured risk" for me, but I'm still going over it. As I understand it at this point, manufactured risk is that risk that we create through the infrastructure. I think here that would include tenure and promotion based on the production of x short-term research articles and x no. of courses taught with the "right" number of A's, B's C's. etc. Tenure criteria could control the non-tenured or non-Full professor to a very specific pattern to gain tenure, and that goes on now for seven years or so. Limit someone's imaginary that long through dominant discourse, and not surprising if they're uncomfortable with real risk-taking in meaningful efforts. I know Spivak says I mustn't compare it to colonization, but I can't help it. I FEEL colonized. And my command of language doesn't assuage that feeling. I may be able to command the language, but I can't command their arrogance which drives the language! Damn them! Now, Mac, that's the affective domain.

Susan: it's easy. why invest the time in teaching when the real rewards are in the research?

jeanne: but are they? ( I know, I know, you were being sarcastic.) even for the good little professors who publish their five articles and get tenure? if their students never learn to create justice? Nah, I wouldn't say I have an agenda here.

Susan: teaching is just a side thing to justify the research end. but there are those of us who take our teaching seriously and truly want our students to really learn; to learn what's really real. but if the age old routine is "acceptable" then why bother to invest the extra time and energy to expect real learning to happen? terrible, isn't it?

jeanne: yeah. But two students, who don't know each other, separated by at least half a continent, wrote today, one asking about alterity, and the other about hermeneutics. I believe, i believe, i believe . . . jeanne

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Discussion Questions

1. jeanne's notes on one plausible response:

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