California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: March 20, 2001
Latest update: March 20, 2001
jeannecurran@habermas.org

On Tuesday, March 20, 2001, Shane Tokunaga wrote:

Jeanne,

I know in your classes that we like to joke about structural violence and everything. But I have an example of how it helped me instead. This past Winter I took a Winter Session course so that I could lighten my course load this semester. Boy, was I in for a shock to say the least. In three weeks we had to read nine books and basically write a paper every other day. After each book we also had a quiz the beginning of the next class. I felt that taking this class during the Winter helped me a lot because during the regular semester I would have had too much time on my hands, and I would have put off reading the books. This way, I was forced into reading them so I wouldn't fall behind and then couldn't catch up, and it would have been a waste of money. Luckily, I passed the class.

On Tuesday, March 20, 2001, jeanne responded:

Interesting perspective, Shane. And I suspect that you are right, that the structural violence of forcing you to conform to the compressed time limits did help you to keep up by scaring you into believing that in such a short time frame you might have fallen hopelessly behind had you procrastinated, and thus wasted the money for the course.

But if you think about how structural violence comes to be, you'll see that your interpretation is not so radical, after all. Rules are constructed for just this reason. So that what you not do get done by motivation and self-discipline you are forced to get done for fear of some kind of external punishment. I would maintain that that's an adversarial approach to learning, but not a completely ineffective one. I would have been happier to see you so inspired by the class discussions and the sharing of papers that you enjoyed the work. I noticed you said very little about the satisfaction of learning. Alfie Kohn would say that you missed out by working for a reward (credit for the class) rather than for genuine learning. I'd like to see some elaboration on this, because I suspect that in focusing on structural violence, you maybe neglected to tell us that you did enjoy the learning.

My concern is that when the rules treat students as fungible, that we are categorizing and routinizing learning to the detriment of sensitivity to our many differences. You did say "Luckily, I passed." I would like to think that luck would have little to do with the evaluation of learning. Good and fair measurement, and good faith listening with respect for one another might have made you experience more memorable and more rewarding.

Another problem I have with such a learning setup is that it operates on the premise that people will not learn unless you force them to. I think that is patently wrong. People have a need to learn. Remind me to tell you the story of the white-footed mice. Pretty much like theory x and theory y in management, the two sides of the argument that say people won't work unless you make them, and that people will work if you let them.

Former prisoners have said much the same thing about their incarceration. Many say that incarceration saved their lives by stopping them from a destructive past. But most agree also that they were held in prison for a much longer time than necessary to their changed behaviors. The punishment far exceeded the learning value of the experience. That kind of ambivalence, expressed within Convict Criminology, is very much like the ambivalence you seemed to feel with the Winter course.

Gordon Fellman suggests that it is time for a paradigm shift away from adversarialism and punishment to mutuality and concern for and sharing with each other. Your shared comment makes it clear this is not an easy shift, and not simple.

love and peace, jeanne