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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created: October 25, 2002
Latest Update: October 25, 2002
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

On Rejecting the Silencing

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, October 2002.
"Fair use" encouraged.

I think we've taken as our collective theme this semester An End to Silencing. When the P.E. teacher, whose class follows ours, fussed so about chairs not being turned around last Thursday in Women and Society, he failed to consider that it was a feminist class. He's fussed before that Jay left writing on the board. Well Jay's a full professor and has been here as long as I have or longer. I don't think I'll tell him my mother said he ought to behave and erase the board. Pat saw the P.E. teacher's fussing as a way to teach him that there are alternative forms of teaching. Sorry, Pat, I don't think I'll tell him what my mother would have said about Mary, Mary Quite Contrary, Chairs All in a Row. And he just wouldn't listen when I tried to tell him that I had missed class because I was sick. So, guess what? When you encounter someone that closed, who touches so little upon your lifeworld, forget it. My guess is he's too far from illocutionary discussion to make it worth my time.

I'm not at all happy with you, if I hear any of you saying that you are so far apart you can't even talk to each other. That always infuriates me. You have come this long way in education. If you can't speak to one another in an illocutionary discussion, who can, for heavens' sake? Negotiatiion is based on finding a place to start, a place were we can agree. With this teacher, I guess I could start with Mother taught me that I should be polite, too. But I think he thinks his Mother was the God of Polite, so he doesn't entertain the possibility that my Momma might have been bigger than his Momma. Gracious, my mother wouldn't even have considered it socially acceptable for me to call her Momma. My Mother would have said that if you would like someone to put chairs in a certain order when they leave, you could ask politely. And then you could listen politely if they have something to say about it. Especially, if they seem to be upset by your request or the way you made it.

At any rate, let's get the theory straight. It's not that Pat and I won't or don't know how to negotiate our way around all those not straight chairs. It's more like that chaos is the best way I can think of putting it so that he'll really get it. Learning is about chaos, and freedom, and making mistakes, and trusting enough to make them again until we get it straight. And since he says that "people every morning put all those chairs in a straight row, well, maybe it's about time we relieve them of that task, for to leave them in such rows, as I stated repeatedly last semester, is to be silenced, and to accept that as the "one right way for them to be." The janitor faces them forward in rows because that's how it was when he was in school. So that becomes the standard for how we teach in college??? I consider that kind of attitude dangerous to a college education. When we finish our discussions, if you have time and are physically able to do so, put them back in a row. But I have no intention of ordering anyone to do it. It's a part of our classroom needs to have them in a circle. If you leave early, you can't do it, because it would disturb our discussion. And it's a part of our learning needs for us to insist that others, who would order us to behave in ways that come purely from their own perspective, learn to hear us as we say together that we will not be silenced. I reckon you could quote Johnny Cochran on that. That's just what I heard him say here last Thursday. You could also quote almost any of the scholars I consulted over the many years as I took a Ph.D. in Education, behind a Phi Beta Kappa key. And along with Sharon Raphael, I don't like honor societies because of what they do to others. But I'll bet the P.E teacher'd sure be impressed by it. That's sort of what they're for - to impress ordinary folks. And it's what my Momma would have called "ordinary" to tell other professors who use the classroom what "basic manners" are for the use of that classroom.

Please kids, remember its easier and more gratifying to be kind than to confront. But that doesn't mean that when something is definitely wrong, you shouldn't stand firm and say so. Uncalled- for comments to fellow professors in front of students is unacceptable and unprofessional behavior. So say so. Politely, but don't be afraid to say so.