I modeled a personal reflection on my own writing for students nearing the end of the semester in College Writing. The title evolved from the need for a spontaneous example one day, "Steph ruminates on writing identity narratives," to a nod to the letter's conclusion.
teaching: April 2007 Archives
Do we have enough vocabulary to specify the unique relationship that writing teachers form with students? Do we need a precise specification of what the relationship ought to be in order to be the best that we can be as instructors, mentors, even "nurses" to undergraduate writing students? The notion of being a nurse was raised by a colleague based on the pedagogy of Paulo Freire:
"...Freire [has a] strong aversion to the teacher-student dichotomy . . . what Freire suggests is that a deep reciprocity be inserted into our notions of teacher and student. Freire wants us to think in terms of teacher-student and student-teacher; that is, a teacher who learns and a learner who teaches, as the basic roles of classroom participation."
We're struggling with the aftermath of the mass killing at Virginia Tech. What does such an horrific event mean for us as teachers? Could anything have prevented the tragedy? Would we recognize the potential danger? If so, is any action possible that would make a difference? And if there was an action, would it not also depend on language?
How much are we willing to say?
I forgot to include this speech by Nikki Giovanni at last week's Virginia Tech Memorial Service in yesterday's post.
Her talk is moving. She effectively contexts this tragedy with all the other tragedies being experienced even now, this moment, by families and communities around the world. A friend last night reflected on his own reaction to the event, his surprise at the depth of shock and surprise so many feel. And indeed, the shock is deep. That we - Americans - can be so stunned by senseless violence illustrates how insulated we are from the indescribable acts violence occurring regularly around the globe, sometimes even in our name.
While I don't think any one person could have done the magic thing that would have stopped Cho, I do think his actions give us an opportunity to reflect on the way our social system operates. His action occurs in a context - and I don't mean the immediate environment of the English Department at Virginia Tech, indeed, their efforts seem laudable. I do not know what else, what more, the faculty and students who knew Cho could have done. When I say "context", I mean the larger, macrosocial forces that establish such incredible stakes for survival, such extreme differences in access to goods and pleasure, and the constant pressure of figuring out where one will fit in the economic machine and be the least grinded by it.
As long as our system is as ruthless as it (and the current form of capitalism is as heartless as a system can be), it will inevitably bring pressure on particular individuals who will crack. Cho was not just an extremely unhappy and distressed individual; he is the blatant and incontrovertible evidence of the "hidden" costs of neoliberal capitalism.
I asked my students yesterday if they had discussed what happened at Virginia Tech in any of their other classes. They shook their heads, no. Do you want to? They nodded, yeah.
We covered and added to some of the ironies named (in an email, below) by Virgina Tech English Professor Paul Heilker, including the "wrong way" the television media is going about reporting, such as potentially fueling copycat crimes, leaping to the politics of gun control, and competing for audience attention by packaging the news as entertainment.
Questions arose about the intersection of democracy (individual rights to, for instance, confidentiality) and general safety (how could this have been prevented?) Students wondered if UMass might create some new kind of policy, but we puzzled over what that policy might cover: when do principles of disclosure, intuition, and prevention cross the line of freedom and choice? How much do we want university authorities to be able to inform/manage us? Do we want a PA system like most high schools? Videocameras everywhere? Constant surveillance and mutual spying? When does reasonable fear become irrational paranoia? How much control is necessary, desirable?
Of course I wonder what might have been different if Cho's writing for his English classes had been publicly available? What if a wiki or other online technology opened certain spaces of intentional learning to broader scrutiny? What if an audience had been created, or allowed to construct itself, for Cho in a modality he obviously felt able to use to express himself? Why the insistence on speech when writing was how he did make himself accessible?
A NYTimes article from April 19, Anger of Killer Was on Exhibit in His Writings, details efforts by English department faculty and students to intervene and connect with Cho. Some students who did not make much of an effort now wonder if they should or could have done something, or tried harder. While I do agree with another professor English department from Virginia Tech, Edward Falco, that there is "a huge difference between writing about violence and behaving violently", I question the premise that suggests "more of the same" might have succeeded in averting this tragedy. Clearly, what was needed was something else, something different, another mode of communication, varied interlocutors, even a particular type of interlocutor not present or evident to Cho in a graduate level English department.
I am not now interested in Cho. I am intrigued by the range of individual and institutional responses to his action. Can we engage forms of collective responsibility and creative resolution? How deeply can we learn from this event and transform its aftermath from meaningless media hype to co-constructive citizenship?
