“The result was not a student who learned the right things, but a student who both learned what mattered in school and society and unlearned or critically examined what was being learned, how it was being learned, and why it was being learned. Learning involved ending up with knowledge and skills that could not have been predicted by either the student or the teacher." (Kumashiro, 2004, p. 28)
No matter how much we planned, we could
never possibly plan “enough” to control the classroom we were
about to enter. And while that sounds simple, it really isn't. As
britzman points out in chapter 6, there are several dominant
discourses about the teacher's ability to control a classroom, and
its implications for how we view student interactions. In unpacking
the incident with Derek*, I blamed myself for my failure as a teacher
to predict the unpredictable. As britzman (2003) notes about two
subjects in her study, “Both... invest in the belief that they must
master the art of premonition and instantaneous response—both of
which depend upon the teacher's ability to anticipate and contain the
unexpected—to ensure control as a prerequisite for student
learning” (p. 224). Essentially, my desire to control the
situation, and the guilt that resulted from not being able to achieve
the impossible, was at odds with my desire for an uncertain outcome
in student learning.
I think that wishing for unexpected and
unpredictable learning must go hand in hand with recognizing and
valuing the necessity of unexpected and unpredictable behaviors,
thoughts, and attitudes in our students. Dominant discourses about
schools tend to view uncertainty as being unprepared. While “[such]
a construct positions uncertainty as both a character flaw and a
problem of management that can be solved by what inheres in the
person,” I think that in reality, uncertainty leads to more depth
of learning and more authenticity in the teacher-student relationship
when those relationships aren't negotiated solely by outside forces
(britzman, 2003, p. 225).
For example, I was confronted on
several occasions with behaviors and demonstrations of learning that
I did not expect, but that were very positive. Derek* was very
willing to work with me on Thursday after our incident on Wednesday.
I realized that I really had no control over how his day would go,
beyond what I could ask him to do in the classroom.
Surrendering a sense of control allows
me to exchange for a sense of peace about the ambiguity of working in
a classroom. It no longer phases me that the students seemed to
struggle so much with our lesson on Tuesday or that many of them
could not articulate a learning outcome because that is not what
learning is.
When I think about what a smoothly
operating classroom should look like, I honestly think about a scene
like this one (video). It is a busy street in Hanoi that has no
traffic signals. And yet there are no accidents. Ever.
The reality is that our need to predict
things is a need to control things. Notions about the need for
control are formed by larger discourses about “adolescence” , and
discourses about the purpose of schooling both of which are informed
by economic and political interests that may or may not align with
our own (Finders, 1998).
If we really want to delve into
critical literacy, we need to be comfortable with not only
intellectual uncertainty, but all of the physical and social
uncertainties that accompany it.
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